Desi superhero saves the day

In a haze of nostalgia, Michelle Khilji recalls how her passion for comic books turned into an obsession...

ISLAMABAD: ...Her enthusiasm for discovering superheroes from all over the world led her to collecting comic books from different countries. More so, her secret agenda even during her yearly trip to Pakistan was to find cheaper comic books at old book stores. However, as excited as she was to buy the ever-popular Archie comics at a cheaper rate, she was equally disappointed that the country didn’t publish its own comic books — something she could take back home and show to her friends.

“On some rare occasions, I would find obscure Urdu comic books that no one had read or heard of. But those too were meant for younger children and not for children in my age bracket,” she laments.

Ask many who developed a habit of reading since childhood and they’ll tell you that it’s the colourful pages and characters of a comic strip that got them reading at first. Natasha, an A-Level student, states, “I started reading comic books — stuff like The Adventures of Tintin and Asterix — when I was very young and it’s because of that habit that I got interested in reading other books as well.”

Meanwhile, Saima, an artist by profession, states, “Comic books are sometimes more relatable, they may not be heavy literature reads but they are easy for kids to comprehend. They can be used as an excellent medium to teach children societal values.”

For all ages

Speaking to The Express Tribune, Saeed Jan, owner of one of the largest book stores in Islamabad, Saeed Book Bank, states, “Both youngsters and adults stand at the comic books stand for long periods of time flipping through the pages and often purchase them. It’s obvious that they are read by all age groups.”

However, when asked if they ever stocked anything that was created and published in Pakistan, Jan says, “To date we have not been approached by any local publisher of comics. We only have foreign comic books which sell like hot cakes.”

Causing a stir

Female cartoonist Nigar Nazar is perhaps the first one to break into this medium and create comic books for children. With books in English, Urdu and Pashto, she creates illustrations which are not only a medium of entertainment for children but also create social awareness about various issues. Ilm Ki Daulat, Haram Ki Kamai, Ruswai Hi Ruswai and Stranger Danger are some of her more well known comic books. “Foreign comic books have a larger monopoly and are more easily available but I hope to push forward our own books into the market,” she states.

Nazar also says that she often comes across people who’ve come from abroad and want to take back desi comic books in Urdu to read to their children but never end up finding anything. “We just haven’t managed to come to the level required to make it into an industry,” she adds.

Childhood buddies: Comics that made an impact

Archie Comics: Archie Comics is an American comic book known for its fictional teenagers Archie Andrews, Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge, Reggie Mantle and Jughead Jones. The characters were created by publisher/editor John L Goldwater, written by Vic Bloom and drawn by Bob Montana.

Batman: Batman is a comic book series featuring a comic hero of the same name. Though the Batman comic book was initially launched as a quarterly publication, it later became a bimonthly series through the late 1950s, after which it became a monthly publication.

Peanuts: Peanuts, the comic strip, was written and illustrated by Charles M Schulz, which ran from October 2, 1950 to February 13, 2000. The strip is one of the most popular and influential in the history of comics, with 17,897 strips published in all.

Source: Dccomics.com, archiecomics.com

Published in The Express Tribune, February 23^rd, 2012.