An eleven-year-old girl had a birthday coming up. While swinging in the school playground she blurted out to me, “I do not want a birthday party. I do not want any gifts. When you are a child, you can ask for many things. All I want is a book on how to draw cartoons.” Her mother who was flummoxed. There were only two options I could think of at such a short notice: 1. Recommend Scott McCloud’s classic Understanding Comics but it would not be possible to get it in time for her birthday OR 2. Contact Sharad Sharma of World Comics and seek his advice. I did the latter. Sure enough he did have a slim manual that had been produced in-house on how to create cartoons.

Sharad Sharma should know. After all  World Comics Network ( http://www.worldcomicsindia.com/ ) promotes the use of grassroots comics as a medium of self-expression. Since it began in the mid-nineties, Sharad Sharma has conducted over a 1000 workshops in remote areas and trained over 30,000 people. He has also begun a Comics for All: A World Comics Network Bulletin. The latest issue that I read, Comics in Education, consists of comics made by people around the world discussing education. Some of the topics covered are on identity, cultural and linguistic diversity, displacement, sexuality, humanity, mental health, communalism, adult literacy, and rights. The newspaper is multi-lingual but the synopsis of comics are available in English. The cover has snippets of comics and speech bubbles created by government school teachers in Uttar Pradesh, India. Sharad Sharma and his colleagues trained 70 teachers in sequential art and they in turn trained another 700 teachers. 

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Meanwhile the hugely popular Comic Con India will have its first event of the year in Bangalore ( 3-5 April 2015). Links are available at: http://www.comicconindia.com/ and http://www.comicconbangalore.com/ . It promises to be quite an extravaganza with celebrities such as Natalia Tena ( from Game of Thrones and Harry Potter fame), Rana Daggubati of Bahubali and comic book artists such as Greg Cappullo ( X-Force, Quasar, Spawn and Batman), Mark Millar ( Wolverine) and Paul Azaceta ( Graveyeard Empires) participating via Skype. (In the past, storytellers such as Neil Gaiman Mark Millarhave participated in Comic Con India  via Skype too.  The picture in this blog is of noted author, Sam Arni in conversation with Neil Gaiman. )

 

This year, Comic Con has announced a list of awards. This is the fourth year of the awards in India. The nominees for the fourth edition are: 

 

Best Graphic Novel 

World War One

Rumi

Sholay

Simian

Nirmala and Normala

Best Pencilller/Inker/Penciller-Inker Team

Gowra Hari Perla, KAKAA Fableri

Abhijeet Kini, Holy Hell, Meta Desi Vol. 2

Zoheb Momin, Item Dhamaka

Harsho Mohan, Hyderabad: A Graphic Novel

Harsho Mohan, Aghrori 11

Lalit Kumar Sharma and Jagdish Kumar, World War One

Sachin Nagar, Kaurava Empire Vol. 1

Sachin Nagar, Kaurava Empire Vol. 2

Harsho Mohan, Chakrapurer Chakkare

Sabu Sarasan, Ayodhya Kand

Zoheb Akbar and Arijit Dutta Chowdhury, Jatayu and Nandi (Divine Beings)

 

Best Colourist

Sanman Mohita, Futile, Blind Spot

Vipul Bhandari, Cross Hair, Blind Spot

R. Kamath and Prabhu, Item Dhamaka

Neeraj Menon, Hyderabad: A Graphic Novel

Prasad Patnaik, Aghori 11

Sachin Nagar, Kaurava Empire Vol. 1

Sachin Nagar, Kaurava Empire Vol. 2

Vijay Sharma and Pradeep Sherawat, World War One

B. Meenakshi and Pragati Agrawal, Space Doughtnut, Tinkle 276

 

Best Cover

Abhijeet Kini, Ground Zero #2

Sumit Kumar, Parshu Warriors

Sumit Kumar, Devi Chaudhrani

Mukesh Singh, Ravanayan Finale Part 2

Rahil Mohsin, Rumi, Sufi Comics

Priya Kurien, Bookasura

Culpeo S. Fox, The Fox and the Crow 

 

Best Writer

Alan Cowsill, World War One

Rajani Thindiath, Dreams: My World in My Head, Tinkle Holiday Special 41

Lewis Helfland, They Changed the World

 

