Subverting the dominant structure through graphic narratives: from the dissenting printed comics to the subcultural noise of webcomics

ABSTRACT

The visual storytelling culture of India is eclectic, multifaceted, and ever-growing. It is marked by the country’s multilingualism, the religious as well as cultural diversities and its politics. From the origination of an Indian comic book series to the contemporary age of digital graphic narratives and webcomics, there has always been a strong socio-political dimension to this storytelling tradition. This paper traces the nation’s long history of graphic narratives to explore the different resistances which have given rise to new waves of printed comics, graphic novels and then, webcomics. By employing the theories of subculture, the paper examines the nature of these resistances. While the study begins with Anant Pai’s Amar Chitra Katha comics series, it gradually proceeds to understand how the printed comics and later, the graphic novels have been subsumed by the dominant culture/ the market. It is at this point when another wave of graphic narratives appears, which is in the digital space, and is carrying forward the resistance, the subcultural identity.

Keywords:

• Indian Graphic Narratives; Webcomics; Subculture; Digital activism; Dissent

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Debanjana Nayek

Debanjana Nayek is an Assistant Professor of English, Presidency University. She has completed her M.Phil and is pursuing her doctoral research from JNU, New Delhi. Her research focuses on webcomics, graphic novels, digital storytelling, cyberfeminism and postcolonial media theory. Her work has been published in, among others, Colloquium and Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics. This paper is from her current research on webcomics, Indian graphic novels and the subculture.