The World We Live In!

याली ड्रीम्स की अँग्रेजी में प्रकाशित और प्रशंसित ग्राफिक नॉवेल कारवाँ अब हिंदी में उपलब्ध हो गयी है। आजकल के सभी नए कॉमिक्‍स प्रकाशक अपनी किताबें अँग्रेजी में ही प्रकाशित करते है। यह उनकी विवशता है, क्योंकि नए प्रकाशक के पास उत्तम कहानी और चित्रांकन तो है, परंतु प्रकाशित पुस्तकों के वितरण का उपयुक्त साधन नहीं है। उन्हें कॉमिक कान या फिर ऑनलाइन स्‍टोर्स पर निर्भर रहना पड़ता है। फिर उत्तम श्रेणी की कहानी, कला एवं रूप-सज्जा देने पर पुस्तक का मूल्य भी अधिक होता है। हिंदी में पाठकों की संख्या तो है, परंतु अधिक पैसे खर्च करके नए प्रकाशक की कॉमिक्‍स लेने वाले पाठक कम है। ऊपर से बिना देखे, ऑनलाइन खरीदने वाले तो और भी कम है। ऐसे में अँग्रेजी के पाठक तुलनात्मक रूप से अधिक हैं। यही कारण है कि आज हरेक प्रकाशक अँग्रेजी में ही अपनी कॉमिक्‍स प्रकाशित कर रहा है। भले ही कहानियाँ शुद्ध देशी है, पर भाषा विदेशी है। यह एक विडंबना है, जिसे आज प्रकाशक और हिंदी पढ़ने वाले पाठक, दोनों को झेलना पड़ता है। ऐसा नहीं है कि हिंदी में कॉमिक्‍स एकदम प्रकाशित नहीं होती। राज कॉमिक्‍स आज भी हिंदी में कॉमिक प्रकाशि...

I read both part of Taranath Tantrik - City of Sorrow , and to summarize it, I can only say that I just can’t wait for the third installment. Brilliant story, keeps you gripped till the last page in both part. I will not discuss spoilers here. The story is about a Psychic Taranath Tantrik working with his friends Shankar , a CID office, Sneha , a TV journalist and   Vibhuti , a horror novelist, in an investigation, where someone is trying to change the City of Joy Kolkata into City of Sorrows.  First part shows glimpse into Taranath’s past, and cut to present day for main story to develop. The second part again shows villain’s past, and then move to current day. So, the first one introduced TnT to us, and started chain of events which makes the story. Then second part introduced the villain to us, and the story progressed.  I liked this type of storytelling, which gives you a glimpse of main character’s past, and then jumps directly to the story. Shamik Dasgupta ...

Why am I writing about this digital graphic novel? Two reasons, the first one is to let everyone knows about this gorgeously illustrated web comic, and the second is about my association with it. Daniel wanted if anyone can translate it in their language, to get in touch with him. I contacted him about translating it in Hindi, and got immediate go ahead from him.  I really liked the way he has managed this translation part, where various people across the world are working to translate this into their language, Daniel has created an Google Doc Spreadsheet, with first column in English, and assigned one column to each of us, for filling our language translation of that column’s caption. This is a great way of collaboration effort, using free web! Nice idea Daniel!

I post the below part as a comment, to reply of another, which asked about how Bahadur 2040 could be imagined. As I am a little over beer at the moment, my imagination ran wild and I came up with a theme for Bahadur in 2040, or maybe the current avatar of Bahadur. 2040 Bahadur, hmm, son of a terrorist, who has been rehabilitated, and now work along with Police, on a small town of India, which is a satellite town, having all the latest tech and fashion available. He uses physical and mental abilities as well as lots of gizmos to catch the bad guys. He runs a centre which train common people to combat terrorism and prepare them on how to react during emergencies. Bela, his girlfriend, is a victim of terrorism, whose parents died during a terrorist attack, and she is all alone in this world, of course except Bahadur. Later on, there could be one story which oepns up the secret that it was Bahadur's father who killed Bela's parents. Hey guys, it’s Friday night, and with some b...