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Historical Changes in Indian Comics Culture : An Observation

Indian Comics

Over the past decade, there is intense concern and pondering on Indian Comics scene for its continuing mass based decline and authority as a entity of entertainment! All these conjecture gets relatively scaled in comparison to the foreign comics scene and branches off in many problematic provinces due to the sudden uproars from the fans made through the movies or in the rise of comic con culture, like, questioning the relevance of “old school comics fan ship”.

All over the world new generations of fans are seen as displacement of the idea of old school comics fans? But in India there is also a growing concern over the home-bred comics culture and the encroachment represented by the foreign comics, which also created a ‘fitna’ among the comics fans. It’s an alteration in the representative image of comics altogether? This article tries to propose a more dynamic interpretation of these various processes in a settling manner!

Some “old” school Indian Comics fans whose core idea is that hardcore fans are made of by a long attachment and readership through physical copies of comics, and for some it must be dominantly Indian in nature. Opposite trends from this is assumed by many to be a threat to “growth” in Indian Comics industry or turning the dice where comics will be on subsidiary status in case of movies turned into comics only for promotional use and in case of Indian comics culture overshadowed by foreign comics.

But see a catch here! A trick of comics through which comics came to life as a different form of communication- Transcendence of Genres and Mediums and crossing geographical boundaries! To say so is not an escapist endeavor for the rising challenges for the comics scene in India! Earlier Indian Comics has transcended to novels, magazines, newspapers etc registering itself there as part or the solo form for these genres and mediums and it has seen rise as cultural entity on popular level in 80’s-90’s, though it never successfully seized the opportunity provided by the rise of cable TV, animations and internet.

But in recent time, for India, the same process is now in place for the “talking-image”(films, animation etc), and adoption of comics-con culture and increased interest in Comics whether foreign or native is part of taking new forms or returning back to its original as comics. Its Comics’ transgenic qualities that made new born comics fans through movies and in this foreign comics are the part of the “initiation” by that same comics’ magical touch.

Even, the beauty of alteration of image of Indian Comics and comics fans in India lies in the variety of experiences and representations of it which reveals the true nature of comics as transcendent form of communication. This may be the finest moment in history of Indian Comics, a fallen warrior’s resurrection…. for it comics’s transcendence need to be push further without which it may turn out to be a survival story for comics in India.