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Indian comics

 
Wikipedia: Indian comics
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Indian comics

India has a long tradition of fine art, as seen in this 6th century Buddhist painting

Indian comics are comic books and graphic novels associated with the culture of India. India has a long tradition of comic readership. Indian comics often have large publication; however, the industry still remains immature compared to that of Japan, France and America. Due to widespread use of English language, Indian comics and graphic novels tend to be more stylistically similar to western comics, than the manga, manhwa and manhua of India's Asian neighbours.

Contents

History

The early years

The distribution of comics in India is more recent than the European, American and Japanese industries, but is nevertheless almost 60 years old. Despite the publication of about 100 million copies a year, comics in India are still largely dominated by American characters, and local production remains marginal. One of earliest attempts is by comic magazine Chandamama. Chandamama has published in more than 5 languages since 1947.[1] It developed from the adaptations of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata in the 1960s, to educational comics for children, caricatures in print media, and adaptations of American superheroes.

One of the early Indian comic authors was Aabid Surti, who published the first 3 panel strips Dhabbuji based on the protagonist who is a lawyer by profession and is witty, in the magazine Dharmayug. In the 1970s he also created a character Bahadur for Indrajal Comics which proved to be quite popular and could compete with other characters like Phantom and Mandrake which was also published in the magazine. Around the same time Pran Kumar Sharma published the comic Daabu. However, these first experiments remained the only ones in India in the 1960s, since Indian magazines almost exclusively published American strips on their pages. Pran created, however, numerous strips, like Shrimatiji, Pinki, Billoo and the popular Chacha Chaudhary in the 1970s. These comics continued to be inspired mainly by newspaper strips, and popular early superhero based western comics. Unlike in Japan, where comics were quickly recognised as a potentially mature medium, comic readership remained confined to children, and content remained largely conservative and un-intellectual.

Among local languages, cartoon strips and comic books thrived, especially in West Bengal. Pratulchandra Lahiri created two strips on a regular basis, for the Jugantar newspaper in Bengali and for the Amrit Bazar Patrika in English. Narayan Debnath created local strips that were published as books from Kolkata. Among his creations, Nonte Phonte and Handa Bhonda are still in circulation, and have spawned animated films. Another one of his creations, Batul The Great is one of India's earliest superheroes as it was conceived during the sixties. Mayukh Choudhury was another comics artist/writer who did stories in the action/adventure and historical genres, published in Bengali. Most of his work was published by Deb Sahitya Kutir, Kolkata, from 60s-80s.

The middle years

Comics of this era were influenced by the popularity of Archie comics and series like The Adventures of Tintin. In 1967, the editor Anant Pai of the India Book House, launched the series Amar Chitra Katha, the objective of which was to transmit to children the great stories of historical figures and of those in religious texts of Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism and Christianity. The life of Krishna was the first in the series, joined rapidly by the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. The collection now has 426 volumes. This success inspired other publishing houses who launched their own series on their own themes: Dreamland Publications and Diamond Comics at New Delhi, and Jaico Publishing House at Mumbai. Some publishing houses specialized in making comics for the Indian diaspora, like the Chakra collection, the Cultural Institute for the Vedic Arts of New York. This last collection, which sells mainly in South Africa, Kenya and North America, competes with its contemporaties by adoting a very dynamic style, similar to manga. Anant Pai and India Book House launched in the beginning of the 1980s, the first Indian comic magazine for children, called Tinkle, which was a big success. Tinkle diversified on the educational themes developed by Amar Chitra Katha, including science, contemporary culture, etc. The magazine introduced numerous recurring heroes like amusing Suppandi, Mooshik the adorable mouse, Kalia the crow and the malicious minister Tantri. Tinkle has a Marathi or Maharashtrian influence in many of the names of characters and storylines. In the 1980s, Target, a children and youth magazine published two page comics. Detective Moochwala by Ajit Ninan and Gardhab Das, the singing donkey, by Neelabh & Jayanto, were its most popular characters. Target magazine was an innovator as its artwork was original and of a high quality for its time. Manjula Padmanabhan, one of the few Indian female comic authors, did illustrations for Target. She also created a female comic character called Suki which was serialized in Sunday Observer in the 1980s. Another notable Indian comic publishing house is Raj Comics, home of characters such as Nagraj, (a Hindu superhero who has subsequently made the transition to television), Doga, Super Commando Dhruva, Parmanu and various others. In Tamil Nadu Alagar comics is the most famous one. Its available in both English and Tamil. See:

