In Mint Lounge, Sumana Mukherjee visits the the creative hub of Virgin Comics in Bangalore to see how young Indian designers are redefining superheroes:
In the eighth year of the new millennium, in a tall and forbidding white tower on Haudin Road, Jeevan J. Kang bends over his artwork with the diligence of an ascetic. In a corner niche of the great hall, with nothing before him but a blank white wall, Ram takes shape in 2B pencil, piercing eyes and muscled forearms, speed and strength seemingly evident in every gesture.
“That’s the thing: You imagine the studio like a Mario Miranda cartoon, with people and speech bubbles. But artists work in isolation,” Kang says. The star illustrator of Virgin Comics’ Bangalore studio has torn himself away from the gestating issue of Ramayan 3392 AD for a freewheeling chat on heroes and hero worship.
Spinning out of the heads of artists such as Kang is the defining look of the day’s superheroes: Devi, Snakewoman, Gamekeeper. Virgin Comics-the brainchild of spiritual guru Deepak Chopra, film director Shekhar Kapur and maverick billionaire Richard Branson-has taken the lead in introducing the stuff of Indian legends-as opposed to Chinese, Japanese and Korean myths-to an international audience, with high production values and cutting-edge artwork.
