In
one of the episodes of The Big Bang Theory, the sitcom based on the lives of
four nerds and their attractive blonde neighbour, one character confronts the
other.
“Well,
then why are you going?”
This
is Penny, the neighbour, directing the question at her nerd boyfriend, Leonard,
and his nerdier roommate Sheldon. It hasn’t been long since the duo returned
from San Diego Comic-Con, a comic book convention, as old and big as it can
get. Yet, they now want to attend the upcoming one at Bakersfield.
Sheldon
looks puzzled. “It’s a comic book convention,” he says, turning away from
steaming a uniform worn by a character in the science-fiction TV series Star
Trek. “You know, it’s like pizza or particle accelerators. Even the stinky ones
are pretty good.”
While
I doubt he meant that in an olfactory sense, the Mumbai Comic-Con has come a
long way from the days it shared the floor space with a pickle exhibition. But
gone are the days when the response was tepid. This time, the annual affair had
relocated itself to one of the sprawling halls of Bombay Exhibition Centre in
the western suburbs. It was perhaps a bid to tailor itself to the land that
innovated ‘Chinese bhel’ that the convention renamed itself
‘Mumbai Film and Comic Con’ the previous year. From the morning of December 21,
the halls were packed with thousands, mostly adolescents and older.
The
Mumbai Comic-Con looked like it was a theme party organized by Jay Gatsby than
the annual day of the socially dyslexic fanboys. Once inside, you saw more than
a hundred stalls, stocked to the brim with t-shirts and books and merchandise.
At one stall was an artist with face-paint cans offering Heath Ledger’s
immortal character Joker’s make-up to anybody up for it. At the centre was a
large dais for book releases and interactive sessions. Under the same roof, you
could pull a fast one on Suppandi and have Wolverine offer you a hug at your
own peril. The crowd quickly made
its priorities clear – getting photographed, cooing at the costumes and buying
everything from coasters to posters.
Not
that it mattered if or not you are a comic book geek as long as you had enough
dough to purchase a Guy Fawkes mask. Or, to quote a youngster from this year’s
convention, “Guy who?”
***
The
roots of Comic-Con can be traced to the city of San Diego in United States in
the year 1970. Sheldon Dorf, a comic-strip letterer and artist, decided that
there needs to be a platform for the comic book enthusiasts and creators to
meet. What began as a dry run soon exploded into a major cultural phenomenon
filled with panel discussions, seminars and a forum for emerging artists to
land work with publishing houses. A few years later, one of the highlights
would be ‘Cosplay’, a costume-play contest where the participants dress up as
their favourite comic book characters.
As
was waiting to happen, entrepreneurs and Hollywood spotted the ‘Con’ and
flooded the event with merchandise and exclusive movie trailer releases, thus
making it more about pop culture than comics. As TV producer John Schnepp in
the documentary ‘Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope’ describes it, “That’s what
it is now – the people who have never read a comic book and people who have
never left their mom’s basement, like, mixed together.”
Schnepp
might have resorted to stereotypes while describing comic enthusiasts, but
across the Atlantic, they didn’t hold up. There are quite a few reasons why.
The
Indian comic industry has always been viewed as juvenile, meant for those
looking for lowbrow entertainment. Even as writers in the US kept churning out
one escapist entertainer after the other that were lapped up by the urban crowd
across the world, few Indian superheroes found takers in the market here. Even
as the Indian superheroes began to die a slow death, failing to keep up with
the youth, the comic fans were keeping pace with the older and the upcoming
superheroes. None of those turned up for Cosplay resembled Nagraj, Doga or, for
that matter, Shaktiman. The lone presence noticeable in a crowd consisting of
characters from DC and Marvel comics, manga and various video games was Chacha
Chowdhary; him and, for some reason, Adolf Hitler.
A
Comic-Con-attending comic book fan from India, it seems, is none of the
unshaven, unkempt templates you find in pop culture. His acquaintance comes
from his English language education, a ready access to the broadband since an
early age. To him, there is a right answer to “What is your favourite comic”
and Archie is not it. Increasingly, the fan is an artist, often with ambitions
that surpass trivialities as age.
