Rise of the Lesser Knowns

“Indians connect to these stories better,” says B Singh who manages a popular book store in Camp. “Take the case of the graphic novel series like Arjuna,or even Ramayana 3392 AD. They have darker hues,and the writing style is slick giving way for portrayal of more emotions,” he says.

The changes which are prominent now,had begun as early as the 90’s when Goa-based writer-designer Orijit Sen of the ‘The River of Stories’ fame had dabbled in the medium. This was followed by artist-filmmaker Sarnath Banerjee,who wrote ‘Corridor’ in 2004 and ‘The Barn Owl’s Wondrous Capers” in 2007’. A lot of these novels and comics revolve around themes set in the working class of the country and life changing incidents that altered the way the commoners thought.

Graphic novelist George Matthen (Appupen),whose novel Moonwalk released in 2009,is set in a dystopian future,called Halahala. It is a strange story of a world over run with greed and corruption where self styled god men and rulers eat money and rob the planet of its resources.

What is interesting to note is that ICv2,a pop culture trend tracker,reveals that the previous year has seen a slump in the sales of graphic novels in the west. In fact comicsworthreading.com even has a post from ICv2 which stated that graphic novel sales in the direct market have declined by double digits every month in 2010 so far with the exception of February,when they posted a one per cent gain. This comes in sharp contrast to the fact that in India even though it is a very niche segment it is picking up.

G Agarwal,store manager of the Crossword Book store at ICC towers says,“The readers for these novels are usually in the age-group of 18-35. In fact even the series like Devasharad Arjuna,Devi,Sadhu,Ramayana have seen an increase in readership and sales with most of them getting picked off the stands quickly. While the DC and the Marvel comics also sell well but that is only in packs of five or ten comics bundled for a low price. Individually they don’t go as quickly as the Indian novels,” he says.

Resourceshelf that tracks the sales of comics periodically on the official resourceshelf blog mentions that last year,print comics as a whole saw an estimated $680 million generated at retail (graphic novels accounting for about $370 million to comics periodicals $310 mil). In 2010,the graphic novel category has fallen down 20 per cent while comics have ticked up one percent

So with the winds of change blowing in,is it too early to expect the lesser knowns to take on the might of the current rulers? As of now all one can say is ,the interest that they have started generating amongst local audiences will not die out quickly.

Graphic Detailing

* Some of the novels that set the trend include: River of Stories,Corridor,The Barn Owl’s Wondrous Capers,Kari and The Hotel At The End of the World

* Some of the western novels that have come in include: the Hardy Boys,Nancy Drew,Biggles,Agatha Christie,Doomsday and Birth of a Monster series