Indian comic books fight back

INDIA: India’s first comic book convention opens in the capital New Delhi tomorrow, with organizers expecting thousands of fans to prove the art form is thriving in the Internet age.

Comic Con India will introduce the country’s booming youth market to new graphic characters including a warrior blessed by the sun god and a half-otter half-human superhero.

Jatin Varma, organiser of the two-day convention, told AFP that the effects of India’s recent economic dynamism have spread from big business into the alternative worlds of youth culture and underground art. “The number of artists working on comic books has grown, new graphic novels are being launched, bookstores are developing dedicated areas to display comics, it’s all pretty exciting,” he said.

The Indian comic book is experiencing a renaissance after 10 years in the doldrums.

Many middle-class Indians grew up on a diet of Amar Chitra Katha (Immortal Picture Stories) comics, which specialised in Hindu myths, historical narratives and ancient folktales.

But the arrival of cable television and video games in the 1990s saw a sharp drop in readership.

“Indian stories suddenly felt too old-fashioned — kids were not excited by the idea that they were reading the same books their parents were raised on,” said Varma.

Rina Puri, editor of Amar Chitra Katha series, put it more bluntly. “The Cartoon Network channel came to India and it pretty much halved our sales,” she said.

With a steady drip of American cartoons and superhero movies, the young comic book reader ditched Hindu gods and goddesses for the adventures of Spiderman, Batman, X-Men and their ilk.

“Every child wants to have some special powers. When I was growing up, I used to wonder where the Indian superheroes were,” Sanjay Gupta, president of regional Hindi-language publisher Raj Comics, told AFP.

New Delhi, Thursday, AFP