“I want to open a Manga university
in India,” said Amoya Chowdhary, a 15-year-old from a Kandivali-based junior
college. I had found Amoya huddled in a corner giving finishing touches to an
anime character in his sketch book, often interrupted by people wishing to know
if he would be willing to sell his drawings. He carried his portfolio with him
with hopes to land work and had just returned from a satisfying meeting with a
comic artist at one of the stalls.
“Comic-Con is an area where people
respect your art. I met an artist yesterday who saw my work, called me in and
gave me a couple of books to practice,” said Amoya. Impressed by his sketches,
the artist offered to collaborate with him, after which he casually asked him
his age.
“I told him I’m 15. He asked me to
wait for a couple of years. That’s how it is in India,” he added with a smirk.
***
An
evil politician. A green ‘Poo-ranium 3000’ serum. A conspiracy to turn Mumbai
into ‘Zombai’. Enter Angry Maushi, a maid with superpowers with a mission to
save the city from evil-doers, and cobble errant rickshaw-drivers while at it.
‘Angry Maushi’, a brainchild of former Tinkle
illustrator Abhijeet Kini, might have
as well been India’s answer to The Incredible Hulk but it marks a significant
departure from the domain that was largely restricted to mythology. For a
market that was mostly used for reinforcing moral values through characters
from scriptures, the upcoming breed comes as a refreshing change. Similarly
using the escapist trope is Munkeeman, yet another superhero created by a lab
accident, with powers of chimpanzee and humans. Continuing the lineage of
unabashedly campy capers are ‘Vidhwa Ma Andhi Behen’ as they bring back the
90s, save a movie set from A K Hangal’s ghost and investigate why transmission
was interrupted in their popcorn hour.
Through
imitation or adaptation, the first step taken by several upcoming artists is to
break the shackles of age-old perceptions. While most of them have an online
presence, Comic-Con is often the only platform to connect with their audience
in real time. With increasing number of such conventions held across India –
New Delhi and Bangalore being some of them – the artists often book stalls at
multiple venues across the year to establish themselves. However, the journey
starts from the ABCs of comics, as it did with the four-book old Chaitanya
Modak, a graphic designer from Mumbai.
“In
the session I held on Saturday, I explained to the audience what comics can
actually do,” said Modak, who calls his works ‘Bande dessinée’, a French term
meaning ‘drawn strips’ in a bid to steer clear of Indian perception of comics.
“With most of the publishers, the only comics you have are for kids or you have
superheroes. Between them, there is a huge gap that needs to be filled in. What
we are doing is [exploring] how to tell tales using the medium,” he said. With
several splash pages and bold illustrations, Modak aims to promote
non-conformist content through his works.
A
similar attempt is made by Manta Ray Comics that decided to break free of the
standard panels and dialogue-box clutter and came up with ‘Matchbox Comix’.
Each of these works comes in a tiny box that looks exactly like a matchbox.
Inside lies a folded strip of delightful tales, like the love-story between
Cement Boy and Quicksand Girl or another about the flight of a dandelion.
Though the response has been encouraging, one of the common complaints is that
the convention is less comic, more merchandise. As Modak puts it, “They are
here for shopping, yaar.”
The
comics fall in the bracket of Rs. 50 to Rs. 500. The merchandise, however, can
go upwards of five figures and yet find takers, said Sarthak Gupta, chief of technical
and sales at Collectors’ Heritage, one of the stalls at the convention.
“It’s
not surprising for us. The comic book culture was flourishing between 1995 to
2000. After the advent of internet, people started reading online. After
Comic-Con came to India, people who were on internet earlier, exposed to
Western comics, are now ones with spending power and can afford things like
Lord of the Ring swords,” said Gupta.
The
fan base, Gupta adds, is mostly fixated with the popular culture imported from
the west. “As for the upcoming [Indian] publishers, they still need to grow in
the market,” he said.
With
a footfall of over 35,000, as the PR handout claims, the Comic-Con continues to be a wild card in India’s
culturescape. Whether or not it becomes a pilgrimage for the soda bottle
generation or just another Facebook check-in, only sequels will tell.
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