Judging panels - women artists draw a brave new world

In the last few months, the world of women comic artists has seen both discrimination and exultation. While the Angoulême Comics Festival in France put up an all-male 2016 Grand Prix nominee list, the UK exhibition, `Comix Creatrix: 100 Women Making Comics', displayed the creations of women artists across the world. The good news is, with three Indian women artists making it to the exhibition, it shows that the country, which is still trying to find its feet in the market, has the potential to make the cut.
The selected artists Manjula Padmanabhan, Kaveri Gopalakrishnan and Reshu Singh provide an idea of the spectrum of work in Indian comics.The common thread is content, the slice-of-life stories through which the distinctive, free-spirited female voice has only grown stronger and pushed its way into an arena where comics are largely read for entertainment. “Often I have read a good story but been disappointed that the woman was made to look glamorous for no reason. I would like to bring in more real characters and not necessarily cater to the male gaze,“ says Gopalakrishnan.
The Indian comic book scene, dominated by mythology , has been a late bloomer with regard to comics that cater to a mature audience. With Amar Chitra Katha and Tinkle, the Indian industry charted its own path away from the superheroes of American comics, but the simple plot lines restricted it to a young audience.
So, when Manjula Padmanabhan, considered the first woman cartoonist in India, joined the bandwagon in the 1980s with her candid woman character, Suki, appearing in `The Sunday Observer', it raised eyebrows. “Suki got mostly hate mails. One reader complained that the strip gave him diarrhoea!“ says Padmanabhan, who initially modelled the character on herself. But long after the strip stopped, Suki stayed with loyal fans, who saw her as one of them going about life with a sense of humour firmly in place. And now the strip has made a comeback.
The work of the younger artists at Comix Creatrix has given a more satirical turn to portrayal of modern women. Un derstandably so, since Gopalakrishnan and Singh's works appeared in an anthology `Drawing The Line', which emerged from a workshop that dealt with the 2012 Delhi gang rape. While Gopalakrishnan's `Basic Space', created from conversations with women, deals with the idea of the space of a woman in public, Singh's `The Photo', drawn from her experiences, introduces readers to the main character whose family wants to get her married against her wishes. “I am looking at inter-generational differences in opinion on marriage. The story explores a mother-daughter relationship through the eyes of a young girl and the fear of losing one's identity,“ says Singh.
Not all women artists pin their ideas on their men artists pin their ideas on their experiences. Nandhini JS, a Chen naibased filmmaker and comic artist, has used the medium to tell an entertaining love story in her graphic novel `Sivappu Kal Mookuthi' (Girl With the Red Nose Ring). “My heroine is glamorous but also intelligent and compassionate, so that she is not remembered just for her beauty ,“ says Nandhini, who is working on a detective comic series in Tamil.
Even publishing houses like Amar Chitra Katha (ACK) are telling stories with a more diverse audience in mind. ACK, for instance, is redrawing its content in its new version of Valmiki's `Ramayana' to show characters like Sita as a woman with a mind of her own and not just a devoted wife.
In India, however, the challenge is not so much the divide between men and women artists as much as it is to develop a market for comics. “Since the late 2000s, we have had a surge of modern comics, which encompasses themes which are beyond mythology and super heroes,“ says Prateek Thomas of Kokaachi, an indie comic publishing company . “The role of women is important since they have been able to present their side of the story .“ Two HC judges may be transferred
A buzz of judicial transfers has gripped the Madras high court which is set to see at least two of its judges, including a `news-making' one, being transferred to other states. Talk of the transfers gained credence after CJI T S Thakur made a passing reference on Friday that he had taken a decision on the issue on Thursday.