The newspaper medium

In the 1990s, newspapers started publishing more caricatures of Indian origin. Indian law and democracy permits the journalists and cartoonists to discuss current affairs with reasonable freedom. Among the most famous caricaturists are Joseph Arul Raj, Ashok Dongre and Neelabh Bisen. With the advent of India's potential and demand of quality comics, but lack of institutes for the speciality in comics art, Mr. Anupam Sinha has launched his own Anupama Academy Of Art for specialisation in departments of creation of comics.[2][citation needed] He is renowned for illustrating some of the best Indian comics. Currently his weekly strip superhero "Rudra" is being hailed as trend setting in hindi newspapers like Dainik Jagran. Ashok Dongre is well known for his Comic Strip SWAMI based on the Infotech Business in India. Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray was also a caricaturist when he was young, and has worked for 'The Free Press Journal', where cartoonist R.K.Laxman has also worked. Bal Thackeray also ran a magazine called 'Marmik', which used cartoons and strips to propagate his political agenda. In Kerala, cartoonist V.T.Thomas, popularly known as 'Toms', created satirical comics. A legend in his state, his most famous characters are the prankster kids 'Boban & Molly'. He started his career with the newspaper 'Malayala Manorama'. However, he was later engaged in a copyright issue with the paper, and the court case was heard in the Supreme court of India. He then started his own magazine for his comics, which continues to be published today. Rajneesh Kapoor is one of the few Indian contemporary cartoonists who does a regular newspaper strip in English, called 'This is Our Life'.

Virgin Comics' foray

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Virgin Comics started an era of more mature entertainment and art

Recently, a partnership between Richard Branson's Virgin group, and India's Gotham Comics, has led to a new company, Virgin Comics, geared towards creating new lines of comics rooted in Indian mythology and Indian history (much like many manga series in Japanese culture). The first series of comics were published in 2006, to mixed critical reviews, and Virgin continues to release new series. The main icon of Virgin Comics is the superhero Devi, but other series have included a science-fiction adaptation of the ancient Ramayana epic, a series based on the life of a supernaturally adept Sadhu, as well as many comics set outside India. The company aims to eventually create animated series, computer games and films, based upon its property.

All series so far have followed the western style of comic storytelling and art, focusing on the typical 22-page full colour format. This reflects how many of Virgin Comics creative team were inspired by the more mature western comics becoming available in India during the 90s, such Frank Miller's gritty Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. Virgin has announced it will produce a series in which the popular cricket star Sachin Tendulkar is a super-hero, as well as a film based upon The Sadhu starring Nicolas Cage, who is a self described comic fan, and has created a series for Virgin with his son. Recently, the Virgin Group pulled out of Virgin Comics, and a new company Liquid Comics has taken over with the same core team of Gotham Chopra, Shard Devarajan, and Suresh Seetharaman. See:

Fluid Friction's foray

Devashard Book-1 Cover.jpg

Fluid Friction Comics are an International comics company with an Indian partner who have taken Indian mythology as the inspiration for their comic series. Their premier series DevaShard is an embellishment on the life of Karna and their future titles will be based around other integral characters from the Mahabharata. All stories are based in a fictional world based on a mythological idea of the Earth 7,000 years ago named Bhumi. The artwork in the comics has been produced by a truly international team featuring artists from both the Eastern & Western hemispheres. DevaShard launched for the first time in India just before Diwali in October 2008. See:

Illustrated Orchids' foray

Illustrated Orchids is a comic book company that is operated by the Indian Singaporean diaspora. The company has creative studios in India, and is led by creative director Sudhir Sehgal. Having published comics in Singapore, the company plans to enter the Indian, Malaysian and European market. In contrast to Virgin Comics, the company is oriented toward the eastern market, and seems to contain some manga inspired artwork, as seen on the cover of Mythology issue one, which features the classic manga style facial art. In press releases, the company claims it will create a unique Indian style of comic art. Four series have so far been developed. See:

Webcomics

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Scene from the comedy Badmash.tv webcomic which is popular amongst the Indian diaspora

