Graphic Novels

Comics may be kids stuff but graphic novels are definitely not. There has been increasing interest in graphic novels and lately even The Hindu's Literary Review contains a section on graphic novels. I became interested in this thanks mainly to my friend who has, at the time I felt, a "strange" habit of collecting comics. Even though I have been reading comics for a long time, I never gave them much thought until I read three of them recently. These books which were so inaccessible are now, with the world wide web, not very difficult to find for anyone who knows where to look.

The first of these is A Contract with God by Will Eisner. It is a set of short stories taking place in a tenement building in the 30's. While not the first, this is regarded as a classic graphic novel. There is nothing special or extraordinary happening in these stories like the usual comics. Just the everyday lives of ordinary people, but still they are made interesting. To keep this blog informative here is a random fact, the awards for comic book excellence are named after the author and are known as "The Eisners".

The second set of books I read was the Akira manga (japanese comics) vols. 1-6. These comics and the subsequent anime movie were what made japanese comics famous. I remember watching the movie long ago but didn't understand much of it. The comic explains many of the issues left unanswered in the movie. The first half is set in the ultra-modern and ordered Neo-Tokyo, while the second half, which I don't remember in the movie at all, is chaos and anarchy. I get the feeling that the creator, Katsuhiro Otomo, likes the second half with more of chaos. Maybe that is the same reason why it is still a teenage cult fiction. It also shows that creating good graphic novel is much harder than usual novels. The whole Akira series is over 2000 illustrated pages long.

The most different and the one I liked the most is Watchmen by Alan Moore. It is a 12 volume series about a set of very human super heroes. I didn't like the graphics very much but reading the series was a whole new experience. Each volume ends with either an article written by one of the characters or one that appeared in the paper. It even has a side tale in the form of a comic book which one of the minor characters reads. Overall a very new experience and it is no wonder that it got a Hugo award which is usually given to Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels. There are plans to make a movie based on this comic book series and is expected to be released in 2008.

Even before all this, good comic books have been available in India. I think I learned most of the Indian mythology from the "Amar Chitra Katha" series. They even brought out illustrated classic novels, and I remember reading Sherlock Holmes stories and Charles Dickens novels for the fist time in comic book form when I was little.