Graphic Novel as an Independent “Genre”
Society, language, and culture are very close and interrelated practices of humankind, and it continuously influences each other and shared their cultural and ideological space. Any changes in society always had dominant and emergent forces. The human world is the world of culture, and this world is vast it includes art, music, literature, theatre, science, and Religion. Studying texts from a range of cultural contexts, historical periods, or literary movements, also comes with complex ideas of comparison, translation, and transmission across cultural, linguistic, and national boundaries, and studying literature and sharing space with other disciplines (religious studies, philosophy, ethnic studies) and to other forms of art and cultural production (film, digital culture, performance). Comparative literature includes the study of historical and contemporary literary theory and criticism like all other concentrations in cultural Studies, this concentration allows to revisit ideas with different layers of disciplines and mining those deprived of marginalized from’s cultural practice(oral traditions, folk art, visual narratives e.t.c) not in terms of appropriation but towards an extension. When it started to redefine literary historiography and “genre” it started from western and European literary aesthetics to nurture high-cultural forms. For example, Indigenous Folk- literature (Arabian nights) and other separate genres like Japanese illustrated novels (manga) were never included in canonical discourses because they never fit inside of catch or temple. That kind of exclusion in genre theory that postcolonial criticism highly criticized as siding with upper-class upper-cast normativity.
The canonical genre categories like” epic, lyric and dramatic” moreover, it never caught in a particular realm. It's always extended the wings. Redefining genre could be challenged through ideological and materialist approaches, thus elaborating new emerging and opening up new dimensions to re-conceptualize the “genre” in the contemporary field of aesthetics and literature. The material history of genre opens up a new window to understanding text and textuality. Each genre is not just aesthetic but it's also an enactment of communication on particular cultures and communities. Each genre is marked by specific forms to be mastered as a part of cultural practices, and register itself as expression and communication. A genre forms in each “period” an era characterized by its own set of preferable language or other semiotic conventions.
The genre defines the categorization of the audiences, it's just based on our assumptions to identify the genre not only about the form but also defined by the text's purposes, the subject matter, its writer, and the expected reader. It’s a very powerful thing when it comes to understanding and classifying warriors' works in any medium. However, because of the ‘genre’, it is possible for audiences to look at graphic literature and not only read but also experience the text or the subject matter.
Examine Graphic Novel as an Independent “Genre”
Gandur Mundu, by Gandu somproday, book cover of graphic novel ‘Gandur Mundu’, 2019
Sin City That Yellow Bastard by Frank Miller, cover design by frank miller.
The Graphic Novel as an independent phenomenon and subject of literary historiography and art history too, the youth of the genre, and it's relative non-proliferation in the Indian literary space. The vast majority of publications touch on the analysis of specific graphic novels in the context of modern literary studies, which focuses on the narrative and ideological components of individual works without taking into account the role of the visual component for the genre as a whole. In this regard, the paper is aimed at identifying the Black and white graphic novel as an independent genre, and how it's transmitted across linguistic-cultural and aesthetic settings. For example, an analysis of “sin city” and “gandur mundu” to clarify the nature and role of its communication and semantic saturation taking into account the functions of design as a form of communication, highlighting the unique characteristics of the genre against the background of the traditional genre means searching for the information and aesthetic potential of the graphic novel practice in Bengal. From the early 70s, Hungraialist literature also generated different tase on aesthetics which creates a counter to the conventional field of literature and art as well. Like Falguni Roy one of the major poets in the Hungryalist movement in India, it was a standout period of anti-establishment unrest, rebellion, and counter-culture, that had captured the spirit of the Hungryalist movement of which Falguni Ray was the firebrand representative. induced his early death and made him a cult figure among the younger generation of writers and poets in Kolkata and Dhaka. He also writes “Nashto Atmar Television”, in 1973, which has been reprinted eleven times after Haowa#49 Publishers traced out all his unpublished works and brought out a compendium in 1998 with a portrait of Falguni drawn by Subimal Basak.
“Gandur mundu’ is also about a trippy take on Kolkata. Gandurmundu is a delirious trip of a loser / an outsider. It is an incoherent manifestation of his revenge, his fear, his friendship, his nightmares, his existential confusion, his carnal cravings, and an assertion to hold on to his ground, in a world
that ostracizes him. Gandu is a shard of a broken mirror. In this graphic novel by Sanborn, Q, and Surjit sen. In the printed version of gandur mundu, another chapter of gandu's journey according to Sambarn das gandu fell down into Falguni Roy's Nosto Atmar Television. In this part of the graphic novel, gandu go inside the television and after all, things happen with the poem’’.
