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Narayan Debnath

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Narayan Debnath
Narayan Debnath in 2013
BornNarayan Debnath
Shibpur, Howrah, Bengal, British India
NationalityIndian
Area(s)West Bengal
AwardsPresident's Special Recognition Award (2007), Sahitya Akademi (2013), Banga Bibhushan (2013), D. Litt. by Rabindra Bharati University (2015) .
narayandebnath.indidir.com

Narayan Debnath (Bengali: নারায়ণ দেবনাথ born in 1925 ) is senior and popular comics-artist of India, who 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 Kishor Bharati magazine since 1969). He holds the record of longest running comics by an individual artiste for Handa Bhonda comics series which have now completed its continuous 53 years of running. He is the first and only Comics-Artist in India who has received D.Lit degree (Doctor of Literature).

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' (in Chotoder Ashore magazine from 1983), 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 serialised in popular children's magazines published from Kolkata including Shuktara and Kishor Bharati

Narayan Debnath in his study.

Early life

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 in Narayan Debnath Comics Samagra, published by Lalmati, Debnath confessed to being interested in the 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.

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 world started in 1962 with 'Handa-Bhonda' in Suktara.

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

Introduction to comics

The suggestion to work in comics in Bengali came from the editors at Dev Sahitya Kutir. Also the name 'Handa Bhonda' was their suggestion. Debnath had been familiar with foreign made comics but comics in Bengali had, to his admission, yet to take off. 'Shiyal Pandit', a comic strip created by Pratul Chandra Lahiri for the Jugantar newspaper was one of the earliest ones. Handa-Bhonda became an instant success and continues to be printed in Shuktara every month . Handa-Bhonda was initially penciled and inked by Debnath and had no coloured frames. Later it would be printed in the greyscale.

Narayan Debnath's first comic characters in color were for the comic strip and book 'Bantul The Great'. By Debnath's admission, he thought up the idea of the superhero while returning from College Street, Calcutta. The name came to him instantly and he thought up the figure of the protagonist rapidly.

Narayan Debnath

Development of the genre

When the Bangladesh War of Liberation flared up, he was asked by the editors and publishers to add an aura of invincibility. He made Bantul a superhero able to take on tanks, aircraft, and missiles. Bullets began to bounce off of him . Bantul is still drawn by Debnath for Shuktara.

Since 1969, Nante Phonte comics was started by narayan debnath in Kishore Bharati magazine.

He had started his freelancing artist career from 1950 in Suktara magazine and did the record of doing highest number of illustrations in Bengal . He was a renowned illustrator during his time. His work for Tarzan stories (continuous for 42 years ! ), Bengali translation of foreign novels etc. are among his great works of illustration.

Selected creations

Popularity

Collections of Debnath's comics have been published serially in Shuktara and Kishor Bharati and irregularly in Kishor Mon, Chotoder Asar, Pakhkhiraj etc.. His comic books featuring 'Handa Bhonda', 'Batul the Great' and 'Nonte Phonte' have been published since the early 1980s. Since the late 1990s, the Nonte Phonte comics have been anthologised and published in softcover format. From 2003 onwards, the earlier comics have been re-inked and published in full-color, Recently, Debnath gave permission for animation film based on the characters from 'Batul The Great', 'Handa Bhonda' and 'Nonte Phonte', and these provide access to the original stories to a whole new generation of children. Narayan Debnath's Handa Bhonda and Nonte Phonte are now also downloadable through an Android app published by Comixphere.com.

Debnath's style incorporating characters speaking in the typical language of Bengali adda (the quintessential Bengali gossip sessions lasting hours) and hundreds of nonstandard, yet most commonly used expletives in daily life like "Uls" (describing reaction to a delicious food) or "Aoofs", "Yiofs", "Arghhh"(similar to ouch). Subtle punning is also aplenty in his comics but the main source of comedy is slapstick.

Though his comic characters have immense popularity, Narayan Debnath himself has rather lived reclusively, distancing himself from publicity and media.

Television

Most of Narayan Debnath's work has been adapted for Bengali television. Nonte Phonte and Bantul the Great are animated shows today, while a television series called Handa Bhonda was briefly on air.

See also

References and notes

Online references are few and far between. Although often mentioned in English language blogs and on discussion forums, there is a scarcity of primary literature on Narayan Debnath or his creations in English. The best references are in Bengali and are the following two works (both available online)

More links that are referred above.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Narayan Debnath.
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