Friday, March 30, 2012

An essay on Indian comics

Away for a few days, but here’s a link before I go: an essay I did for Caravan magazine on the indigenous comics scene, with Comic Con 2 as a peg. I like the way they have alternated the piece with four pages of illustrations by the very talented Harsho Mohan Chattoraj, who has worked on The Hyderabad Graphic Novel, The Rabhas Incident and Widhwa Ma Andhi Behen, among other projects (and whom I met at Comic Con).

Long though the piece is, it isn’t meant to be comprehensive – more like an experiential account by an outsider who knows very little about this world and is trying to understand how it works and the many issues facing it. There is so much happening in the field of Indian comics (though much of it hasn’t made it to mainstream publishing yet) that one feels quite overwhelmed – very exciting times ahead, I’m sure. There are many artists, writers and publishers whom I haven’t been able to cover here, but I hope to remedy that in the future.


Here's the link again. (Single-page version here. Next week I might put up a version of the full piece on the blog, with images from some of the comics mentioned in it. Many of them are easy to find online.)

[A few earlier posts on Indian comics and graphic novels: Kashmir Pending, Amruta Patil’s Kari, Ambedkar’s life in Gond art, Gautam Bhatia’s Lies, A Gardener in the Wasteland. Also this column I did two weeks ago]

6 comments:

  1. That pic looks interesting. I can't believe I never heard this comic with jurassic park thing.Can you tell me the name of this comic. The artwork seems similar to rabhas incident.

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  2. Anon: that's a page from the Hyderabad Graphic Novel, which is mentioned in the piece. Do a Google search and you'll find the website with other samples from the comic.

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  3. And yes, the artwork is by Harsho Mohan Chattoraj, who also did The Rabhas Incident.

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  4. Gee thanks a lot. Its nice to see you write an article on comics after a long time.

    By thw way , have you read all the comics of league of extraordinary gentlemen?

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  5. Hi Jai! I was just wondering what you think of the comic 'Auto Pilot: Meter Down'. I brought it recently and thought it was too short for 200 bucks.

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  6. hello,
    Iam saumya, an intern with Actimedia PR Pvt. Ltd. I was wondering if it is possible for you to provide me with your contact number or your e-mail id maybe so that I could speak to you in details about our client- Graphic India.
    Awaiting your reply to the earliest.

    Best Regards
    Saumya- intern,
    Actimedia PR, Bangalore

    ReplyDelete