Batman or Nagraj?

The choice is difficult for the tribe of die-hard comic book collectors

Once upon a time, Snow White’s sister Rose Red was murdered, and Snow White called the Sheriff of Fabletown, The Big Bad Wolf (‘Bigby’) to solve the case.

HT Image

Bigby, on amnesty, and eager to attain absolution for his dealings with the three little pigs, used his bloodhound instincts to bring Rose Red’s killers to book, and to protect and serve the inhabitants of Fabletown in general. The ‘town’ happened to be tucked away somewhere in New York.

This storyline would make perfect sense to very few people in Mumbai. It is a brief summary of the first story arc in a comic book series called Fables, printed by the DC comics imprint Vertigo, which is the source of several award-winning comic book series like Sandman, Watchmen and Preacher. And the ‘very few people in Mumbai’ are members of the Comics Club, a Yahoo group for comic book fans.

The club’s members have yet to meet each other in the real world. But they interact vigorously on the group’s message board and exchange comics ranging from mainstream poster-boys like Superman and Batman, to the edgier, subversive Vertigo comics like Sandman or home-grown superheroes like Super Commando Dhruv and Nagraj, created by Raj comics.

The Comics Club Yahoo group was created in 2003 by Mihir Joshi, a hardcore DC comics fan. It is listed in the Guinness book of world records as the first and only one of its kind in India.

Joshi’s passion for comics began early; as a boy, he spent most or all of his Diwali money on mainstream DC comics and the collection has grown steadily. His favourite superhero is Superman (“His optimistic nature reflects my own personality, and his is a world we can disappear into”) and the Man of Steel has an entire bookshelf devoted to him. One rung below sits Batman, another favourite.

“If you want to collect DC comics, start from those published after 1986,” he says. Reason: it was in that year that the DC universe was officially rebooted with the apocalyptic ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’ story arc. All the flagship characters, like Superman and Batman, were revamped, and their back-stories significantly altered in the stories that followed. The renewed DC universe attracted a new legion of fans.

Joshi’s collection not only encompasses the comics printed by DC after 1986, but also the pivotal Crisis series, and collected volumes of much older Superman issues, in which Superman is not capable of flying, but only jumping about like a grasshopper.

THE INDIAN ANGLE

The Comics Club is not restricted to DC fans. In fact, it is not even restricted to American comics; there are members who have collected every Phantom or Mandrake issue reprinted by Indrajaal comics.

Some members, like Bandra-based Ashwin Kalmane, collect offbeat sci-fi and horror comics. Some, like Andheri-based novelist Ashok Banker, have an extremely eclectic taste in comic books, cultivated over years of comic book buying and exchanging.

“I started collecting comics from age five, and by 11, I had enough to start a small library of my own,” he says. As a child, Banker was attracted to the usual range of comics that Indian children get to read — Phantom, Tintin, Asterix, Amar Chitra Katha.

But by his late teens, he had discovered Underground Comix, a movement of comic writers that featured sex and violence rendered in gorgeously graphic detail with mature story arcs dealing with social issues.

Banker has written a comic book himself for Vertigo (releasing early next year), and is also coming out with his own comic book adaptation of the Ramayana.

Thanks to his status as an artist employed by Vertigo, Banker receives every month’s issue of DC comics. Which helps, since comics are costly. Trade paperbacks cost anywhere between Rs 500 to Rs 800.

There are cheaper alternatives, though. Vashi-based graphic artist Vivek Goel, who has worked at India Book House and Raj Comics, has been collecting Raj comics for the past six years.

His collection comprises both Raj comic issues and trade paperbacks of DC and Marvel comics. He gets them off eBay, where, he says, you can have the issues home delivered for half their listed price at times.

“Indrajaal comics have been out of print for a while now, and this has turned Phantom and Mandrake issues into collectors’ items,” explains Vashi-based Jeemut Roy (33), a hoarder of Phantom issues. “I’ve come across several raddiwalas (scrap dealers) who salvage Phantom issues from the trash and sell them at double the price,” he adds.

But the collectors are getting the better of the raddiwallas by collecting all the Indrajaal comics they can get their hands on, scanning them and uploading them for the rest of the group.

“I could sell some of the famous issues in my collection at eBay a few years from now and break even, if not make a profit — though I hope it never comes to that,” observes Joshi. Like most comic book collectors, he is reluctant to sell a single page of his collection. Some things are for keeps.

The Comics Club can be visited at:
http://in.groups.yahoo.com/group/
TheComicsClub/

This weekly column examines the diversity of urban communities