![]() ![]() He is in the process of cataloguing his comics. The issues from one to 10 were based on western fairy tales such asĬinderella and others translated into Indian languages. He found that with issue number 11 ACK comics acquired their highly individualistic, signature Indian style by telling Indian stories. The answers I came across were vague, like 11 being auspicious. The question, ‘Why 11?’ nagged me for a long time. “The ‘first’ issue of ACK comics is numbered 11. These are then placed vertically in cartons in a dedicated space in his home. To prevent the pages from turning brown, Prasad places comic books along with acid-free boards - used by artists - and slides them into poly-propylene bags. The problem compounds with age, and storage becomes important. He even tracked down the first 10 issues of Amar Chitra Katha (ACK).Ĭomic books, since they used to be printed on newsprint, disintegrate easily. Phantom is his favourite superhero, and he has the complete collection of Phantom comics published by Indrajal - all 803 of them - in the nine languages it was printed in. Prasad’s collection is the result of painstaking work done over two decades and multiple sources. Abid Surti, creator ofĭesi super heroes, caught up with him at a comic con event asking if Prasad had come across his earlier works (cartoons) for the Gujarati magazine One gets the sense that regional languages had a strong culture of comic books well into the 1960s-70s. Punch began publication in the 1840s, India had its Parsi, Awadh and Bengali versions - all satirical, which continued to be printed till the 1930s. For instance, shortly after the satirical British weekly Patachitra (West Bengal and Odisha) and leather puppetry as other traditional forms of sequential art.Īs he shows the history of comic books through a series of slides one comprehends what he means when he refers to them as socio-cultural material. The murals of Ajanta caves depict the life of Buddha and If there is narrative with illustrations placed sequentially then it is a comic.” It shows a well-defined story of human beings and their cultural evolution. You look at one picture, you’d have no idea what it means unless you see them in a sequence - like you would a comic book. He says, “If we consider comics as sequential art, as Eisner suggests, then we have a history dating back 10,000 years in the rock drawings of Bhimbetka caves. “These made me take a serious look at the material I had,” he says.Ĭomics and Sequential Art, which studied comics and their roles seriously, contributed to Prasad’s changed outlook on comics as artefacts. That made him take a ‘serious look’ at the material he had, he ‘saw’ them as artefacts and understood their significance. The history of Indian comicsĪ columnist, artist, film and photography enthusiast, he is currently working on a project that traces the history of comic books in India, “in a visually attractive and readable format,” Arun says.Ī trigger for this was the invitation, in 2012, to show some of his vintage comics at Comic Con (Bengaluru). When I started looking at them that way, I realised I had something of value - not in monetary terms but as archival material,” he says. Over the years, as his collection of comic books and comic-inspired material grew - he began viewing them differently: “as material of social, cultural and historical importance rather than merely for the narrative and story. Around this time, he started reading other comics, especially those by Indrajal. I started looking for stories - in newspapers and magazines -īalarama was my first exposure to comics,” he remembers. The days full of stories were enveloped with blankness when she died. He remembers her as being “filled with stories” drawn from mythology and folk tales. ![]() His first source of stories, growing up in Eravankara in Kerala, was his grandmother. Arun’s search for vintage comics, which started in 1998, today comprises a network that spans across the country - Lucknow, Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmedabad and Kolkata. “These connect me to my past, I get a bit of my childhood back, through this,” says the Bengaluru-based pannapictagraphist, who is one of the largest collectors of Indian comics in the country. ![]() Mandrake - was initially a way of going back in time, through the pages of his favourite Indrajal comics. Collector of comic books Arun Prasad was referred to as an ‘extreme collector’, on a History Channel show, for his collection of 18,000-odd comic books - the result of more than 20 years of travelling, collecting and, most importantly, preserving.Ĭollecting these India-published comic books - like ![]()
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