Let`s get the basics out of the way first. Let’s clarify what the definition of a comic book really is. Don’t confuse it with graphic novels, which are only a long-form subset within a larger framework of comic books. Don’t bracket it in the same category as Indian folk art forms like pattachitra either, though both are visual forms of storytelling. Instead, hark back to a literary tradition that started in the US at the turn of the last century, when different publishing companies exploited the printing press to launch a new medium that we recognise today as the modern comic book, a product that marries the written word with panels of art that act as a visual execution of the writer’s vision. That makes Batman a comic book (‘graphic novel’ being a euphemism that lends the same term a certain gravitas). That makes manga in Japan a form of comic books. Heck, that even means that Chacha Chaudhary is a comic book, taking nothing away from the exploits of the clever old man who kept a generation of Indian children anticipating the next issue.

Now that that definition is done with, it helps us put Comixense into better perspective. It’s a true-blue quarterly comic book series that has just hit the market, after educational platform Ektara Trust joined forces with illustrator Orijit Sen to wean 21st-century youngsters away from their smart gadgets to rediscover the joys of reading printed material. Sen tells us, “Sanjiv Kumar, who runs Ektara Trust, approached me in late 2019 saying he’s noticed that school kids above the age of 13 have become really addicted to their phones, as we all know, and that they associate the habit of reading only with their textbooks. It’s not entertainment for them. For that, they have their phones, which are changing their reading habits in terms of short attention spans and a tendency to skim through things rather than actually engage with the text. So, he felt that we have to bring the love of print back among that generation, and he felt that comics are a good medium to do so.”