❀A gaggle of comic artists, authors and editors are sprawled on low stools at a book-shop-cum cafe in South Kolkata engaged in a heated debate over their “baby”, a magazine -- the initial rushes of which have just come off the press – which they hope will be the first Bengali language comic strip magazine.
🌃It’s been named ‘Com Katha’, literally meaning the language of comics, but the title is a double entendre and also means 'less spoken' in Bengali.
♕“We thought of a comic magazine, a space absent in Bengali literature despite a rich history of comics and cartoons in this language,” said Pinaki De, a professor of English at Calcutta University who also doubles up as a graphic designer for a number of publishers.
♊Bengal has a long history of comics and cartoons with Kolkata boasting of a trade in ‘Bat-tala’ (Under Banyan tree) books which were a varied range of illustrated literature that ranged from farces, erotica, mysteries, history, etc. printed onto cheap flimsy papers from woodcuts in the 19th century.
🌺The first cartoon magazines – 'Harbola Bhar' (Mimic) and 'Basantak' (Spring) -- which poked fun at both Bengal’s society and the politics of the English rulers -- came out in 1873 and 1874 respectively.
😼Legendary comic artist Narayan Debnath launched his popular comic strip ‘Handa Bhoda’ (Stupid & Stupider) in 1962 with the children’s magazine ‘Shuktara’ (Morning Star) and his folksy local superman with a 40-inch chest ‘Batul the Great’ in 1965 with Batul twisting Patton tank guns like putty.
🦂Ananda Publishers (part of the ABP group) made history in this century when they launched comic books based on Satyajit Ray’s popular detective Feluda in a bid to breathe new sales into one of the best-selling series of adolescent books in the Bengali language.
👍“Comics came out mostly as part of a magazine or even as comic books based on a single character but a magazine devoted to multiple comic strips by various artists or authors was always lacking, so we thought we needed to create a platform and that is where Com Katha, a collective of 17 artists, 4 writers and 3 editors has come in,” said De.
🧔Well-known creators of Bengali comics – Shankha Banerjee, Sujog Bandyopadhyay and Harsha Mohan Chattaraj - are rubbing shoulders with younger artists in this labour of love.
💙While Bengal’s comic industry can hardly compete with Japanese, Franco-Belgian and American (the first issue of the quarterly Com Katha will have a print run of just 2,000), the artists hope their pre-Durga Puja endeavour will bear fruit.
꧂“We see a great demand in suburban towns where the interest in graphic novels is greater than that in Kolkata where the net-based entertainment culture is stronger,” said Pritam Sengupta, the marketer for Com Katha, adding, “But then, this is a new offering, the challenge lies not just in bringing it out but in sustaining it”.
🍌Swaptadip De Sarkar, a well-known artist in his mid-40s, who created a character ‘Paglu’ (slang for eccentric), is one of those who have joined the consortium.
🦋“I wanted to create a character in Bengali for audiences across the world and Paglu and his dog come with some humour but also a bit of social messaging,” said Sarkar.
𝓰Graphic artist Tirthankar Bandyopadhyay, grandson of the famous author Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay whose Pather Panchali is considered a classic has also sent in a comic strip for the new magazine.
🔥“I am thinking of how to bring out characters from my grandfather’s creations onto comic strips. His well-known adventure – Chander Pahar (Moon Mountain) – has already been made into a popular movie and a comic book. However, there is scope for more work,” said Tithankar.
