The fact that the comics were a private initiative, and had sales ranging between one million at their peak in 1981 to 28,000 at their lowest point in 1992, when the print industry underwent a general slump, did very little to diminish their aura as a disinterested service. The subsequent production of ACK s under an educational trust, with its implicit subsidies and benevolent intentions, did help to shape the comics as separate from the western comic mode. The pedagogical force of the comics was then undeniably in tension with this need to grapple with the form of the comic itself, how to insert the educational message and remove all unsavoury associations with the market without diminishing the sensationalist plot. In addition to the task of indigenizing the content, making them safe and sanitized as it were, the makers of ACK were also burdened by the comic imperative of keeping the sensationalism intact. UNESCO’s call in 1967 to use comics as a tool for communicating cultural values provided the much needed thrust to Pai to start his indigenous intervention.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |