Only a few comics writers/artists can have a record of continuing their gigs single-handedly for more than 60 years. Narayan Debnath is one of them. Born and living all his life in Shibpur, a suburb in the city of Howrah, 9 km west of Kolkata, this veteran artist’s characters Bantul the Great, Handa Bhonda, Nonte Fonte, Bahadur Beral, Detective Koushik Roy among others, are an inseparable part of the life of every Bengali kid born prior to the internet age. Regularly published, primarily in Shuktara, a then dominant Bangla magazine from the house of Deb Sahitya Kutir Publishers, Narayan Debnath, the only comics artist decorated with a D.Litt., has ruled the Bangla comics and illustration scene since 1962.
In spite of reluctance from his father Hemchandra Debnath, a goldsmith, Narayan Debnath, born in 1925, pursued his passion and started drawing from age 12–13. A student of the Indian College of Arts and Draftsmanship, Kolkata, Debnath, in his early career, was greatly influenced by the then renowned Bengali illustrator Pratulchandra Bandyopadhyay.
Earlier in his career, just like other budding artists in those days, Debnath made artworks for advertisements of cosmetics and titles cards for films. Later after joining Dev Sahitya Kutir, he did numerous book and magazine covers and illustrations for stories, novels, rhymes, poems, word puzzles, board games etc. and of course, comics.
Major Comics-
Bantul The Great:
His most popular cult character and in his own words his favourite child. Bantul comics have been appearing in two colours (pink and black) on the 2nd page of the summer edition of Shuktara since 1965. Debnath here was inspired by Superman and Desperate Dan and created this pink vest and tight short clad Bengali superhero who fights the evil, catches thieves and brings justice in his locality. Since Bantul was created in the scorching heat of Bengal summer, Debnath may have decided to dress him sparsely. But unlike occidental superheroes, Bantul is not a distant, out of reach character, but your brawny, next-door boy! His goonish nephews Bhawja and Gawja often accompany him. Debnath occasionally incorporated other characters here, like Lawmbokawrno, a boy with special hearing power, Bantul’s pet ostrich Uto, his pet dog Bhedo and his good old aunty.
Bantul comics were not that popular during its earlier days. With time, Bantul turned political. In the ’60s, during the Bangladesh (Debnath’s ancestral home, then East-Pakistan) war, Bantul chased the Pakistani army with their own tanks and brought down their fighter plane with a lasso, just like Superman did during World War II. Since then Bantul comics gained immense popularity and that continued till date.
Handa Bhonda:
Debnath’s second most popular strip and his first one, which appeared even before Bantul. In this black and white comics, he introduced 2 teenagers- Handaram Gargari, a wicked little child, better known as Handa (means a fool in Bangla) and Bhonda Pakrashi, a good Samaritan, better known as Bhonda (in Bangla, means callous). Their uncle Becharam Bakshi accompanies them in most stories. First appearing in 1962 in Shuktara, these stories were basically inspired by Debnath’s observation of kids around his home in Bengal suburb. Though some critics saw inspirations of Laurel and Hardy here, Handa Bhonda is so Bengali at its soul that it achieved two hundred thousand Bangla readership around 1982. This series later was adapted for the television.
I should mention here that in the 1950s, as a result of Dev Sahitya Kutir’s head Khirodchandra Majumdar’s request, it was Pratulchandra Bandyopadhyay, and not Debnath, with an illustrated hornet in the space for the credit, first made 4-panel Handa Bhonda strips.
Nonte Fonte:
Another favourite of Debnath’s, which appeared in Kishore Bharati magazine in 1969. In this strip, revolving around boarding hostel life in Bengali suburb, Nonte and Fonte, two clever chaps fight the odd deeds of naughty Kelturam, better known as Keltuda (first appeared in 1973, inspired by a film) and generally at the end the latter is punished by Patiram Hati, the fat, pot-bellied hostel superintendent.
Goyenda Kaushik Roy:
Bengali readers love detective thrillers, be it Feluda or Byomkesh Bakshi. Debnath too has a detective of his own. Unlike his other funny comics, this comics is rather serious, and so is the illustration style. First appearing in 1976 in the front cover of Shuktara, in a comics called Sarparajer Dwipey (In the island of the Snake-king), Kaushik Roy is a no-nonsense secret agent of the detective department of the Government of India. He is an expert in boxing and martial arts and his metallic right hand, which has an inbuilt transmitter, can spit bullets, laser ray and gases. He often uses his sharp metallic nail as a knife. A character reminiscent of James Bond, 14 Detective Kaushik Roy comics is cinematic in every action-oriented and realistic illustrated panel of this strip.
In this context, it can be mentioned that Debnath made illustrations for another similar comic series called Detective Indrajit Roy and Black Diamond which was written by Dilipkumar Chattopadhyay. Debnath also made another detective graphic novel called Hirer Tayra (in the shadow of Sherlock Holmes) in 1965 in Navakallol magazine and Rahasyamay Abhiyatri (The Mysterious Expeditionary) in 1972. Debnath made a few more serious adventure series with irregular characters. In this genre, his contemporary was another master of anatomy of that era, Mayukh Chowdhury.
Bahadur Beral:
In usual practice, magazine covers are filled with a summary of inside contents, but not in the case of Narayan Debnath. First appearing in 1983 in the whole front cover of Shuktara, Bahadur Beral (translated as the smart cat), a humanized cat, is a four coloured comic strip by Debnath. This strip actually appeared as a replacement of Detective Kaushik Roy comics due to a labour strike in Kolkata and the magazine authority decided to print the issues from Delhi. In these simple funny strip, Bahadur usually gets into trouble and makes a way out at the end.
