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Those new-age comics

Gone are the days when comic books meant Tinkle and Amar Chitra Katha. Teens and adults today are hooked to a darker, newer and more brazen genre of comics and each edition is snapped up by ardent fans

PHOTO: BHAGYA PRAKASH K.

NOTHING FUNNY ABOUT IT The first edition of a superhero's appearance would normally sell for a few thousand dollars.

"I'll stare the b****** in the face as he screams to God, and I'll laugh harder when he whimpers like a baby. And when his eyes go dead, the hell I send him to will seem like heaven after what I've done to him."

Lines like this from what fans call a faithful movie version of the cult graphic novel series Sin City certainly wouldn't appear in any edition of Tinkle comics. If they did, the dully pedagogic, bearded man Uncle Pai would probably die of shock, and all the Amar Chitra Katha mammas would take to the streets in protest.

Increasingly, however, lines like these aren't being written for children. Head of a periodicals store points out: "Kids rarely buy comics today, and even if they do, it's usually Tinkle or Amar Chitra Katha. The rest are read by teenagers and adults, even people who are as old as 35 or 40." You did read the ages right; unlike in the past, there exists no concept of outgrowing comic books for a significant section of adults. The only change comes in the kind of comic books these fans purchase and the reasons to do so.

Satyajit Chetri, a comic book connoisseur, explains that there are primarily three kinds of adult comic book readers. The first — and what most people believe to be the only kind — are the nostalgia-driven readers. "These are the ones paying Rs. 20 for the old Indrajal comics at the corner second-hand bookstore." Then there's the art crowd, usually consisting of advertising or mass media professionals who are in it for the artwork or imagery. "The third kind is the hardcore comic fan, who knows the difference between a Grant Morrison story and a Chuck Austen title."

Whatever their reasons for buying, one of the primary differences between comic book fans of the '80s and early '90s and those of the present is a high level of exposure. As awareness has grown and information has percolated its way into our country, comic book fans have gone from reading anything they can lay their hands on to treating this genre with the same kind of analytical eye that other literature is subjected to. Although most comic book readers still stick to superheroes, there is a growing number that is moving away from superhero-related publications to radically new and different storylines and art forms.

Vertigo, DC Comics' sub-company that creates graphic novels specifically for adults, is gradually gaining ground with fans here with publications such as V For Vendetta and John Constantine: Hellblazer. So too are smaller "Indie" publishers like Dark Horse who publish series like Star Wars and Frank Miller's Sin City titles, says Satyajit. In fact, the owner of a periodical store says Star Wars is now the third most popular title at his store, and if customers could afford it, Heavy Metal, an obscure but brilliant adult fantasy series would easily sell the most.

At Rs. 800 per issue, it's still out of reach for most readers. His policy with comic suppliers: "Send us anything you have because no one can really predict what will sell." Titles he has often not heard of, fly off the shelves faster than the most popular ones.

If you've had a pulse on the Hollywood film scene, you're likely to find many of the names familiar, and are probably wondering if Hollywood, with its ingenious ability to pervade our consciousness, has propelled this genre forward. Ganesh Natarajan, another fan of comic books, admits that films do bring some amount of publicity to comics, but argues that this doesn't necessarily translate into sales. "Even though the Spiderman movies were wildly successful, I'm not sure if more people bought Spiderman titles in India," he says.

Censorship woes

Satyajit has a more uncompromising stand on Hollywood movies. "There are not many Hollywood movies that can take an adult theme and make something believable out of it, primarily because censorship crimps storytellers, and certain topics just don't sell." Excellent testaments to this come in the form of films like Constantine and V For Vendetta that fans say aren't a patch on the original graphic novels.

One of the biggest pushes for comic books has come from a venture by Gotham comics, which sells reprinted editions of the U.S. originals at throwaway prices. Ganesh, for instance, got into comics with the reprints of a famous Batman series called Hush, which he bought at Rs. 10 per issue. The "super specials" offer an even better bargain, with a pricing at around Rs. 90 as against the $10 to $15 that the originals cost. And these low-cost editions also make more sense for retailers because they have no real expiry date, unlike most other periodicals, explains a manager at major bookstore.

For the true comic book lover, though, contentment doesn't come with cheap reprints or even commonly found original prints. Comic book collecting is where the excitement really lies. The first edition of a superhero's appearance would normally sell for a few thousand dollars, while the average price of many "original art" pages is around $8,000 to $10,000, according to Ganesh. In all this, points out Satyajit, the Internet has taken over from the Grim Reaper as the great leveller. "If you have money and a bit of passion, eBay is just a click away, and the number of comics and comic memorabilia on sale at a given point of time would seduce even a hardened miser." Satyajit has himself purchased works of cult artists like Phil Hester, Steve Bissette, and Frank Quitely and plans to buy many more. Anant Jain, a software developer, has friends who go to the extent of buying Belgian comics written in French simply because they love the artwork so much.

As I leaf through the latest issue of Heavy Metal, I cannot help but appreciate the gravity of the graphic novel, and the maturity of content and form it has acquired over the years. The comic book might have begun as bunches of hilarious caricatures, but it's not funny business anymore.

RAKESH MEHAR

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