Indian Graphic Research Articles

Representation of Social Issues in Indian Graphic Novels

The study intends to uncover the significant commentary these works offer on current themes like gender dynamics, caste discrimination, governmental corruption, religious tensions, and the challenges of modernity, by analyzing a varied spectrum of graphic novels coming out of the subcontinent. We shed light on how these graphic novels not only represent the socio-political environment of India but also question and modify narratives by combining qualitative content analysis and in-depth case studies. Our research highlights the importance of graphic novels as effective social critique mediums in India, echoing wider global trends where visual storytelling goes beyond just amusement to provide insightful social commentary

Analysis of LGBTQ+ Representation in Indian Graphic Novels: A Case Study of Kari by Amruta Patil

The past decade has seen the Indian graphic novel undergo a transformation, turning from a niche market into a vibrant and diverse form of storytelling. The study aims to analyze LGBTQ+ representation in Kari and place it in the overall phenomenon of Indian graphic novels. The methodology included the major theoretical concepts used to analyze the graphic novel and a blend of them: queer theory – “which involves views on this construction by examining the normalization of sexuality”; thematic analysis – a “means of conceptually organizing and structuring the narrative data obtained through interviews. It involves stripping away the details and unique aspects of the text of its read-down meaning”; and analysis of author’s interviews and reviews. The study attempts to summarize findings into gender, sexuality, and sexuality in the Indian context. The paper is an understanding of Indian culture and the changing discourse around LGBTQ+ rights and representation. The novel gives a voice to a narrative that has long been silent – the life of a lesbian woman in a conservative society – by ending the invisibility that surrounds their lives through in a traditional poetic narrative.

Unnoticed Child from the Conflict Zone: A Study of Human Behaviour in Select Indian Graphic Novels

Children in conflict-affected regions face numerous obstacles that can substantially impact their cognitive and behavioural development. The purpose of this study is to examine how Indian Graphic Novels, specifically Malik Sajad’s Munnu: A Boy from Kashmir and Varud Gupta & Ayushi Rastogi’s Chhotu: A Tale of Partition and Love, depict the routine of children’s lives in conflict-prone regions. The selected novels effectively convey the lived experiences of the young protagonists and offer an original perspective on their struggles. Children who are deprived of a safe environment due to violence are frequently subjected to financial, sexual, psychological, and physical maltreatment, as well as rules and restrictions from their parents, teachers, and neighbours. The ecological system theory, which contends that a child’s environment affects their general behaviour, is employed in the study. It underlines the effects of living in a conflict zone on behaviour, including post-traumatic stress disorder. Despite the significant influence of parents, culture, and social norms, the study demonstrates that the behaviour of young protagonists living in conflict zones is strongly influenced by their environment (chronosystem). According to the analysis, conflict-related violence against children has become a significant threat to global development. While the number of children affected by the violent environment is unclear, it is evident that those confined to ‘home life’ in a combat zone are at a greater risk of abuse and trauma. The study emphasises the critical requirement for defending the legal rights of children living in conflict areas and giving them a secure environment. It places a strong focus on the value of social services, healthcare, and education in preserving and advancing children’s rights. The purpose of the study is to contribute to a greater understanding of human behaviour in the context of conflict and its potential long-term effects on the development of children. The need to create a just and peaceful world for all children is underlined in the study.

Graphic Novels and Traditional Art Forms: The Indian Context

The visual language of graphic novels is increasingly becoming a powerful tool of expression. Originally known as the comic books, the contemporary graphic novels are being acknowledged as a potential medium for handling serious issues. Recently, a great changeover in the thematic concerns and the art style of Indian Graphic Novels has been witnessed. This hybrid medium of text and image is addressing to the sensitive issues and questions of the contemporary modern society and also establishing a cultural identity through its artistic (visual) expression. The conventional style of comic sketching and caricaturing on paper is being replaced by the traditional art forms from different cultures and regions of India. This shift has brought about a change in the perspectives or the ways of ‘seeing’ both the Indian Graphic Novels and the Indian visual art forms. The paper purports to establish a connection between these two with a proposition that the graphic novels are a potential mode of preserving the traditional art forms of India and helping them gain recognition globally so that the Indian Graphic Novel can also create a distinguished identity in verbal-visual literature like that of Japanese Manga. The paper is an endeavour to examine how the traditional art forms are being contextualized in the contemporary times and how they are effectively registering the resistance against the stereotype and the negligence especially of women and Dalits in the Indian society itself.

