“India’s first graphic novel”

[avram]

I’m a bit annoyed over this article about Sarnath Banerjee’s Corridor, “India’s first graphic novel”. I suspect they mean “India’s first graphic novel that isn’t about magical heroes or some other lowbrow subject matter”; I have a hard time believing that India has no comics industry.

Banerjee grew up on Bengali literature and thinks of Kolkata as an eccentric city that ignited his comic instincts. “It’s only in Kolkata that you can find a clerk in a government office whose life’s dream is to crack an unsolved math theorem, or become a collector of fountain pens,” he laughs.

Right. It’s not like there might be a famous example from some other country of, say, a patent clerk who solved a difficult scientific problem.
My eyebrows perked a bit when I noticed the Penguin bug on the cover.

When it came to finding a publisher for Corridor, Banerjee realised how a door-to-door salesman feels. “I hunted for almost two years; Penguin was the only one that shared my vision,” remembers Banerjee.

Did he consider asking a comics publisher? On the other hand, maybe Penguin is giving him real money. But I note that he has to come up with a special word for himself to avoid being considered one of those satirizing cartoonists.

Despite all this, I’m also annoyed that I can’t find out if it’s going to be published in the US.

Comments

[stormsweeper.livejournal.com]

Avram: "I suspect they mean 'India’s first graphic novel that isn’t about magical heroes or some other lowbrow subject matter'; I have a hard time believing that India has no comics industry."

Indeed. There's a whole line of comic books (published in Hindi, English, and likely other languages) that tell the stories of the various Hindu gods. While India is a tad more religious than the US, I don't see those being the sole output of their comics industry.