The concept of Grassroots level Comics journalism was initiated in 2005 by World Comics India. The idea was to take the visual reporting at field level. Here comics journalist travels to an area and files his/her story in the form of a comic. Most of the time they report from their own areas and highlight the issue affects them the most.
Following are the two best examples of Comics reporting on developmental issues from ground zero. These are the first of its kind development comics anthologies published by WCI.
Whose Development? and विकासकाले विपरीत बुद्धि (Hindi) was India's first comics anthology on Development. Last many years World Comics India is actively working to promote the idea. Students and NGOs activists use these comics for communication purposes in their respective organisation and area. Over the period of time many of them have picked up the comics as their main profession.
There are stories from Jharkhand which tells how the adivasis are being affected of big development projects and also about the Uranium mines radiation. Story from Assam shows fisherman's harsh life conditions while the Goa story is about big companies encroachment into tourism. Kolkata story is about slow moving tram and Rajasthan story is about plight of a Dalit man.
Parallel Lines :
These comics start describing development from where the earlier ones left and take it a level further, not just in terms of description but visual aesthetics and storytelling techniques as well.
All stories have a different art as well as narration style owing to the different backgrounds of the artists. It is to be noted that most of them are not trained artists and have learnt the art over a period of time working with World Comics and their local organizations.
The stories this time are longer (14-16 pages). The comic took an year in the making and throughout that period the creators had extensive discussions and workshops on the art of making comics, visualization, frame composition, inking, texturing etc. They also had prolonged discussions on their stories where each had to defend their story from the critical view of the rest as well as accept suggestions.
Comics Journalists travels to one specific area/field and collects information and documents, incidents in visual form and later unfolds all information and facts in one story format. These stories are mostly first person accounts, but not always.
World Comics India has developed a 6 months course in Comics Journalism. Many youth across the south Asia enrolled in first two batches of the course and documented stories of local significance during the course.
Read More...
Syndicate Strip Service- World Comics India launched syndicated comics strip service in 2004. The idea behind this service was to disseminate information on varied issues to a wider audience. Mainstreaming unheard voices through newspapers is the key objective behind “Syndicate strip service”. Comics drawn in four-panel format are converted into comic strip form, so that it can be circulated to newspapers, magazines and NGOs’ journals. Through this a voice from a remote region of the country reaches the mainstream and is heard across different parallels. These are comics maybe drawn by common people living in rural hinterland and moufassil towns of the country. So far this strip services were circulated in Rajasthan, UP, Mizoram, Assam and Uttarakhand.