Tracing Western Transnationalism in Indian Graphic Novels

The essence of transnationalism is quite dominant in the post-millennial period. It is concerned with the idea of a hybrid society in which diverse cultures swiftly trade their rich cultural history, resulting from the various exchanges brought on by globalisation. Following its expanding economic and political changes, India is now moving forward with its own unique creation of entertainment endeavours. In the present post-millennial era, India is beginning to produce its own graphic novels. This research examines the steps that have helped Indian graphic novels attain extreme commercial success. The paper also discusses how authors like Sarnath Banerjee, Amruta Patil, Malik Sajad, and Vishwajyothi Ghosh truthfully highlight various aspects of Indian society. This study tries to comprehend what it means to be authentically Indian by tracing the presence of transnationalism in Indian graphic novels by Sarnath Banerjee, Amruta Patil, Vishwajyothi Gosh, and Malik Sajad.

Scoping the Eco-sensitive Mythology in the Works of Amruta Patil and Appupen

Purpose of the study: The study aims to delve into the potential of the graphic novel in the Indian context, for which I have used the works of Amruta Patil and Appupen. The paper investigates the concerns of environment, mythology, and feminine experience and its presentation on a graphic-literary landscape.
 Methodology: The methodology used in the paper is that of direct observation. The researcher has used the contributions of Pramod K. Nayar and Emma Varughese further to push the boundaries of the graphic novel in India.
 Main Findings: The paper’s main findings have been to bring to light the complex mesh of interdisciplinary strategies required to scope the medium of the graphic novel. The paper narrows down on the success of the graphic novel as a medium to address the issues of the environment in a much more nuanced manner.
 Applications of the study: This research can be used to widen the scope of Literary Eco-criticism. It includes the medium of the graphic novel and seeks to examine its operative strategies when raising attention to the issues that pertain to the environment.
 Novelty/Originality of the study: The terrain of the Indian Graphic Novel is still new and developing. While some studies have been done in this medium around the themes of the concerns of the cosmopolitan Indian, little has been done to look into the mythological roots and environmental concerns that this genre also illuminates. This essay is a significant step in that direction.

THE INDIAN GRAPHIC NOVEL “THIS SIDE THAT SIDE: RESTORYING PARTITION”: GREAT SOURCE OF FANTASY WITH REALITY, UNHEARD STORIES AND SYMBOLIZATION

This paper attempts to analyze and understand the history and its representation through the visual-verbal literacy of the graphic narrative. Indian Graphic Novels highlight the district culture globalization process and social media network as a space for history. This article endeavors to deal with the traumatic experience of Partition that reshaped the borders, lives, and communities of the Indian subcontinent. Here it is very important to remember that, in 1947 the year of Independence, changed the whole history of India, and shaped new country and culture."This Side, That Side: An anthology of the graphic narrative", does not only try to retell Partition history but attempt to capture the nostalgia for home and loved ones last. This article concentrates specifically on the aspect of graphic retelling of the Partition. This graphic book is an anthology of graphic Partition narratives from India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, curated by Vishwajyoti Ghosh. This Graphic text includes twenty-eight short graphic stories and each unique to its style of narration and artwork.

