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Mixing religion and comics.
India Authentic #11 - Hanuman
Okay, okay. You know that I'm madly in love with India Authentic. And I'm madly in love with Hanuman. And...
I mostly didn't like this issue.
Because if there's one thing that I don't want to see, it's "Rob Liefeld does Hanuman." Which was basically what this was. Observe:
What the hell is THAT?!
Forget the freaktastic anatomy for a second. Why does Hanuman have spikes on his tail?! I like the om bling, though.
But it gets worse. I give you:
Elephants with spikes!
ELEPHANTS WITH SPIKES!
And that doesn't even begin to touch on the fact that Indrajit looks like Dracula, or the ROCKIN' NINETIES MULLET that Rama sports, or any of the other bizarro Liefeld-esque touches.
Especially the rockin' mullets.
So here's my major beef with this issue. In the introduction, Deepak Chopra writes that Hanuman is defined by his "gallantry, loyalty, humility, courage, and playfulness." But very few of those attributes are present in this depiction of Hanuman, most notably, the complete absence of Hanuman's playful charm. This version of Hanuman is a grim-faced overmuscled he-man warrior with his teeth permanently gritted and his face perpetually frozen in that unmistakable Liefeld-esque grimace.
I don't know about you, but the Hanuman that I know - yes, even the Hanuman who raced to Mount Gandhmadan in a desperate attempt to save Lakshman's life, as is the story recounted in this issue - that Hanuman was almost always smiling.
This Hanuman doesn't smile, not once, not until the next-to-last page of the comic. But when he does finally smile, however, it's worth it:
That's better.
I don't want to be totally down on the artwork, because there are certain sequences where the over-the-top, bombastic style really works. For example:
So yeah, it's not all bad.
This is a difficult comic for me to criticize, because it's obviously a labor of love, and it IS the expression of someone's religious beliefs. This is not my vision of Hanuman; but who am I to judge the penciler Swapnil Singh's vision of Hanuman? In the end, with a comic like India Authentic, it's very difficult to level "valid" criticisms at it, so to speak.
But I maintain that I have every right to make fun of the artwork if it amuses me, though.
One more time: Elephants. WITH. SPIKES!!!!!
Deepak Chopra's Buddha
So y'all have seen the preview pages posted on Virgincomics.com, right? And by "preview pages" I mean "the entire first issue, basically."
If you haven't yet, go and look. Then come back here.
Okay.
Okay, I have nothing to add to that.
Well, maybe one thing.
Baby Buddha compels you to buy this comic. You cannot resist the power of baby Buddha.
(No, it's cool. Baby Buddha hasn't been awakened yet; baby Buddha has no objections to crass materialism or the expansion of your comic book collection!)
With only one issue it's impossible to tell, but so far, Chopra's Buddha is holding up very well compared to that other Buddha comic with fantastic artwork. So we'll see.
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