The period between the 1960s and the 1980s is generally regarded as the boom time for comic books. Superheroes with every conceivable kind of power fought evil on our behalf. Asterix gave history lessons and Captain Haddock increased vocabulary. Tarzan, though Caucasian and a recent addition to the life of the jungle, spoke fluently to African animals, and children never ceased to be amazed. Amar Chitra Katha told mythological stories better than most moms. And when the artist on the Indian version of Phantom was once changed, I remember being so upset I was close to tears.
I remember being in the wonderful round library of our school during our once-a-week “library” period, mainly for the hushed fights with a couple of dozen other boys over the classic comic series. These were the only books (apart from the atlases and encyclopaedias) that we were not allowed to borrow. But you didn’t need to, really. In an hour or so, you could get through a couple of Dickens novels: so much easier than reading the actual book, and so much more vivid than the abridged versions that lay in other, less visited, parts of the library. I should be ashamed to say this (but I am not): most of the Dickens I remember is in pictures and speech blurbs. The honourable intentions of those who produced the classics in comic form — to trick children into reading them — did not work to the extent they might have hoped. And for that, we should be very grateful.
Comics were a part of growing up. But so were detective novels. Once you started tiring of the somewhat asinine plots in Hardy Boys, you just had to turn to Agatha Christie and Conan Doyle, or, if you lived in Calcutta, as I did, to Feluda and Byomkesh. I owe comics and detective novels a great debt. Over the years, they have done their best to prevent me from growing up. So when a series of detective comic books (a twin win situation!) came along, The Agatha Christie Adventures, it didn’t really matter that it was about 30 years late. It came. And the delay has its upside: there is no pack of comic-hungry adolescents tearing at the pages. There are many special things about this series. What struck me right away were the production values: super paper and printing; hardbound to last, no problems with the gutters. All of this the more special because these books were printed in China, making them about the first “quality” Chinese products I had ever laid my hands on.
Praise is due in several other areas. For instance, the books are illustrated not by one individual, but by a variety of artists, in different styles. You can never really get away from the image of David Suchet as Hercule Poirot, but this series gives you a chance.
What did Poirot look like? When there was no television, this was a matter of interpretation — the accomplished artists who have been enlisted for this series give you a number of options to match the one in your unbiased imagination. Add Hastings and Japp, and a new world of fascinating faces begins to form.
With the rise of the graphic novel, the comic book has been downgraded even further towards pulp. I have no quarrel with graphic novels, or their characterisation (for both, those who read them and those who create them), as an intellectual pursuit — as long as this description is deserved. But a cracking good story told with great pictures and very few words demands to be placed alongside.
The “locked room” mysteries are particularly suited to comic adaptations. They also happen to be some of the more familiar books: Murder on the Orient Express, Cards on the Table. In these adventures, the murder happens in a closed space where “no one sees anything, and everyone is a suspect” as the jacket cover of Cards on the Table puts it. To pick a murderer from four people playing cards is the kind of thing that challenges the reader to use his little grey cells.
The problem posed to the writers and artists of a series such as this is just as complex. How much do you say in text that wouldn’t be too little? How much do you give away in the pictures and still keep the mystery alive for the reader to beg for the classic climax conferences that reveal everything? The answer lies in economy. This series is full of fantastic examples of how to divide a page into efficient sections. In And Then There Were None, Francois Riviere (writer) and Frank Leclercq (artist) introduce all nine characters with lucidity in just half a page. We can often forget that Agatha Christie wrote for more than half a century, and covered many different eras. So alongside pictures of pre-war manor life, there are delightful panels even from the Sixties. One, in particular, a sly homage to the Beatles: four youths in identical haircuts and flared trousers crossing a road. Comic books are not a substitute for “reading”, but the converse is equally true. Life without books would be a life of ignorance, life without comics would be a general bore. It would take a brave man to choose one or the other.
Avirook Sen is the author of Looking for America and a columnist for Pakistan’s The Express Tribune