Revealing Layers: Sarnath Banerjee’s The Barn Owl’s Wondrous Capers

ABSTRACT Sarnath Banerjee's second graphic novel The Barn Owl’s Wondrous Capers, a delightfully complex and remarkably multilayered work, is a significant contribution to Indian Graphic Narratives. This paper focuses on identifying and examining the layering strategies inherent in the text that endow it with its characteristic depth, complexity and density. The strategies identified include the exploitation of the multimodality of the comic format, the employment of multiple media, the incorporation of the legend of the Wandering Jew as the central trope, the playful treatment of history, a thematic layering of characters, and the utilization of intratextuality (textual echoes) and intertextuality. The paper further explores the way in which Calcutta, the primary setting of the novel, is rendered as a palimpsest-like entity where the colonial past is layered over by a post-colonial present. The novel’s emphasis upon a local readership with a global bent, leads to layers of reading based on readerly competence.

Urban comix: Subcultures, infrastructures and “the right to the city” in Delhi

AbstactThis article argues that comics production in India should be configured as a collaborative artistic endeavour that visualizes Delhi’s segregationist infrastructure, claiming a right to the city through the representation and facilitation of more socially inclusive urban spaces. Through a discussion of the work of three of the Pao Collective’s founding members – Orijit Sen, Sarnath Banerjee and Vishwajyoti Ghosh – it argues that the group, as for other comics collectives in cities across the world, should be understood as a networked urban social movement. Their graphic narratives and comics art counter the proliferating segregation and uneven development of neo-liberal Delhi by depicting and diagnosing urban violence. Meanwhile, their collaborative production processes and socialized consumption practices, and the radical comix traditions on which these movements draw (and which are sometimes occluded by the label “Indian Graphic Novel”) create socially networked and politically active spaces that resist the divisions marking Delhi’s contemporary urban fabric.

Indian Graphic Novels: Visual Intertextualities, Mixed Media and the “Glocal” Reader

In this article I want to look at how and to what effect Indian graphic novelists employ visual intertextualities and mixed media in their works. After the introduction of four categories of visual referencing in the graphic novel (allusion, direct and indirect quote, appropriation) a detailed analysis of selected examples from Appupen, Vishwajyoti Ghosh, Amruta Patil and Sarnath Banerjee’s works will show how the authors appropriate a broad variety of both Indian and non-Indian visual cultural utterances to add extra layers of meaning to the narrative. We see how the references enter into a dialogue with the diegetic world and introduce their (real or imagined) original context into the new works. As a result the components communicate with one another, especially when several apparently disparate references come together in a single image. Not only the host narrative but also the referenced cultural utterances themselves acquire new meaning and new narrative power. The analyses shed light on how visual intertextualities position the graphic novels considered here within an extradiegetic “glocal” cultural arena in Ronald Robertson’s sense. The Indian graphic novel requires, to a much higher degree than its “Western” counterparts, a “glocal” reader who can navigate local, national and global cultural spaces.

Representation of History in the Indian Graphic Novel: An Analytical Study of History through the Frame of Graphic Narratives

Representation of History in the Indian Graphic Novel: An Analytical Study of History through the Frame of Graphic Narratives

Negotiations of Home and Belonging in the Indian Graphic Novels Corridor by Sarnath Banerjee and

In times of increasing spatial mobility the negotiations of home and belonging for those who need (or want) to settle down in new places have become a daily issue, and the young in particular often leave their families behind as they set out to conquer new frontiers. Looking at two Indian graphic novels—Corridor by Sarnath Banerjee (2004) and Kari by Amruta Patil (2008)—this article will examine the notions of what constitutes “home” for the protagonists: two young urban intellectuals who have moved to Mumbai and Delhi respectively. We will see that “strangeness” needs to be overcome both on a spatial and social plane, but that establishing a feeling of “belonging” no longer depends on the their being closely connected to their families—the family being a concept that, in India, is still widely hailed as an ideal social paradigm. The Indian graphic novel constitutes a cosmopolitan “alternative space” (Suhaan Mehta 2010:173), and it presents us with alternative paradigms of home and belonging.

Portraits of Dispossession in Plains Indian and Inuit Graphic Arts

Portraits of Dispossession in Plains Indian and Inuit Graphic Arts