Category: Announcements

VÉRITÉ 01

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“The spirit of Japanese magazines GARO and AX can really be felt in this significant new venue for Indian, Japanese and international comics to meet and mingle. You need VÉRITÉ and that’s the truth!”          – Paul Gravett, comics journalist and historian

On New Year Day 2018, we announce VÉRITÉ, the new magazine from the people who did the Comix India volumes. As editor, I felt that the kind of comics we want to publish demanded a more specific name. ‘Vérité’, the French word for ‘truth’, seemed just about right since we want to encourage creating comics that express reality in a truthful and unflinching manner, comics that don’t shy away from difficult subjects, comics that don’t merely show off art styles, but those that confront reality head-on.

The first issue of Vérité features Indian, Japanese, an American and a French artist. Indian artists featured are Anpu Varkey, Biboswan Bose, Shaunak Samvatsar, Nandita Basu and Bharath Murthy. Mitsuhiro Asakawa, the Editorial Adviser for the Japanese section, has selected some amazing alternative manga artists: Tadao Tsuge, Susumu Katsumata, Youji Tsuneyama and Yukichi Yamamatsu. Tadao Tsuge is a critically acclaimed artist and one of the key contributors for the 1960s cult manga magazine Garo, who along with his brother Yoshiharu Tsuge revolutionised manga. Tadao’s work in English translation include Trash Market (Drawn & Quarterly) and soon to be released Slum Wolf (New York Review Comics), both translated by manga historian Ryan Holmberg. Ryan’s very perceptive essay on the origins of ‘gekiga’, a late 1950s-60s movement within manga that focussed on adult themes and created a new wave that resulted in magazines like Garo, is also published in this issue. Susumu Katsumata was also a key artist in Garo magazine. His works Red Snow (Drawn & Quarterly) and Fukushima Devil Fish: Anti-nuclear Manga (Breakdown Press) are available in English. Yukichi Yamamatsu’s work has already been published in India. The two-volume Stupid Guy Goes to India was published by Blaft Publications. French comics artist Simon Lamouret (whose award-winning reportage comic Bangalore was published recently) also features, as does American artist Nick Tobier.

– Bharath Murthy, Editor.

Indian Literature in Comics

In future issues of Comix India, there will be a section called ‘Indian Literature in Comics’ where we want to publish comics adaptations of Indian literature, preferably 20th century and contemporary short stories. These could be from any language, but the comics will be bilingual (English + original language) or only English.

Idea submissions are invited. Write to editor@comixindia.org with proposals.

 

Alternative Japanese manga to feature in Comix India!

Comix India is excited and honoured to bring to Indian readers for the first time, critically acclaimed Japanese alternative manga, or more specifically ‘gekiga’, in the next and future volumes alongside Indian comics. Some of these manga authors were part of the legendary Garo manga magazine that was at the forefront of the alternative manga movement. These authors greatly expanded manga’s possibilities as a form for literary expression, and in the process created an adult readership for comics.

We thank Mitsuhiro Asakawa, our Editorial Adviser, who is responsible for this. But this is just the beginning. We hope to publish more great manga from recognised masters of the art in the years ahead, some of it previously untranslated in English.

In doing this, we sincerely hope that Indian comics artists as well as readers will be benefited through a genuine cultural exchange that will help in creating new Indian comics that are artistically ambitious while reaching out to a general adult readership. It could be the start of an ‘Indo-gekiga’ movement! Gekiga in CI

Contribute to Vérité magazine

We’re looking to publish new short story comics and long series for future issues of Vérité. We prefer stories that are well researched and are broadly realistic, aimed at an adult readership. Genre fiction is welcome. We’re also interested in comics adaptations of Indian literature, preferably 20th century and contemporary Indian short stories and poetry. Visual narratives using black & white photographs (photo comic, photo-roman) are also accepted. They can be with or without text.

Send your ideas to editor@comixindia.org.

See submission guidelines for details.