Other Comics-
Daanpitey Khandu aar taar Chemical Dadu:
Tales of naughty Khandu, a troublemaker kid and his scientist grandpa who invents weird machines that end up in funny situations. This strip first appeared in Chotoder Aasor magazine in 1983 and later in other Bangla magazines and as a book from Golden Comics. Though Debnath himself conceptualized it, his son Swapan Debnath drew the earlier strips.
Itihaase Doirath:
Translates as ‘Duels in History’. From 1974 to 1975 Debnath did a series of comics in Kishorebharati magazine on barbaric duels based on true incidents and set in international locales. Apart from duel fights in European families, there are stories of fights in Mexico, battles of a lieutenant and pirates, fights among border securities and a grizzly bear.
Shuntki Aar Mutki:
In 1964, just like Handa Bhonda, Debnath started a strip about two female friends, Shuntki and Mutki in Shuktara, though it did not continue for much longer than 2–3 years.
Pawtolchand, the Magician:
First appearing in 1969, in Kishorebharati magazine, this magician can do the unimaginable. Just like Mandrake, Pawtolchand can hypnotize you, turning an ordinary rag into a magic carpet and other strange things to solve problems. Later in 1978, it again appeared in Pakkhiraj magazine in 2 colours. Pawtolchand’s appearance changed a lot with time.
Petuk Master Botuklal:
A schoolteacher, Botuklal is notorious for being a foodie. He often steals his students’ delicious tiffins and that leads Botuklal into trouble. This regular strip first appeared in Kishoremon magazine in 1984 but did not continue for long. The other regular characters in this strip are the gatekeeper of the boarding school (who is as crazy as Botuklal in case of good food) and three students who get hold of the food at the end in almost every strip. This is the last regular character Debnath created.
Apart from these regular strips, Debnath created numerous 4 pager one-shot strips and filler comics with new characters every time. They appeared in the early 60s in Pujavarshikis (the special editions Bangla magazines publish during Durga pujas) of Dev Sahitya Kutir and later in 1973 was published as books. In 1994 he made comics out of the stories from Jataka in a serialized format.
In 1961 his first realistic serious comics and first published book, Rabichhobi (a comics on Rabindranath Tagore’s life), written by Bimal Ghosh was published in Bangla and Hindi from Banaras. The year after he did two more biography series — Rajar Raja and Swami Vivekananda and also Chitrey Durgeshnandini (penned by Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay).
All his comics are in Bangla but he occasionally made short comics in English. Nowadays, most strips of his major comics- Bantul The Great, Handa Bhonda and Nonte Fonte are available in English. Occasionally, he made comics for brands too.
Since there was no computer/software in those days and Debnath still does not use them, all the speech bubbles and letterings of his comics are hand-drawn. In the dialogues of his characters, Debnath frequently has used rhymes.
In the case of exclamatory words, Debnath Indianised the phrases that are often used in American and European comics, e.g.- Irk! Oofs! Oulk! Guulbb! Etc.
Just like funny names in Asterix comics, Debnath’s characters’ names too often mirror their nature, e.g.- Bitkelram, Dr Bibhishan, Boxer Henpo Bakshi, Khune Khyanda etc. Like Captain Haddock, Debnath’s characters too have a huge collection of funny Bangla curses. According to the demand of the time, Debnath often incorporated Hindi and accented Bangla dialogues for his characters. It is noteworthy that, Debnath is a foodie and most of his funny, non-serious comics, from Bantul to Botuklal revolves around good food and the adventures surrounding it. Delicious food is always like a character in all his works.
Illustrations-
No Google in the 1950s. So he was a regular at libraries and bookshops in College Street and Chowringhee in Kolkata for consulting anatomy and other references for story illustrations. American illustrators like Alex Raymond, John Prentice, and Milton Caniff influenced him. In Debnath’s Black Diamond comic series, though completely Indianised, we can see sparkles of Prentice. Debnath drew all these realistic comics in cinematic, retro Hollywood style with great use of light and shadow. In his illustrations for adult fictions too, there is a great eye for detailing.
In 1972, Debnath gained huge popularity for his cover and illustrations for Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury’s books Bhoot Petni Raja Rani and Tuntunir Boi published by Nirmal Book Agency. He continued decorating this author’s other books, like Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne (filmed by author’s grandson Satyajit Ray) and his son Sukumar Ray’s nonsense classic Abol Tabol. In these books from Ray family, who themselves had a knack for illustrations, Debnath developed a brand new style of art, distinct from the Rays.
Debnath worked intensely on ghost stories, but relatively less on mythological stories. He showed great expertise in realistic figures in his works in translated classics such as Frankenstein, Alice in the Wonderland, Ben Hur, Gulliver’s Travels, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, published from Dev Sahitya Kutir in Bangla, dubbed as Onubaad Series.
His genius found a new muse in the stories of Tarzan. This Edgar Rice Burroughs character was Debnath’s childhood hero, whom he used to imitate. This fantasy helped him to draw faultless anatomy for Tarzan stories, published in Shuktara in 1951 and later as books, which continued for the next 42 years.
Since 1965 Debnath started to make cover and illustrations for Swapankumar’s detective Deepak Chatterjee. With cinematic illustrations of European characters and bright colours, those charismatic covers and illustrations took this rather dull second-class thriller to another level and helped the sales.
Discussions on Debnath’s works need volumes. Sadly this immense talent of popular art succumbed to poverty in his late life. With the recent publication of the collection of his entire works as Narayan Debnath Comics Samagra in 5 volumes, his popularity has revived in Bengal and his genius has been rewarded, albeit too late in the day. At 94, this living legend of Bangla comics is still drawing Bantul comics for Shuktara and other magazines.