Jatin Varma, founder of Comic Con India, says that there’s a lot more to storytelling than just the physical feel of a comic book today because technology has played a huge role in reviving and recreating pop culture. By Team Viva

For many, the Indian pop culture never really existed. And they blame it on the Bollywood swamp. Jatin Varma, founder, Comic Con India, was one of them. “For most of my younger days, Indian pop culture was completely dominated by Bollywood or cricket but during the past 10 years or so, there has been a lot of ballooning of content from outside as well as local. Just like gaming, Indian local comics have come up in a big way. It’s no longer just about Amar Chitra Katha (ACK) or Raj Comics or Chacha Chaudhary anymore.”

It was this change that made him conceptualise a comic festival that would bounce up our own creed of superheroes. With its ninth edition round the corner, he says, “You get to experience all of this at this festival and connect with these creators and characters.” The festival was first curated to celebrate pop culture and included films, gaming and TV. It now includes web shows and anything that is “trending.”

India hasn’t had a dominant comic culture as the West. As a result even for us, DC and Marvel are synonymous with ‘comics’ simply because they have evolved in contemporary times while characters like Supandi, Champak, Chacha Chaudhary and others are stuck in a time warp. Jatin believes that a lot of comic characters have been absorbed by the Indian youth because they have been revived in films. He says, “In the initial years of the festival, I never looked at the larger picture, which was about how the world evolves. But I feel that in one way or another, comics are still alive because how we are consuming those stories has changed. It might not be the same way as the 90s’ kids did. A lot of people who have grown up in the past 10 years have consumed these stories and characters, especially, through films.”

The festival has come a long way and has also seen investment from Lance Fensterman as it realised the potential of a burgeoning community of fans in India. Moreover, it was helping the pop culture industry in the country to grow besides giving companies an entry into the market to interact directly with fans.

The emergence of multi-media has helped flesh out flat-plane character. “There are many more ways of projecting the same story” as earlier people only read it  rather than watching it on TV or in films. “There’s a lot more to storytelling than just the physical feel of a comic book today,” he says.

Jatin draws a reference from social media. “Don’t we consume news mostly through our phones today? Some of our featured guests at Comic Con, who have web comics, are popular among the Indian audience not because of their website but because they have a super famous Instagram account. It’s the same format but just a new delivery system,” he says.

As per Jatin, Indians, unfortunately, do not prefer reading books in general except the educational ones. The whole idea of constantly getting updates on the phone works best for them because that is convenient. But he says, “It’s not a dying art form. It can never die. It will always have a niche segment. Yes, we are evolving but in a manner that a million physical copies of the books are more expensive than five thousand million copies of the web comics.”

It’s all about how you structure your business and how you want to convey your stories, he tells us. Jatin adds that he has met many creators and directors who say they will make a web series based on their comic books because the market is bigger. “We are finding different things to do because the only way to reach out to consumers is to go beyond just the printed format nowadays,” says the founder.

This year, the popular international artists marking their presence include Melbourne-based digital artist Kode Abdo, better known as #Bosslogic, illustrator Chad Hardin who works for DC Comics and Harley Quinn series and Asian-American artist and designer Bernard Chang, who has illustrated books for Marvel and DC Comics, including X-Men, New Mutants, Cable, Deadpool, Superman, Supergirl, and Wonder Woman. Joining them will be the leading Indian comic book publishers, illustrators and writers like Abhijeet Kini (Abhijeet Kini Studios), Gaurav Basu (Acid Toad), Vivek Goel (Holy Cow Entertainment), Rahil Mohsin, Shubham Khurana (Corporat Comics), Ravi Ahuja (Bullseye Press), Saumin Patel and creators of popular Indian webcomics like Sailesh Gopalan (Brown Paperbag Comics), Bhagya Mathew (Awkwerrrd) and Sumit Kumar (Bakaramax).

(The festival will be held from December 20 to 22 between 11 am and 8 pm at NSIC Exhibition Ground, Okhla.)