Gandur Mundu, by Gandu somproday, 2019
Frank Miller’s critically done this comic book series Sin City. It expands the limitations of the sayable and displayable. The website for pop culture complex.com features Sin City in its “The 40 Most Violent Comics Ever”. This paper will address the 4th volume of the Sin City - series "that yellow bastard". The graphic novel had a unique noir, black-and-white style, roughness, and exclusive depiction of the characters’ dirty traits, and violence. Another side of the kolkata also had dark, narrow, and wet underbelly narratives of its own. The main subject for this paper will be the representation of violence in both graphic novels and its role within the counter-narrative. The aim is not to execute a typical step-by-step comic analysis, but rather to put the focus on the violent aesthetics, its meaning, and conveyance. The analysis will show that violence in Sin City and gandur mundu cannot be associated with white-collar aesthetics as for example seen in the exploitation genre. Both novels sin city and gandur mundu are coming from the underbelly of a cosmopolitan cityscape. In India traditions of graphic novels emerged and established themselves as an independent and adult genre.
Sin City That Yellow Bastard by Frank Miller, cover design by frank miller.
Sin city features a very high contrast of black-and-white, clear lighting style, and hard shadows. When the characters get disappear in the dark, then crackers are present as slight white highlighting colors. Miller focuses on ornamentation, to take the viewer´s attention to the character's emotions and their facial expressions. A straight contrast to this aesthetic is not produced yet. Sin City portrays Miller’s fantasies of a criminal City with little hope and struggling characters in a harsh, - explicit way. His drawings often consist of straight lines, rough edges, and a clear structure. The degree of detail changes according to perspective and the importance of a character in a particular moment. For instance, close-ups are often rich in detail whereas medium or wide shots are reduced to a few lines and big parts of black or white.
Sin City That Yellow Bastard by Frank Miller, cover design by frank miller.
Gandur Mundu, by Gandu somproday, ‘Gandur Mundu’, 2019
The relationship between white and black space is especially for “gandur mundu” an important issue. Eventually black and white are the only colors that build contrast. And it's also the graphic novel as a genre is mostly done in post-war graphic novels like Persepolis and Maus. In Gandur Mundu Sambaran das, Q and Surojit succeed in creating different effects by changes in the amount of black and white parts. Sometimes a character’s face is drawn completely black - a faceless human being - whose expressions are hidden or irrelevant in contrast to their surroundings or action. Other times we see a nearly complete white face with big, expressively wide-opened eyes, and we not only understand but also feel the emotion that the character lives through.
Sin City That Yellow Bastard by Frank Miller, cover design by frank miller.
The graphic novel can be approached from a critical point of view, thus example clear the idea graphic novels in India also cheated and stabilized new formats, those critics and challenged the conventions of storytelling. Werry significant Promod Nayr’s work on graphic novel nat,ion history and critique he makes an attempt to theorize graphic novels he argues “this Present book forwards the claim that the medium process enough formal and thematic complexities, not to mention political edges, to deserve the same sustained academic attention as traditional genres. When we seemed at sin city there is the proper influence of soviet Avangard posters and folklore.
Gandur Mundu, by Gandu somproday, graphic novel ‘Gandur Mundu’, 2019
Sin City That Yellow Bastard by Frank Miller, cover design by frank miller.
Unlike the authoritative, definitive, pedagogic histories of textbooks or official documentation, “the graphic narrative tells us that there is no history outside mods of representation.”-Promod Nayr. visual narratives add a new dimension to traditions of narrating like Pata Chitra to Kolkata's kali ghat pat or Bartala prints and little magazines. Somewhere littery sometimes get fragmented or makes the theme more mysterious their representation of visual narratives narrates more clearly than text. In India, Gandur mundu is collective work, and it traces an adaptation of folk art from Kolkata loke kali ghat pat and Battala pat. In both visual pieces of literature, we can relate to the plastic darkness of capitalist and burglarized settings in metropolitan cities. Gandu and Rickshaw are both marginal and floating characters and dreamers, those that can traverse beyond the boundaries of the normative society and are free even in their existential misery.
Gandur Mundu, by Gandu somproday, graphic novel ‘Gandur Mundu’, 2019.
Gandur Mundu, by Gandu somproday, book cover of graphic novel ‘Gandur Mundu’, 2019
Bibliography
"Frank Miller Full Video" Archived 2019-11-16 at the Wayback Machine. Kubert School Media.
2. ScreenRant, 5 Mar. 2019, https://screenrant.com/umbrella- academy-show-comic-comparison/. Accessed 20 Mar. 2019.
3. Mundu Gandu,Gandu somroday. Oddjoint, publisher- Oddjoint , d 81, lake gardens, kolkata 700045
4. The Role and Depiction of Violence in Frank Miller’s "Sin City: That Yellow Bastard" Term Paper (Advanced seminar), 2014, 22 Pages, Grade: 2,0
5.The Indian Graphic Novel Nation, history and critique By Pramod K. Nayar, 1st edition, Copyright Year 2016, Published January 10, 2018 by Routledge India 232 Pages 4 Color & 21 B/W Illustrations
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