The comics, both books and series published in newspapers, once took the older generations, especially children and students, by storm. But they are fast on the wane. Children of the past, including me, were fond of reading the comics published in newspapers. Needless to say, not a single morning would pleasantly pass without reading them.
In a way, the comics of yesteryear deeply inculcated the reading habit in children, besides kindling thought processes in them including imagining beyond the ordinary. Though some comic characters were doing unnatural, superficial and unbelievable adventures smacking of negative vibes, people, especially children, got attracted to them. They also helped children develop and enrich their thinking capacity beyond the run-of-the-mill. They also enabled them to think differently.
The status of the already steadily waning comic books industry became worse with the setting in of the COVID-19 pandemic. Comic books seemed to have emerged and gained popularity in the 1930s. English comic books and series in newspapers were introduced almost simultaneously in India along with the Western countries while the same made its foray into other Indian languages later through dubbed versions. Through slapstick humour, romance and adventure, the comic strip medium offered something for everyone.
With the advent of the Internet and computer games, adults and children alike are attracted to gaming, of course, using animated lethal weapon images. Players in such video games display their skills of targeting, shooting down and so on in simulated situations. Though considered ‘skill games’, they only end up polluting the mindset of children into violence and destruction, with a mélange of crooked ideas. These games don’t encourage positive thinking, and constructive and optimistic ideologies, and don’t help children secure peace of mind with productive and beneficial effects. They rather contaminate the psyche of children/youngsters with a wrong ideology of “might is right” with its adverse ramifications as they grew up.
The comics in Indian languages included Amar Chitra Katha, Chanda Mama, Ambuli Mama, Chota Beem, Kanni Theevu (Tamil), Chacha Chudhury, Champak, Billoo, Vikram Betal, Pinky, The Jungle Book, Shaktiman, and Ayushman.
Here, I only mean the extinction of comics/cartoon series in newspapers, magazines, and journals and the reading habit along therewith, and not on TV screens, computers, social media portals, and private video channels/organisations.
The thrill of daily waiting for the newspaper(s) and reading the small strips, piece by piece, used to be more exciting and enjoyable than the suspense getting revealed in the at-a-stretch reading and/or viewing of the comics on screen on a single day. Holding your breath and fire for the day’s episode was worth the wait! Wasn’t it?
While the comics/cartoon series of English and other foreign languages have been able to somewhat survive in the print media even at the present juncture albeit on a low key, those in the Indian vernacular languages are almost on the verge of extinction and fast becoming a thing of the past.
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