Tragi Comedy!

“It’s been almost forty years since Batul was first published in Shuktara. Nonte Phonte and Handa Bhonda followed. But since then,we are yet to come across any promising comics creator who has the potential to redo the magic,” says Majumdar. It’s a scary thought to say the least that an entire genre stands the risk of being lost after Debnath,who is in his 80s. And it’s not that publishers have stopped looking beyond the icon.

Majumdar says that his publishing house has occasionally been approached by comics artists but most of them failed to leave a mark. “I think artists these days neither have the patience,nor the eye for detail that made Debnath successful,” says Majumdar,“He spends a lot of time even on the way the fingers of a character are drawn.” Contemporary artists seem to be in a sort of rush,that distances them from the small details that made comics like Bantul popular.

Also their artistic sensibilities are strongly influenced by Western comics’ designs. “Young people have come up with sketches of characters that look like they’re straight out of some Hollywood alien flick —macabre. This is not in keeping with the Bengali comics tradition,” says Majumdar. It is not to say,experiments are discouraged. It’s just that readers of Bengali comics find it difficult to relate extravagant sci-fi with the warm,with the genre known for its benign,rib tickling humour. “Readers,especially for this genre,want to be able to relate to the setting of the stories. Only when you understand the reality of the background,can you understand the departures – and hence laugh at the preposterousness,” says Debnath,explaining that he himself couldn’t understand why hardly anybody could repeat his success. Maybe the changing realities of Bengali life have to do something with it? “Could be so,but then why would people read my comics too then?” asks Debnath.

The artists,feel many,don’t look into their own life and around for inspiration. “So,mostly they turn out to be absurd if we try looking at non-humorous comics. And the ones that could figure in the humour category either give you a sense of déjà vu— they’re very similar to Debnath’s works —or are hardly funny,” says Suknaya Roy,editor of banglalive.com which offers you online versions of Debnath’s comics. They had been approached by wannabe comic strip writers,but the quality was hardly commendable.

Unlike Western comics,and even their Hindi counterparts,Bengali comics is yet to be turned into a well-managed publishing endeavour. So,the incredible amount of time that goes into developing a comic strip especially the story board,the sketches,doesn’t always guarantee attractive returns. Reason,why people are discouraged feel many.