কমিক্‌স সমগ্র

কমিক্‌স সমগ্র #1

by Narayan Debnath, Santanu Ghosh (Editor), Debasis Deb (Editor)

Narayan Debnath was born and spent most of his life living in Shibpur, Howrah, India. His family hailed from Bikrampur in what is now in Bangladesh but had migrated to Shibpur before his birth. In an interview published by Laalmati Publication in Narayan Debnath Comics Samagra, Debnath confessed that he was interested in visual arts from a very early age. The family business was retailing gold and he had ample scope to design patterns for jewellery. During the time of World War II, Debnath would study fine arts at the Indian Art College for five years. He did not continue to get his degree but instead discontinued in his final year. For the next few years he freelanced for advertising agencies creating movie slides and logos. Debnath recounts in Narayan Debnath Comics Samagra, Vol. 2 that on the day of his wedding Gandhi was assassinated, which caused much inconvenience to the guests. The four volumes of Narayan Debnath Comics Samagra provide rich information about the life of the author.

In 1950 he was introduced to Dev Sahitya Kutir, a major publishing house through a friend. People such as Pratul Chandra Banerjee, Shailo Chakraborty, Balaibandhu Roy, and Purnachandra Chakraborti were associated with the press at the time. From 1950 to 1961 he illustrated a number of children's books including adventure novels and Western classics in translation. His journey in comics started in 1962 with 'Handa-Bhonda' in Shuktara.

He began as a freelancing comics-artist and soon went for comics on his own . However, when still a struggling freelancer, he was instructed by the publisher to adopt 'well accepted foreign comics' to make comics for their magazine(s) to get easy business.

510 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Narayan Debnath (Bengali: নারায়ণ দেবনাথ) the senior most 'living legend' comics-artist of India ; is the creator of popular Bengali comics including ‘Handa Bhonda’ (in Shuktara magazine since 1962), ‘Batul The Great’(in Shuktara magazine since 1965) and ‘Nonte Phonte’(in Kishore Bharati magazine since 1969). He is the senior most comics-artist in India aged 88 years having 'Record' of doing comics strip drawn-written single handed continuous for last 50 years ('Handa Bhonda' comics).
His other creations include detective ‘Koushik Roy’ (in Shuktara magazine from 1976), ‘Bahadur Beral’ (in Shuktara magazine from 1983), ‘Danpite Khadu aar tar chemical Dadu’ (from 1983 in Chotoder Ashore magazine ) etc. Having contributed to the early development of Bangla comics and its growth in a career spanning more than fifty years, he is still read in West Bengal, India and Bangladesh. Apart from comic books and strips, Narayan Debnath is also an artist who has illustrated several children's novels. Many of his comics are serialized in popular children’s magazines published from Kolkata including Shuktara and Kishor Bharati
In 2011 a large size (500 page) research oriented Comics book on his lifetime art work named "Narayan Debnath Comics Samagra" ( in 3 volumes ; compiled and edited by Santanu Ghosh) was published which includes all his comics characters together for last 50 years. In April 2012 first English translated Batul The Great book was published by Lalmati publication kolkata.

Reviews

[Adham Alif · Rating 4 out of 5]

বাংলা কমিকের জগতে নারায়ণ দেবনাথ কিংবদন্তিতূল্য ব্যাক্তি। গত শতকের বড় একটা সময় জুড়ে পত্রিকার পাতায় তার কমিকেরা রাজত্ব করে গিয়েছে। বাটুল, নন্টে-ফন্টে, হাদা-ভোদার মতো বিখ্যাতসব কমিক চরিত্রের জন্ম হয়েছে তারই হাত ধরে। ওদের নিয়ে আলাদা বই আছে। এই খন্ডে এসব কমিকের কিছু স্যাম্পল তুলে দেয়া হয়েছে। যাতে করে ধারণা পাওয়া যায় যে কোন চরিত্রকে কীভাবে সাজিয়েছিলেন তিনি। তবে নিয়মিত ধারার কমিকের বাইরেও কিছু বিজ্ঞাপনী কমিক এবং বিশেষ সংস্করণের কমিকের দেখাও মিলেছে এতে।

[Elruin Elmsroot · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun read.

[Riju Ganguly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Collection of golden-age comics in Bengali literature, when entire households used to (overtly or covertly) be drawn towards magazines only for comics therein!

[Towkir Ahmmed Rigan · Rating 5 out of 5]

ঠিক যেন আরো একবার ছোটবেলায় ফিরে যাওয়া :) :)

[Souvik Biswas]

Good

[Diptanu · Rating 5 out of 5]

1st book in the series...............my best book ever