Few people would know of the rich tradition of comics in Bengal — beyond Bnatul the Great, Nante Fante and so on by Narayan Debnath that is — and its many influences. Comics in Bengal (presented by the Kolkata Centre for Creativity in collaboration with Comics Culture Collective) was an extensive exhibition that traced Bengali comic traditions and their inspirations, both textual and social. Mayukh Chowdhury stood out: without moving out of Calcutta and with few resources at hand, he did what others in Europe were doing at the time, creating serious sequential art that went beyond cartoons and caricatures and told new, exciting stories in the comics format. A minimalist but scathing piece was Kafi Khan’s Europer Shaajghor where Mussolini turns into Hitler who turns into Stalin with a clever sleight of hand.
Social commentary, commerce, myths, history and literature, among other things, coalesced to form an enriching visual commentary on the comics tradition that remains somewhat underexplored.
