The second annual Indian comic convention held recently at New Delhi's Dilli Haat saw the birth of a hero, who borrows a bit from Garfield, Chairman Mao Tse-Tung and Kung Fu Panda.
Mumbai-based illustrator Abhijeet Kini's latest graphic novel, Chairman Meow and the Protectors of the Proletariat is a witty collaboration with writer Anant Singh.
It's the five years that Singh spent as a student in Paschimbanga that inspired the story of old Communists trying to stir up the Revolution, all against a unique backdrop that's an alternate Bengal inhabited by pant-less animals. "I witnessed the rule of Buddhadeb Bhattacharya when he was West Bengal chief minister. It was the beginning of the end of the last bastion of Communism, and it spurred the idea behind Chairman Meow," says the IIT Kharagpur alumnus. Kini and Singh's protagonist is a dedicated but deluded leader of non-present masses. There is something quixotic in his relentless pursuit of the goal - the Revolution. "But at the end of the day, he's just a cat,' laughs Singh. Mao, the first chairman of the Communist Party of China, finds a place in this work in the form of frequent references to quotations printed in his ideology Bible, Little Red Book.
Kini, who has worked for Tinkle, besides creating a Bhojpuri partotter-part-human superhero named Uud Bilaw Manus, with writer Adhiraj Singh, says Meow is an angrier, more extreme version of Kung Fu Panda. His favourite episode in the story is when Red Panda, one of the Protectors, breathes fire on seeing a poster of Kung Fu Panda "because he feels it is elitist propaganda to promote the white panda over the red!"
The novel seems like a true Indo-China venture, when you realise that while the visual style is inspired by Chinese propaganda art, the story draws from the heart of India. "It carries with it a hollow grandiosity, loads of melodrama and heavy dialogue, much like the Hindi films of the 1970s and '80s," says Singh.
The duo says they have grown up on a healthy diet of comics. It's the Watchmen series, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and anything else by Alan Moore for Singh, while Kini prefers MAD, Tintin and Green Lantern, copies of which he possesses in "mint condition".
The fact that old titles like Chacha Chaudhary are now collectors' items could signal the popularity of graphic novels in India, he believes. "There is serious potential to tap. We must move out of the safe-zone of mythology, though."
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-03-11/books/31144947_1_chairman-meow-kung-fu-panda-cat
It's the five years that Singh spent as a student in Paschimbanga that inspired the story of old Communists trying to stir up the Revolution, all against a unique backdrop that's an alternate Bengal inhabited by pant-less animals. "I witnessed the rule of Buddhadeb Bhattacharya when he was West Bengal chief minister. It was the beginning of the end of the last bastion of Communism, and it spurred the idea behind Chairman Meow," says the IIT Kharagpur alumnus. Kini and Singh's protagonist is a dedicated but deluded leader of non-present masses. There is something quixotic in his relentless pursuit of the goal - the Revolution. "But at the end of the day, he's just a cat,' laughs Singh. Mao, the first chairman of the Communist Party of China, finds a place in this work in the form of frequent references to quotations printed in his ideology Bible, Little Red Book.
Kini, who has worked for Tinkle, besides creating a Bhojpuri partotter-part-human superhero named Uud Bilaw Manus, with writer Adhiraj Singh, says Meow is an angrier, more extreme version of Kung Fu Panda. His favourite episode in the story is when Red Panda, one of the Protectors, breathes fire on seeing a poster of Kung Fu Panda "because he feels it is elitist propaganda to promote the white panda over the red!"
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| Anant Singh |
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| Abhijeet Kini |
The fact that old titles like Chacha Chaudhary are now collectors' items could signal the popularity of graphic novels in India, he believes. "There is serious potential to tap. We must move out of the safe-zone of mythology, though."
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-03-11/books/31144947_1_chairman-meow-kung-fu-panda-cat
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