Calling Captain Pakistan

KARACHI: I can get over the bitter reality that India has a larger economy than we do, and a military several times the size of ours. I can also deal with the searing disappointment I feel every time I realise that Bipasha Basu is all the way in Bollywood and that a tyrannical visa regime and heavily militarised border separate me from her. Let’s not even mention the fact that while our image gets saddled with suicide bombers, international terror and internal collapse, India gets the touchy-feely goodness of elephants, swamis and universal love.

But the fact that India is holding a comic book convention while we can barely get a daily comic strip together? That, I cannot abide.

It’s true: India’s first comic book convention opens in New Delhi this tomorrow with organisers expecting thousands of fans to attend. Comic Con India will introduce the country’s booming youth market to new graphic characters including a warrior blessed by the sun god and a half-otter half-human superhero.

The organiser of the convention, Jatin Varma, proudly declares, “The number of artists working on comic books have grown, new graphic novels are being launched, bookstores are developing dedicated areas to display comics, it’s all pretty exciting.”

Graphic novels! Dedicated areas for comics! My inner geek cries out in despair and I want someone to poison my tea to end my misery.

What’s even worse is that Indian comics deal with local issues and themes. This isn’t just turning Spider-Man into ‘Makarman’ or Wonder Woman into ‘Ajooba Aurat.’ Their heroes tackle corrupt politicians and battle the Mumbai attackers while using powers right out of Hindu Mythology.

As a child, I used to get excited every time there was even a passing reference to Pakistan in one of the comic books I read. There weren’t many, and the closest thing you’d find to a local flavour would be the recurring, and highly stereotypical, Arab villains that would pop up once in a while.

More recently, Pakistan has had the odd mention or two: Karachi gets wiped out in a nuclear exchange in a Justice League issue, and Pakistan itself gets (almost) invaded by the Soviets in the alternate reality of the Watchmen. But where are the Pakistani heroes and the Pakistani comic books? And the answer is nowhere to be found!

It’s not for the lack of trying. Graphic designer Jamal Khurshid has an entire comic book series ready to go, complete with jinns, parees and ajooj majooj.

It almost got published as well, but he was ditched by the publisher (one of Pakistan’s largest) at the eleventh hour. Why? No one wants to take a risk on an untried product. There are probably dozens of people like Khurshid out there, but with an already struggling publishing industry, it doesn’t seem likely that they’ll get a chance to bring their work to the forefront.

Still, even if Pakistani comic books are a distant dream, Muslim comic books seem to be making a niche. Naif Al-Mutawa has created a group of comic book Muslim superheroes named The 99. With powers based on the 99 names of Allah, they number in their ranks of Widad the Loving, Bari the Healer and Mumita the Destroyer among many others. They’ve caught on to such an extent that they’ve even got their own TV show on a US cable channel, and will appear in an episode of the famous cartoon series “Justice League”.

So will we ever see a Captain Pakistan battle terrorists and load-shedding all at the same time? Will we see an ordinary man harness the power of the ‘Jinnat’ to take on corrupt politicians? Is anyone out there up for the challenge?

Published in The Express Tribune, February 18^th, 2011.