The increasingly popular webcomic medium, which is mostly dedicated to short online comedy strips, has also been used by a small number of Indian artists or writers. Badmash is created by and aimed at the Indian diaspora. This format is expected to expand due to ICT literacy, large numbers of white-collar workers, and internet penetration in India. "Curry Bear Comics" is another popular Indian webcomic that revolves around three South Asian college kids and their white friend. This comic is aimed more at Indian College students living in America. Another popular Indian webcomic "Fly, You Fools!" is aimed at Indian residents, and deals with the daily irritations of life in India.[3] The Indian blog "Daily Humor" also publishes webcomics and was featured on one of India's premiere blogs "India Uncut". Webcomics afford an outlet for artists who do not wish to distribute via published media.'Savita Bhabhi', a webcomic, is possibly the first pornographic comic in India. 'Arbit Choudhury', another webcomic, is regarded as the World's 1st MBA Comic Character. "Sunny Kris", a webcomic focusing on Indian workplaces through its five characters is another new addition to the growing list of independent webcomics. Self publishing of single panel gags and other cartoons by Indian cartoonists is gaining momentum. IndianWebComics lists and discuss works by Indian web comic artists and cartoonists.

Non-Indian writers' work

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The Indian adaptation of Spider-Man, Spider-Man:India, was mainly bought by collectors

In 2002 the comic industry published a minor cult comic based upon contemporary Indian culture. Slave Labor Graphics of San Jose California published Bombaby the Screen Goddess. The comic introduced a character by the name of Sangeeta, who doubled as a dutiful daughter by day, and as a reincarnated Hindu goddess by night. The comic did not meet wide distribution, although it received acclaim and was featured in Time Magazine.

Although large western comic houses such as Marvel had used Indian superheroes and characters in the past, (such as Timeslip, Karima Shapandar, Neal Shaara, Indra and Captain Nemo), this was probably the first comic series to use an Indian character as its main protagonist. Other comic artists started similar projects, such as Grant Morrison's Vimanarama comic, and Marvel's Spider-Man: India project, which was the first major release by a large comic company, introduced India-based artists talent to the mainstream, and which was published in India by Gotham Comics. The title was inspired by the success of American comics in India.

Japanese manga artists have also produced numerous series with Indian themes, including the use of yogic terminology in Naruto, the Kushan Empire in Berserk, and numerous references to common gods and demons which Japan and India share thanks to the commonality of Buddhist influence in the two countries. A great many manga series are inspired by Journey to the West, the classic Chinese tale of Buddhist monks on pilgrimage to India. Some manga series which have Indian themes central to the plot are; the Buddha manga, Earth Girl Arjuna, Saiyuki and RG Veda. See:

Graphic novels

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In addition to the recent development of more mature comics, in 2004, Penguin published Corridor, by Sarnath Banerjee, which was widely advertised as India's first graphic novel, followed by a second foray in 2007. However, a 60 page comic called River of Stories by Delhi based artist Orijit Sen, published in 1994 by Kalpavriksh, about the Narmada Dam Projects controversy, is an important precedent and can be regarded as one of the early Indian graphic novels. Yet another contender for the first graphic novel is G. Aravindan's 'Cheriya Manushyarum, Valiya Lokavum' (Small Men and the Big World) that first appeared as a strip in the Malayalam magazine Mathrubhoomi Azhchapathipu, from 1961 to 1973.[4] This was collected in book form first by Bees Books in 1978, and then by DC Books in 1996. Some of Deepak Chopra's books such as his retelling of the Kama Sutra, or the life of the Buddha, could be considered partly graphic novels, for their artwork, created by Virgin Comics. Additionally, Kashmir Pending, a graphic novel by Naseer Ahmed, and The Believers, a graphic novel by Abdul Sultan, both dealing with Islamic militancy, were recently released by Phantomville, Sarnath Banerjee's company, to positive reviews. Chennai based Blaft Publications has entered the graphic novel arena with the publication of Moonward (2009), by George Mathen aka. Appupen. See:

Publishers

India's epic literature is a common theme amongst comics as seen in Ramayan 3392 A.D.

See also

Critical works

India's Immortal Comic Books: Gods, Kings, and Other Heroes, by Karline McLain, Indiana University Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-253-22052-3.

Nandini chandra ack.jpg

Nandini Chandra has written a book called 'The Classic Popular-Amar Chitra Katha (1967-2007)', published in 2008 by Yoda Press. The book analyses the ideological sources, objectives and the influence of Amar Chitra Katha comics in the cultural politics of India. It is possibly the first book length discussion of Indian comics.

References

  1. ^ [1]
  2. ^ Untitled Document
  3. ^ Fly, You Fools on Mint
  4. ^ [2]

External links

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