Comic book crusaders
These comics make use of all the American superhero tropes, yet allowing the home-grown everyday champions to take centre stage. These are heroes whose power rests with their wisdom and wit, and who wield influence, not by shooting web streams from their wrists or prancing around buildings — but by taking on the real-life monsters in an intolerant society.
Gauher Aftab, co- founder of Lahore-based CFx Comics, had his brush with Islamic terrorism as a 13-year-old kid, and the 2014 militant attack at a school in Peshawar inspired him to wage his own version of artistic jihad on the fundamentalists — by producing Paasban, a comic series that tries to combat radicalisation among young Pakistanis by exposing the mercenary motives of power and control.
In a country like Pakistan, which has an adult literacy rate of over 55%, it was important that the message of combating terrorism be conveyed in a manner that spoke directly to the masses, explains Aftab. That’s how Paasban: The Guardian was born. “Pakistan has over 25 million children who have not attended primary school. So when we’re trying to choose the right medium for our message, it had to be visual storytelling, because we want to speak directly to the masses regardless of their education level,” Aftab tells Guardian 20 on being asked about his preference for graphical narration over regular text books as a means to address the issue of radicalisation.
The cottage industry of graphic novels and animated movies is still in its infancy in Pakistan, but the reception of these forms as drivers of social change has been overwhelming. Aftab and his team distributed the first story arc of the Paasban series to over 15,000 schools and colleges in underprivileged areas before launching the digital comic app, CFx Comics, where they put the content up in Urdu.
“It’s been downloaded over 5,000 times in English or Urdu from our website and app. We also have an audio book out now on the Patari. pk music streaming service which has been heard by thousands of people around the world,” Aftab says.
Samir Asran Rahman is a writer working at a Bangladesh-based production house, Mighty Punch Studios. He is also the creator of Ms Shabash, the eponymous superhero character of the series who launches quirky attacks on skinlightening products and outwits aunties that go about poking their noses in other people’s business. With Ms Shabash, Rahman banked upon the versatility of the comic book form to tell the story of an en- dearing female lead in present-day Bangladesh.
“Comics are easy to read and the artwork can draw you in,” Rahman says. “They are a strong instrument of communication. They are being used for educational purposes because the medium is able to convey large amounts of information quickly and efficiently. While comics haven’t taken off in a big way in Bangladesh yet, more and more people are beginning to see their potential.”
Among the myriad of social challenges facing countries like Bangladesh and Pakistan, one that has led to a wave of gruesome killings is homosexuality. There is still no legal framework protecting the LGBT community in these places, adding to the woes of this much persecuted minority. A lot of gay activists, including the editor of Bangladesh’s only LGBT magazine, have been hacked to death by radical Islamists. In Pakistan, same-sex relationships are a punishable offence that can lead to imprisonment of up to 10 years. In such an environment, Dhee from Bangladesh, and Chacha from Pakistan, are a couple of comic characters addressing the plight of homosexuals.
Dhee is a curly-haired, bespectacled 22-year- old girl, who is attracted to girls. She is part of a comic series created by a nonregistered gay rights organisation, Boys of Bangladesh. Dhee is not a superhero, and she doesn’t have any superpowers. All she wants is her conservative society to know that she, too, is normal; that there is nothing wrong with her.
Similarly, My Chacha is Gay, a comic book created by a Torontobased blogger Eiynah, is about a child trying to fathom why people ridicule his uncle, who is fond of another man. While Chacha’s social struggles, as expressed by Eiynah, has found sympathisers across the world, Pakistani media has been unsurprisingly silent on this subject.
One may now begin to look at such comic series as effective tools of social change, of an impending cultural shift. As Devineni rightly puts it, “Creating a cultural shift is incredibly difficult, but not impossible.” Comic books, then, are helping to make the impossible possible.