Following on the footsteps of Sarnath Banerji comes another Indian graphic novelist - Amruta Patil. 'Kari' is the story of its eponymous heroine, who leads a double life. By day, Kari is a writer in an ad agency, and at night, she's a boatman.
The story begins with a double suicide. Two women jump off their respective roof tops. One, Ruth, is saved by a safety net, while the other, Kari, survives when her fall is safely broken by the sewers. Thus begins the double life, the 'boatman' who cleans up the sewers.
As the story goes on, you meet her roommates and their boyfriends. This is the real life, one you can accept. On her way to work, you see roads opening up where there aren't any. This is her mythical world - the world that belongs to Ruth. Obsessed with life and death,
Kari's life deals constantly with both - whether in the form of comforting her colleague Lazarus at work, or in the form of Ruth finding fetuses in the gutter. This often entwines with the ad campaign that she's working on for 'Fairytale Hair', and, the story does end on a fairytale note. Not the traditional 'ever after', but with a promise of 'to be continued'.
What sets Patil apart, in my mind, is not the story - but the illustration style and the underlying religious undertones.
Patil's style is dark; not 'Sin City' dark, but 'Persepolis' dark. Colour, is something she uses with a lot of care - its presence only conveys a certain mood that wouldn't have been possible in the black & white which dominates the novel. Added to this, are the stark straight lines with hints of Cubism.
When you read Kari, read it twice. The first time, for the story. The second, for the religious undertones. The ones which shout out are the names - Ruth, Lazarus and Angel. The other cues are more subtle. Pay close attention at all times to what's happening around Kari in the frames. For instance, you'll spot how a newspaper spine has deftly been turned into a cross… and the accompanying text panel ends in 'crossed over'.
This one is a must read. You can also take a look at her blog - Umbilical.
Kari
Lucky Luke
Remember reading Asterix and Tintin? I certainly do. And like most people, I go back and re-read them time and again. There’s a certain ageless quality to them that comics today lack. That’s why I was absolutely thrilled to see Lucky Luke series out in the market here. Never heard of him? Well… even though he was translated into English from the original French quite some time back, the books surprisingly never came into India. Why surprising? Because Rene Goscinny co-produced them, and his other famous work, Asterix, is still a bestseller.
Morris, the original creator, took on a several co-authors and the entire series actually consists of a whooping 72 books. Of these, the Goscinny period (a series of 45 books!), is called the Golden Age of Lucky Luke. Each book is a complete story and as our hero roams the prairies, he comes across many colourful characters… some of which actually existed, like Billy the Kid, Calamity Jane, and Jesse James, to name a few. Some stories are themed… like ‘In the Shadow of the Derricks’, which is based on the oil strikes. In addition to Luke, the other recurring characters are his horse, Jolly Jumper – the smartest horse in the world, Rantanplan – the stupidest dog in the universe, and the fumbling criminals, the four Dalton brothers – each being progressively taller and dumber. Most of the comics end with Luke riding off into the horizon singing ‘I’m a poor lonesome cowboy.
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Before you go rushing off to ransack the nearest Crossword for Lucky Luke, here’s an interesting bit of trivia: the early comics have Luke with a cigarette between the lips while the later ones have him chewing on straw. In fact, if you happen to pick up a copy of the first adventure, ‘Billy the Kid’ (published by Cinebook), the cover has him chewing on a piece of straw while the panels inside show a cigarette.
