“Deliriums of a Lost Pirate”: ‘Comics’ by Subarnarekha Pal

 

For the last couple of decades the genre of comics is vastly talked about. Academicians and scholars have started to talk about comics and graphic narratives in seminars, conferences and most importantly in classrooms. I’m no scholar yet, I’m just a mere lover of comics. My journey  as a comic reader began like it does for every other Bengali kid– with the worlds created by Narayan Debnath. I won’t go into the details as I’m not writing  an autobiography  of a comic reader here.

 Life takes unexpected  turns when you grow older. Such a turn came when I accidentally  found my abilities  as a conceptual illustrator. For a period of time, I seriously  thought about being a professional  artist. After reading lots of Neil Gaiman (Neil Gaiman’s volumes of Sandman), I wanted to be a graphic novelist, if not that… at least a comic artist. When I was thinking about how to begin I came across the works of Julian Peters who literally  changed my entire perspectives on comics. I began working on my favourite poem, Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (which I still haven’t finished). After lots of unfinished drafts through these two and a half years, I finally managed to complete some of the pieces. This time I was heavily inspired by the works of Elizabeth Haidle.

I might enrage the comic nerds by calling these comics. These are far from being ‘comic’. There is no element of laughter, sarcasm, cynicism or social criticism. I would call them just some pieces born out of curious experiment on both drawing and writing.

 I have a habit of jotting down two or three- line micro poems mostly when I’m  overwhelmed. These comics are based on some of those micro-poems. Both comics and micro-poems serve their purpose subtly. They are minimalist. When these micro-poems are telling stories in their ‘microness’, the comic is telling another set of stories in-between  the frames. I did all I could as an amateur. I hope my hard works pay off  and you, the readers!, like them.

                                                                        PANEL 1

                                                                     PANEL 2

                                                                              PANEL 3

                                                                         PANEL 4

                                                                          PANEL 5

                                                                              PANEL 6

                                                                           PANEL 7

                                                                          PANEL 8

                                                                           PANEL 9

                                                                        PANEL 10

Subarnarekha Pal is an independent thinker and enthusiast and jams poetry with her friend. Amidst everything, she struggles to be an artist.