When Dimple Met Rishi

At Little Comic Con, Dimple and Rishi admire student art, which leads to a discussion of how Rishi does his art for “release.” Rishi spots Leo Tilden, a graphic novelist and maker of YouTube videos whom Rishi has hero-worshipped for more than a decade. Dimple grabs his hand and drags him to meet Leo, which makes Rishi nervous. She asks if he’s afraid because he feels like he doesn’t belong at Little Comic Con, or just the opposite. Rishi feels she has verbalized everything he’s feeling, and he agrees to meet Leo.

Rishi meets Leo and tells him that Platinum Panic got him into comics. Leo inquires about Rishi’s costume, and Dimple volunteers that the costume is from Rishi’s original comic. Leo asks to see Rishi’s panels, and though Rishi has his sketchbooks with him, “showing his sketches to a major graphic novelist [feels] like a step. A step he wasn’t sure he wanted to take” (152). Dimple notices Rishi seems subdued after the conversation with Leo.

They bump into Kevin Keo, and Dimple admires his manga sketches. Kevin and Rishi talk about Leo, and Rishi reveals to Kevin that he’ll be going to MIT in the fall, not SFSU. Rishi says that art is more of a “passing hobby,” and Kevin’s attitude toward Rishi changes.