Saturday, February 19, 2011

hindi comics and my dissappointment

Before i start, i must apologize for two reasons:
1. I may criticise some heros and storylines(and hence may offend some people)
2. This may be a long post.

I am a big fan of Nagraj and he is like the first love(in a fanboy kind of way). But to my dismay, his comics are super-silly most of the times, but his storylines especially ones which involves his origins are very interesting. Series like "nagraj ka ant", "khajana", "zahar" was fabulous, Nagayan also started wonderfully, but ended in a fiasco. They started nagaraj terrorism series two times, once they did some stupid stuff with Afganistaan and all, which was awful. The next series of "jahrila barood" and following comics were superb. The new authors and new make over was wonderful. I also like series involving Visarpi and other "Nagdweep" characters. The best part of Nagaraj series are uniqueness of its mythological origin, which is found in no other comics(there may be similar line, but not quite this). Most sideline stories of nagraj like "fuel", "venom" were pitiful. I would say that even earlier comics involving Miss killer, thodanga, nagmani, shakura were wonderful, but new villians get created in one page and get lost in other page. Its like turning around the junk to find a phoney metal. And every now and then everything and everyone in story becomes god like. and in next page they get vanished. This is stupid and annoying.
I admit Nagraj is almost as powerful as superman or lets say he is equivalent of superman for Raj Comics. But he is not a god and stop treating him like one.

Coming to Dhruv. I liked dhruv a lot during older times. I mean the first time I read grand master robo in 1995, i felt like i have discovered Pandora's box. stories like "akhiri daav" , "champion killer", "awaaz kee tabahi" were brilliant. "mene mara dhruv ko " series were very well done. His origin stories like "khooni khandaan", "Jigsaw" were marvellous., But later when they combined nagar and dhruv in THE-WORLD-WILL-END kind of series every now and then, And then Dhruv will keep doing things which are scientifically impossible plus severely flawed even from raj comics point of view. And every now and then they keep throwing "smartest man in the world" bullshit. I mean the virtues should be reflective of actions and not the other way round. To be smartest man, you don't have to say it like 100 times in a comics. I have not read dhruv's comics for a long because all new comics look repetitive with a set of formula. Only time i get to read Dhruv is with Nagraj and then also they both end up going on suicide mission like three times in a comics.

Coming to Doga, I must admit Doga is most consistent of all the superheroes. He is a no bullshitter. I haven't read a lot of old Doga comics, but I picked up a lot of his origin stories, and I must say they represents darkness, depth and pain. I was reading "doga hindu hai", "doga hai hai" series, the plots are very well crafted. I couldn't follow the series for long. But they were "the comics". you always know what to expect from Doga comics.
Other characters, i would like to mention is Bankelal. He was superb in the past, but a lot of toilet humour have sunk in his comics lately. And newer comics are driven by a synthetic laughter or forced humour. Bankelal need a really good rewrite.
My old favourite Gojo disappeared. I don't want to bring this matter. Same applies for bheria, i haven't read any comics since they separated, but lots of folks say they are still as they were, which is good.
I read couple of Tiranga comics which were utterly disappointing, i mean you want to rip of Captain, please look at his iconic stature.

Most Raj Comics fan are the old timers, who follow comics for the love of it. I am not sure how many new comics book fans are getting added??? I even recommended comics to couple of youngsters, they rejected it on the grounds of it being too silly or some kind of LIFT-OFF from DC or Marvel. We all know that is true to certain extent. A lot of fans would defend the comics in whatever way they are.
I think a lot of recent changes by Raj comics are wonderful and I am thankful to them for creating a wonderful site and revamping the franchise. But lets face it, contents need to revamped.
We need stories, which have depth and some sort of association with reality. We need somebody like Frank Miller, Mark Millar and Alan moore. And I am sure there are people who can do equally good job. Please tell me I am not being over ambitious. I guess the character of Dhruv's potential need a story which should be very complex and yet believable. There is a desperate need to remove the redundancy from his comics. He need to less verbal and stories should be self explanatory. Not everytime Dhruv has to say things in his mind. That represents a week plot and week graphics because the whole idea of comics is to understand a lot of things from the graphics. And for christ sake, stop resurrecting characters. In time period of 5 comics, characters get entirely rebooted, This is so annoying. We need some stories(or graphics novel) which can redefine the characters and story lines. No matter how good the marketing is, if your product is not good enough, the market will eventually reject it. The last thing I want is Raj comics to suffer the same fate as tulsi/manoj etc.
Another major issue is consistency, they always have wonderful starts and wonderful themes, but by the climax its all screwed up. No one gets a single scratch??? why is that so? The comics are reflections of life in exaggerated manner, so why is everything always "hunky and dory"? and why can't they keep the good story line till end. One comics is fantastic, and other total rubbish. I kinda hate it when I spend my money to find out i bought a total rip-off. As much as love Raj comics, I must say they fail to impress 5 out of 10 times. I still buy comics for the sake of it. But lets face it this may keep them alive, but wont let them grow as i would expect them to be.