Wishing Well : Indian Comics in 2012

 In a lot of ways, the future will remember 2011 as the year the Indian comic-book geek came out of the closet. The success of the first ever comic-book conventions in the country being held in Delhi and Mumbai went a long way in illuminating fanboys in regard to the presence of their fellow comic addicts.

It’s a year that saw Ravan’s side of the story, the beginning of an indigenous Martial Arts epic, Shiva finding his way back into comic books, the conclusion of India’s first home-grown Zombie comic book series and an arguably ballsy move from print to digital (and free), among many other exciting prospects.

Keeping in mind all these developments, It’s difficult not to imagine what this oh-so-beautiful monster, currently in its infancy, is going to grow into tomorrow. Bear in mind, however, that this is all just speculation and wishful thinking, but its fulfillment would make this little geek very happy:

A Shared Universe

In my mind, this is the one thing from a creative point of view that needs to happen soon. We are already seeing the seeds being sowed for this, with Yumi coming to a computer screen near you soon, as a Shaurya spinoff, but there is still quite a long way to go. The reason a shared universe is important is that it opens a whole world (literally) of literary possibilities, and helps give multi-dimensional looks at a character and settings. If the upcoming Avengers movie can’t convince you it’s awesome, I don’t know what will. Picture the cast of Shaurya stuck in a zombified Bangalore or a Daksh-spinoff Ravana escaping from hell into the modern day, keen for redemption.

Mythology is your friend. Just don’t overdo it.

I actually do love Indian mythology. It’s just that pretty much since the inception of Indian comics, Mythology has been done to death. While I did like the alternate take on the Ramayan in Holy Cow’s Ravanayan , as well as the approach of using mythology as a base for a contemporary tale in Daksh , some of the other stuff in the market has so far gives a ‘been there, done that’ vibe. Here’s an idea, Vijayendra Mohanty, with his deep character work, and Vivek Goel, adding a little grit to his art, writing a crime/noir book.

Enough production to warrant Local comic book stores.

Maybe this is a little too far from coming true, but hey, a guy can dream. Comic-book availability is still a big problem the industry is facing, with online shopping emerging as the best solution right now. However, if production and popularity gradually increases, someday we’ll have our own comic book stores in every gali and nukkad. That’s the dream anyway!

Explore more Genres

We still haven’t seen a good Indian crime book. Or a space epic. Or for that matter, a good classical superhero (only counting English books). Make it happen, guys, people aren’t going to be reading mythology all their life.

Uniqueness

Here’s how I see it. Our entire comic-book culture is being derived from the west. The problem with this is that we are not working on developing a style of comic book storytelling that is uniquely our own, like the Japanese have Manga. We don’t want our comics to look like a poor man’s American comics, now do we?

Original Graphic Novels

This, I think is the way forward for comic books in our country. Converting someone who reads ‘real’ books into a comic book fan would any day be easier than converting someone who doesn’t. Taking their point of view, It would be much easier to convert them with a hardcover of Watchmen than a bunch of 22-page floppies. 

Here’s wishing everyone a very Happy New year.

May the force be with you.