NOVEMBER 18-24 2012
Comic Relief Pakistani comics on the rise
NOVEMBER 18-24 2012
Cover Story
22 Comic relief Superman, Batman, Ironman and Spiderman are all well and good but where is the desi superhero?
Feature
28 Who’s the fairest of them all? Are female comic characters doomed to live out their lives wearing skin-tight spandex and six inch heels?
32 The terrific ten Shaheryar Popalzai lists ten creative comic book geniuses whose work you must read before you die
36 Big Bird 1 — Romney 0 Mitt Romney learns an important lesson... nobody messes with Big Bird!
22
Comment
34 The art of reading
28
Want to promote literacy? Let the kids read their comics!
Regulars 6 People & Parties: Out and about with Pakistan’s beautiful people 38 Reviews: Teaching a new Bond old tricks 42 End Of The Line: Karachi Fall
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Magazine Editor: Zarrar Khuhro, Senior Sub-Editor: Farahnaz Zahidi, Sub-Editors: Mifrah Haq, Ameer Hamza and Dilaira Mondegarian. Creative Team: Amna Iqbal, Jamal Khurshid, Essa Malik, Maha Haider, Faizan Dawood, Samra Aamir, Sanober Ahmed. Publisher: Bilal A Lakhani. Executive Editor: Muhammad Ziauddin. Editor: Kamal Siddiqi. For feedback and submissions: magazine@tribune.com.pk Printed: uniprint@unigraph.com
PEOPLE & PARTIES
Frieha Altaf
Ponds hosts the red carpet at Fashion Pakistan Week in Karachi
Ayyan
Fauzia
Sadaf Kanwal
Eshal Ayesha and Asif Karim
6 NOVEMBER 18-24 2012
PHOTOS COURTESY CATALYST PR AND MARKETING
Raana Khan
Neha
NOVEMBER 18-24 2012
PEOPLE & PARTIES
Saima Azhar
Maha
Wardha Saleem
Maheen Khan
Tapu Javeri
Shamaeel Ansari Huma Adnan
8 NOVEMBER 18-24 2012
PHOTOS COURTESY CATALYST PR AND MARKETING
Zara Tareen
NOVEMBER 18-24 2012
PEOPLE & PARTIES
Rabia and Afra
Asimyar Tiwana presents a show at the annual Development in Literacy (DIL) fundraiser event in Washington DC
Fauzia and Farzeen
Qasim Yar Tiwana and Mehr Jawad
10 NOVEMBER 18-24 2012
Sadia, Asimyar Tiwana and Saima
Paro, Pria and Ayesha Gillani
Deeba and Asma
PHOTOS COURTESY QYT EVENTS
Sobia and Uzma
Monica and Samreen
NOVEMBER 18-24 2012
PEOPLE & PARTIES
Shehla Chatoor
Zohra Alam makes her debut with digital prints in Karachi
Urooj
Saba
Khanz launches its new collection at the Peacock Lounge in Karachi
Nadia Hussain
Samira Dada and Tania Bashir
12 NOVEMBER 18-24 2012
Pomme and Shaheen Khan
PHOTOS COURTESY DANIYAL PHOTOGRAPHY
Sania Maskatiya and Zohra Alam
NOVEMBER 18-24 2012
PEOPLE & PARTIES
Mahrukh, Nazia and Ali
Khadijah
Sara Shahid
Home Couture launches its flagship outlet in Lahore Jehanzeb Khan, Sadia Hamid and Imran Qureshi
ICI Dulux organises the restoration of Tollinton Market in Lahore
Hassan Sheheryar Yasin
14 NOVEMBER 18-24 2012
Hamid, Attiya and Aleema
PHOTOS COURTESY LOTUS PR
Neha, Doa, Hafsa and Zoya
PHOTOS COURTESY VERVE PR
Barha, Natasha and Sehar
NOVEMBER 18-24 2012
PEOPLE & PARTIES
Color Studio Professional launches its flagship outlet at Dolmen City Mall in Karachi Konain
PHOTOS COURTESY VOILA PR
Ozair Mateen and Lubna Lakhani
Saba, Hina and Uzma
Beenish and Anoushey
Object, a home accessories store, launches its flagship store in Lahore Faiza
PHOTOS COURTESY VOILA PR
Tia Noor
Sehrish, Mehvish and Ali Rubab Ali
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NOVEMBER 18-24 2012
PEOPLE & PARTIES
Fauzia and Asad Tareen
Sadaf, Ayesha and Visha
Asad and Fauzia Tareen celebrate eid and diwali at their store in Dubai
Fatima Ahsan
Sabeen
Sahar, Maimoona and Maheen
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Saba Shazad NOVEMBER 18-24 2012
Alina Asif, Rania and Naila Ishtiaq
PHOTOS COURTESY SAVVY PR AND EVENTS
Madiha Noman
NOVEMBER 18-24 2012
PEOPLE & PARTIES
Maheen Khan and Shahnaz Ramzi
Xenith PR organises the Pantene Bridal Couture Week informal get together at Patio, Karachi
Maham
Shafia Agha
Hassan Fawad Afsheen Qaiser
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Tabassum Mughal
PHOTOS COURTESY XENITH PR
Maheen Irfan
NOVEMBER 18-24 2012
COVER STORY
COMIC RELIEF ‘HAPPILY- EVER -AFTER’ AND ‘LOST SLIPPERS’ MAY BE A THING OF THE PAST, BUT SUPERHEROES AND SUPER VILLAINS ARE HERE TO STAY. SO HOW LONG BEFORE WE SEE A TRULY DESI SUPERHERO?
BY RIFFAT RASHID COVER ART BY JAMAL KHURSID
With their majestic capes swirling around them, these muscular and powerful men strike fear into the hearts of evildoers. Alongside them, mysterious and beautiful masked women are always ready to leap into the fray to help out those in need. After several Kapows, biffs and booms, evil is (almost always) vanquished. Until the next issue, that is.
Comic book characters have mesmerised and inspired read-
ers for years with countless readers finding solace and happi-
ness in the adventures of Batman, Superman, Spiderman and countless other superheroes. It’s not always about heroes and
villains either; there have been comics based on science fic-
tion, war, talking animals, crime, romance, horror, teenag-
ers, and many more. Still, when we think of comics we invariably think of superheroes.
The creators of these superheroes are dreamers who com-
bine storytelling and art to create worlds of fantasy that we willingly fall into. They are artists like Frank Miller, Stan Lee, Warren Ellis, