ET BureauEven when way less number of graphic books are being published in India as compared to the West, why it's the best time to write a graphic novel in India, writes Medha Gupta.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. By that proportion, graphic novel has been sending out a strong and clear message to its readers as well as publishers: Less is more. Yes, even if way less number of graphic books is being published in India as compared to the West, the genre has been seeing a turning point of sorts in the past decade in terms of a radical change in its content as well as readership.
From a time when only mythology or children's fiction was considered fit for the graphic novel format in India, it is now more about striking a chord with young adults through areas such as politics, culture, feminism, spiritualism and philosophy.
Koramangala is one of the emerging animation hubs in India after metropolitan cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chennai. Renowned animation production houses like DreamBox and Technicolor have now opened various studios across Bengaluru.
Making a strong case for the growing business of graphic books in India, Comic Con was introduced in India in the year 2011, which gave just the right platform to small and big players in this business. Bangalore's first annual Comic Con India was held on 1 & 2 June 2013 at Koramangala which saw presence of celebrities, stalls of Vintage Comics, Madhuvanthi Mohan's sketches, and book launches from popular Publishers like Holy Cow, Campfire Graphic Novels and Manta Ray.
Penguin's graphic novel Nirmala&Normala and HarperCollins' Simian won accolades at the 2014 Comic Con. The participant list for this year included publishers such as Amar Chitra Katha, Orange Radius, Pop Culture Publishing, Random House, Graphic India, Campfire Graphic Novel, Holy Cow Entertainment, HarperCollins, Raj Comics, and Blossom Book House.
"HarperCollins has been dedicated to its small but vibrant graphic works list. In the recent past, we have explored fiction through books like Simian, Aspyrus and Kari. Some interesting non-fiction titles such as The Vanished Path, Delhi Calm and The Harappa Files have also been published," says Ajitha VS, senior commissioning editor, HarperCollins.
The good news is that even big publishing houses like HarperCollins are not just experimenting with various unconventional themes but also looking for new ways to collaborate. "We are at the moment working on a graphic anthology of Rabindranath Tagore with the Jadavpur University Press," Ajitha says, adding that the publishing house is looking for authors who are working with text and images in new ways. Conversations in the Nude by the same publisher is one such book.
The HarperCollins' list doesn't end here as there's also the big-format action comic The Cobrapost Affair, which is centered around a female journalist who takes on the big bad world of politics.
However, if popularity at the recently held Comic Con is any parameter, it is the emerging publishers that are making an impact. Small players like Campfire, Graphic India and Sufi Comics are experimenting with unconventional themes like philosophy, spiritualism, politics, and feminism, building a strong case for the need to cultivate this genre among the young. Campfire's World War One won the Best Graphic Novel award at the Comic Con, and was closely followed by Graphic India's Sholay and Sufi Comic's Rumi.
By dabbling with themes as varied as history, Bollywood and spiritualism, the small players surely seem to be taking the lead in transforming the limited space belonging to graphic novels in India.
HarperCollins' Kari, authored by Amruta Patel and is based on feminism and homosexuality, could be cited as a perfect example which could strike a chord with modern India.
The FICCI-KPMG 2015 report has indicated that a big chunk of focus was being given to animation, VFX, gaming and comics (AVGC) sector in India in the year 2014. Not just the print medium, businesses involved in digital mediums like animation are also making the most of this opportunity. Graphic India, one of the country's leading premier digital comic company focused on creating characters, comics and stories through mobile and digital platforms, has formed an alliance with Amitabh Bachchan to create a new-age superhero from a distant world.
Titled Astra Force, the 52-episode animated series will be telecast on Disney Channel India in 2017.
Green Gold Animation, the company behind the ChhotaBheem character, has also seen similar success. Founder and CEO Rajiv Chilaka states in the KPMG report that improved software and digitization have cut down on man-hours and improved the quality and precision of these products.
Thirty-six-year-old SiddharthPakrashi, operations head of a leading US-based MNC in India and an ardent reader of comic books for past 25 years, believes that it is all about quality content. One has to come up with convincing and entertaining superheroes in order to tap the market.
A lot of graphic novel readers are still having to rely on books from the West to satiate their lust for reading. "Imagine if a book like Trilogy of Shiva was published in this genre, the readership and revenue numbers would have been threefold. This is because certain stories lend themselves easily to such a medium," he says.
PurbaKalita, a Bangalore-based ex-journalist and emerging entrepreneur who has also worked with brands like Flipkart, says there are many budding publishing houses that are bringing in a fresh energy into this area. Kormangala-based Sufi Studios being the perfect example.
The publisher has come up with great books like 40 Sufi Comics and the Wise Fool of Baghdad, and chose to go the self-publishing way in 2011 after no interest was shown by HarperCollins, which was initially contacted by the authors to publish the books. In just four years, Sufi Comics has found readers across borders as the books are now being published in over 12 languages.
"The perception of comics is slowly changing. Many of us are visual learners, and the graphic medium lends itself easily to this. It is more appealing and also quicker to read. Experiencing a story visually gives the reader a different experience compared to just text. Also the rise of social media, has made people more accustomed to consuming visual content," says co-founder of Sufi Studios, Mohammad Ali Vakil.
Talking about the numbers, Vakil says Sufi Studios started with a seed investment of barely `3,00,000 in 2011. "The first revenues started pouring in the same year when the books were brought out in the market with the help of Amazon. The year 2011 became even more lucky for us as the first Comic Con also took place then," he adds.
According to the co-founder, 40 Sufi Comics has sold 6,000 copies, while the numbers for another comic book The Wise Fool of Baghdad stand at 5,000. But the publishers say they are not fixated with these numbers as these would grow with time if good quality material continues to surprise the readers. "The major challenge is to cultivate the taste for the graphic medium," Vakil adds.
However, authors like SunitaKripalani, who has penned a quirky children's play called Verbie Goes Bananas, remain skeptical of the promise it holds for the masses. But at the same time she agrees that graphic novels need to come out of their conventional form for readers' engagement. "If classics like War and Peace and Anna Karenina were to be reproduced in the graphic form, I would surely give it a shot as they do take a lot of time to finish," Kripalani adds with a smile.
Publishers like Ajitha differ. "The idea behind doing comics is not to provide a version of a book that is easily consumable, although I can see why it may seem like that. When existing textual works are adapted into the graphic form, it is (as I see it) a translation into another medium," she says.
Twenty five-year-old DevikaAwasthi, an art editor with Penguin Random House-owned Dorling Kindersley, has been a crazy fan of comics as well as graphic novels all her life. She has been eagerly waiting for something on the lines of Manga (the Japanese comics which has been phenomenally successful the world over) to be produced in India.
"My parents never had the usual prejudices that adults have about comics. They had an open mind to let me explore and differentiate between good content and bad content," Awasthi says, adding that its time that we stop judging the medium to make space for more meaningful and quality books.
"Well, isn't the graphic narrative sort of like a language? To my mind, it need be no more limited by the artwork than, say, English is," Ajitha rightly concludes with a smile.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. By that proportion, graphic novel has been sending out a strong and clear message to its readers as well as publishers: Less is more. Yes, even if way less number of graphic books is being published in India as compared to the West, the genre has been seeing a turning point of sorts in the past decade in terms of a radical change in its content as well as readership.
From a time when only mythology or children's fiction was considered fit for the graphic novel format in India, it is now more about striking a chord with young adults through areas such as politics, culture, feminism, spiritualism and philosophy.
Koramangala is one of the emerging animation hubs in India after metropolitan cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chennai. Renowned animation production houses like DreamBox and Technicolor have now opened various studios across Bengaluru.
Making a strong case for the growing business of graphic books in India, Comic Con was introduced in India in the year 2011, which gave just the right platform to small and big players in this business. Bangalore's first annual Comic Con India was held on 1 & 2 June 2013 at Koramangala which saw presence of celebrities, stalls of Vintage Comics, Madhuvanthi Mohan's sketches, and book launches from popular Publishers like Holy Cow, Campfire Graphic Novels and Manta Ray.
Penguin's graphic novel Nirmala&Normala and HarperCollins' Simian won accolades at the 2014 Comic Con. The participant list for this year included publishers such as Amar Chitra Katha, Orange Radius, Pop Culture Publishing, Random House, Graphic India, Campfire Graphic Novel, Holy Cow Entertainment, HarperCollins, Raj Comics, and Blossom Book House.
"HarperCollins has been dedicated to its small but vibrant graphic works list. In the recent past, we have explored fiction through books like Simian, Aspyrus and Kari. Some interesting non-fiction titles such as The Vanished Path, Delhi Calm and The Harappa Files have also been published," says Ajitha VS, senior commissioning editor, HarperCollins.
The good news is that even big publishing houses like HarperCollins are not just experimenting with various unconventional themes but also looking for new ways to collaborate. "We are at the moment working on a graphic anthology of Rabindranath Tagore with the Jadavpur University Press," Ajitha says, adding that the publishing house is looking for authors who are working with text and images in new ways. Conversations in the Nude by the same publisher is one such book.
The HarperCollins' list doesn't end here as there's also the big-format action comic The Cobrapost Affair, which is centered around a female journalist who takes on the big bad world of politics.
However, if popularity at the recently held Comic Con is any parameter, it is the emerging publishers that are making an impact. Small players like Campfire, Graphic India and Sufi Comics are experimenting with unconventional themes like philosophy, spiritualism, politics, and feminism, building a strong case for the need to cultivate this genre among the young. Campfire's World War One won the Best Graphic Novel award at the Comic Con, and was closely followed by Graphic India's Sholay and Sufi Comic's Rumi.
By dabbling with themes as varied as history, Bollywood and spiritualism, the small players surely seem to be taking the lead in transforming the limited space belonging to graphic novels in India.
HarperCollins' Kari, authored by Amruta Patel and is based on feminism and homosexuality, could be cited as a perfect example which could strike a chord with modern India.
The FICCI-KPMG 2015 report has indicated that a big chunk of focus was being given to animation, VFX, gaming and comics (AVGC) sector in India in the year 2014. Not just the print medium, businesses involved in digital mediums like animation are also making the most of this opportunity. Graphic India, one of the country's leading premier digital comic company focused on creating characters, comics and stories through mobile and digital platforms, has formed an alliance with Amitabh Bachchan to create a new-age superhero from a distant world.
Titled Astra Force, the 52-episode animated series will be telecast on Disney Channel India in 2017.
Green Gold Animation, the company behind the ChhotaBheem character, has also seen similar success. Founder and CEO Rajiv Chilaka states in the KPMG report that improved software and digitization have cut down on man-hours and improved the quality and precision of these products.
Thirty-six-year-old SiddharthPakrashi, operations head of a leading US-based MNC in India and an ardent reader of comic books for past 25 years, believes that it is all about quality content. One has to come up with convincing and entertaining superheroes in order to tap the market.
A lot of graphic novel readers are still having to rely on books from the West to satiate their lust for reading. "Imagine if a book like Trilogy of Shiva was published in this genre, the readership and revenue numbers would have been threefold. This is because certain stories lend themselves easily to such a medium," he says.
PurbaKalita, a Bangalore-based ex-journalist and emerging entrepreneur who has also worked with brands like Flipkart, says there are many budding publishing houses that are bringing in a fresh energy into this area. Kormangala-based Sufi Studios being the perfect example.
The publisher has come up with great books like 40 Sufi Comics and the Wise Fool of Baghdad, and chose to go the self-publishing way in 2011 after no interest was shown by HarperCollins, which was initially contacted by the authors to publish the books. In just four years, Sufi Comics has found readers across borders as the books are now being published in over 12 languages.
"The perception of comics is slowly changing. Many of us are visual learners, and the graphic medium lends itself easily to this. It is more appealing and also quicker to read. Experiencing a story visually gives the reader a different experience compared to just text. Also the rise of social media, has made people more accustomed to consuming visual content," says co-founder of Sufi Studios, Mohammad Ali Vakil.
Talking about the numbers, Vakil says Sufi Studios started with a seed investment of barely `3,00,000 in 2011. "The first revenues started pouring in the same year when the books were brought out in the market with the help of Amazon. The year 2011 became even more lucky for us as the first Comic Con also took place then," he adds.
According to the co-founder, 40 Sufi Comics has sold 6,000 copies, while the numbers for another comic book The Wise Fool of Baghdad stand at 5,000. But the publishers say they are not fixated with these numbers as these would grow with time if good quality material continues to surprise the readers. "The major challenge is to cultivate the taste for the graphic medium," Vakil adds.
However, authors like SunitaKripalani, who has penned a quirky children's play called Verbie Goes Bananas, remain skeptical of the promise it holds for the masses. But at the same time she agrees that graphic novels need to come out of their conventional form for readers' engagement. "If classics like War and Peace and Anna Karenina were to be reproduced in the graphic form, I would surely give it a shot as they do take a lot of time to finish," Kripalani adds with a smile.
Publishers like Ajitha differ. "The idea behind doing comics is not to provide a version of a book that is easily consumable, although I can see why it may seem like that. When existing textual works are adapted into the graphic form, it is (as I see it) a translation into another medium," she says.
Twenty five-year-old DevikaAwasthi, an art editor with Penguin Random House-owned Dorling Kindersley, has been a crazy fan of comics as well as graphic novels all her life. She has been eagerly waiting for something on the lines of Manga (the Japanese comics which has been phenomenally successful the world over) to be produced in India.
"My parents never had the usual prejudices that adults have about comics. They had an open mind to let me explore and differentiate between good content and bad content," Awasthi says, adding that its time that we stop judging the medium to make space for more meaningful and quality books.
"Well, isn't the graphic narrative sort of like a language? To my mind, it need be no more limited by the artwork than, say, English is," Ajitha rightly concludes with a smile.
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