Finally, we had our first session. The first official session of The Presidency University Literary Society. 18th January, 2011.
The topic, as it was supposed to be, remained ‘Graphic Novels’. But soon the discussion broke all boundaries, all definitions, all conventions that could have been set by the word ‘topic’ and flowed into an endless ocean of ideas, where opinions ebbed against one another, and then all the colours blended, and thirsts quenched…
If you tried to create an image in your head from all the words above and failed miserably, you might thank me. If you are reading this article for the discussions we had during the session, well, here they are.
When Wikipedia says, “A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format”, we don’t really disagree :/. The discussion brought in the graphic novels named ‘Sin City’, ‘300’, ‘Arkham Asylum’, ‘Watchmen’, ‘Gears of War’, ‘Wolverine’, ‘Batman’, etc. – which are, to be technically precise, proper graphic novels. But the benign and liberal beings that we are, we didn’t mind when the day’s discussion extended to encompass the very well-loved ‘The Adventures of Tintin’ series, ‘Asterix and Obelix’, ‘Peanuts’, ‘Calvin and Hobbes’, ‘Garfield’, and even a few modern paintings, which do not really fall under the category of graphic novels.
A reason why most of us love graphic novels is the visual treat that they provide. In a comparison between words and graphics, we came across ideas how the novels act as a mirror to the author’s mind, and that, if the presentation is so mind-blowing, we do not even feel an urge to know who the author is. Debate on this point is, of course, unavoidable, since words provide a vacuum that images painted by our own imagination can very well fill up. An opinion surfaced, that the death scenes in graphic novels are much more explicit than what we can find through words. Another friend of ours came up with the point that it is not only the art that makes a graphic novel so attractive; it is also the words, the dialogues that pulls the reader through the experience. One of our friends enlightened us about the presentation of a certain graphic novel called ‘City of Glass’, in which all the pages consist of a single picture, the image being zoomed into as we turn the pages. And we discussed how every painting has a story to tell.
It was very interesting to know that graphics have crept in so much into our lives that two of our friends collect series of cartoon strips. One of us has a collection of 20 years of Garfield
An hour is too small a span of time to wrap up a discussion on so vast a subject. But the session having been very satisfactory, we closed it with the usual poll, deciding upon the topic for the next session. All P. G. Wodehouse, Jerome K Jerome, Saki fans unite! Because, in the next session, a lot of fun awaits, the theme being- HUMOUR!! J
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