Abid Surti

Abid Surti (born 1935) is an Indian painter, author, cartoonist, journalist, environmentalist, playwright and screenwriter, born at Vavera in Gujarat and raised in the Dongri area of Mumbai. In comics, his first cartoon characters date from 1952 to 1953, a four-page colour feature called Rang Lakhudi in the Gujarati magazine Ramakadu. He later created the simpleton Dhabbuji, a strip that first appeared in the Hindi magazine Dharmyug and ran without a break for over 30 years, making it one of the longest-running comic strips in India, and the character Bahadur, whose comics were published in Indrajal Comics from 1978. He also created Inspector Azad, Inspector Vikram and a lady character named Shuja. Beyond comics he has written more than 80 books, and he received a National Award in 1993 for the short-story collection Teesri Aankh.