Soul Connect

In the book David B talks about the desperate attempts of his family to deal with his older brother’s chronic epilepsy. “My childhood was not normal. It was like a fantasy novel. Every day was a struggle,” he says. It’s clear that David B wanted the world to know about his extraordinary life. An impulse that has given birth to generations of remorselessly brutal literary accounts of the intimate lives that we call biographies. “But Epileptic was not a constructed endeavour. I chose the graphic novel format to tell my story only because that’s the only way the story could have been told,” says David.

Indeed,words and images share a symbiotic relationship in Epileptic. Pierre’s obsession with military history for instance,David uses that as a motif to marry the particulars of his brother’s story with imaginings of the invasions of the Mongols,his grandfather’s experiences in World War I,and tales of the Algerian war and the French Resistance.

Even a cursory reading of David B’s works makes it clear that he is not the one to be bound by the limitations of the genre that we call “graphic novels”. “I like to experiment. Even when we founded the L’Association (a Fench publishing house which publishes comic books) in 1990,we were swimming against the tide. We were trying to cater to the adult comic book genre,which was still in the nascent stage then,” he says. Today,he feels that everybody wants to join the “graphic novel bandwagon”. “It’s wonderful that comic art is being recognised all over the world. But there is a tendency to think that it’s an easier mode of expression. At least in France,there are quite a few graphic novelists who choose this format because they are not very good with words,” smiles David B.

Which is why the “nascent” graphic novel industry in India excites him. “People are trying to think out of the box here. I have interacted with some graphic novelists during my stay here and I must say they are trying things that I could never think of. Sarnath Banerjee is an exceptionally talented guy and I’m looking forward to read his next book,” he says.

Indian cities excite him too. “I like the archeology,the spirit of the cities here. I have always been fascinated by the country. Since both my parents were artistically inclined I was exposed to books on Indian art from a very young age. I would look at those wonderful temple sculptures of dancing people and wonder if they were epileptic too,” he laughs. But his connect with Kolkata is special,he insists. “Will it be too undiplomatic if I say that I prefer it to any other Indian city,including Delhi. The city and its humanity appeals to me and I felt an instant connect with it,” he says.