Sanika Phawde

Sanika Phawde has been self-publishing comics since 2016, producing approximately 50 mini-comics and 2 graphic novels. Born and raised in Thane (near Mumbai), India, and now based between Boston and New York City, Phawde brings a distinctive voice to autobiographical comics through their work documenting emotional connection, queer immigrant culture, and familial tension. Their acclaimed series “Wedding Juice and Other Melodramas” won the 2025 Ignatz Award for Outstanding Series, cementing their place in the small press comics landscape.

Phawde’s artistic journey includes an MFA in Illustration as Visual Essay from the School of Visual Arts (2021), where their thesis project “Taste Your Words Before You Spit Them Out” explored how cultures with histories of migration and colonization use food as a communicative tool. Through interviews with culinary innovators in New York City, Phawde created a visually rich graphic novel examining the associations we form with food and how they inform our relationships and communities.

Beyond comics, Phawde works as a freelance illustrator for clients including Spotify, The New Yorker, Food & Wine Magazine, and Uber, while teaching in the Illustration department at Massachusetts College of Art. Their work has been featured by The Comics Beat, Publishers Weekly, PRINT Magazine, VICE, and The Nation, and exhibited at venues including the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the United Nations, and numerous international book fairs including MoCCA Fest, Comic Arts Brooklyn, TCAF, and Short Run Seattle.

The “Wedding Juice” series began as a way to cope with the stress of planning an Indian wedding within a ridiculously short period of time. What started as personal catharsis evolved into an award-winning serialized comic that resonated with readers across cultural backgrounds. The series combines humor and pathos in short story vignettes that capture the awkwardness, tension, and occasional absurdity of planning a wedding that brings together different cultures, families, and expectations.

Other Works

Taste Your Words Before You Spit Them Out (2021) - A graphic novel thesis project from SVA examining how food serves as a communicative tool in cultures with histories of migration and colonization. Features interviews with food stylist Victoria Granof, chef Jean Christophe, and butcher Andrew Ilniki.

Living Here on Borrowed Time (2020) - A comic about finding home in a new place.

Translated from the Geese (2023) - A comic memorializing the moment Phawde made peace with leaving New York City.

Poem for the Girlies Sharing Toilet Paper in the AMC Restroom Before the Barbie Movie (2023) - A celebration of the Barbie movie experience and introspections on gender identity.

Phawde has received numerous awards and recognitions including the Ignatz Award (2025), Broken Frontier Award nomination for Best Periodical Series (2025), Rob Stull Emerging Artist Fund (2026), Athenaeum Gives Grant (2025), and MoCCA Arts Festival Awards of Excellence (2021).

Find Out More

• Official Website
• Substack: The Jackfruit Slayer
• Instagram: @thejackfruitslayer
• Purchase Wedding Juice from Radiator Comics or Sketcher Press

Explore Sanika Phawde’s comics: Wedding Juice and Other Melodramas, taste-your-words-before-you-spit-them-out, living-here-on-borrowed-time, god-is-non-binary, translated-from-the-geese, poem-for-the-girlies-sharing-toilet-paper-before-the-barbie-movie.