Best Continuing Graphic Series

Chiyo, Tinkle Digest

Ravanayan, Holy Cow

Beast Legion

Dental Diaries, Tinkle 

 

Best Illustrated Children’s Book

Tinkle Digest 276, Tinkle

Pashu, Puffin

The Fox and the Crow, Karadi Tales

Malgudi School Days, Puffin

 

Best Children’s Writer

Sean D’Mello, Tantri the Mantri: The Dream Team, Tinkle Tall Tales 4

Ruskin Bond, With Love from the Hills

Arundhati Venkatesh, Bookasura

Devdutt Pattnaik, Pashu

Harini Gopalswami Srinivasan, Ayodhya Kand

 

Best Publication for Children

Tinkle Holiday Special 41

Tinkle Digest 273

CN Remix, Pepper Script

Bookasura, Scholastic

Ayodhya Kand, ACK

 

Lifetime Achievement Award

Aabid Surti

 

Of these I have only read Nirmala & Normala ( Penguin), The Fox and the Crow ( Karadi Tales), Pashu ( Puffin India) and World War One ( Campfire). Every one of these book is distinctive in style, plot and genre. The jury is not going to have an easy time picking the winner in each category. The only element common to the diverse books nominated are they have the potential of reaching out to an international audience, even if they have originated in India. Maybe this is keeping in step with the spirit of Comic Con India in going global. On 3 September 2014, a press release issued stating, “Comic Con India (CCI) today announced a joint venture with Reed Exhibitions; part of the FTSE listed Reed Elsevier Group, to grow the pop culture space in India and bring world class events to Indian fans. The Comic Con India team will work closely with the ‘ReedPOP’ division of Reed Exhibitions, the largest producer of pop culture events in the world. With this JV in place, CCI enters the burgeoning ReedPOP portfolio of pop culture events which includes New York Comic Con, PAX, the Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo, Oz Comic-Con, Singapore Toy, Gaming & Comics Convention and Star Wars Celebration among many others.” ( http://www.reedexpo.com/de/Pressemitteilungen/2014-Press-Releases/Comic-Con-India–Reed-Exhibitions-Enter-Joint-Venture-to-Produce-Experiential-Pop-Culture-Events-for-the-Burgeoning-Indian-Market/  )

The culture of comics, including have specialised standalone bookstores, having a community of comic connoisseurs, focused conventions such as a Comic Con where artists, comic legends, actors, fans etc can mingle and meet are at an advanced stage of evolution in mature markets such as USA and Europe. This experience is still at its infancy in India. So having Comic Con India spread across four cities– Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai — is a good beginning to popularise this particular genre. Having said that, importing a tried and tested model of a popular culture convention into India lock, stock and barrel without tweaking it may result in a distancing from the very market the format is trying to make an impact in. Only time will tell!

Meanwhile as a response to Comic Con India, there are already attempts by some Indian comic artists to come together to launch an alternative platform. At first many of these artists and illustrators were hopeful that Comic Con India would fulfill the crying need to create a platform where professionals from this creative sector met and discussed their art. Unfortunately many feel that this event has” turned out to create a market for western comics rather than promoting the Indian comics and artists”. So they formed COMIX. According to Sharad Sharma, one of the promoters of this idea, “the idea is to have a 2-3 days meet/seminar/workshop for a limited 100-150 artists, illustrators, media critic, publishers etc). Comix is an amalgamation of all visual storytelling art forms under one platform, comics, illustration, and cartoons.  It is a unique attempt to form a platform which brings people connected to line art under one creative roof. …Comix will construct a forum to discuss creator rights and ways to safeguard them. It will also talk about the limitations and pressures, such as, censorship that creators face. Making comics more inclusive, multilingual and multi cultural, Comix is all for crafting an equal opportunity environment.”

Here is hoping that future editions of Comic Con India, COMIX and any future grouping that may emerge ultimately work together in strengthening the comic culture in India. Maybe existing platform could only be made more robust and relevant to the local audience, market and readers by bringing together diverse voices under one roof much as in the world of book publishing — the World Book Fair organised by the National Book Trust brings together a wonderful and wide variety of publishers and opinions.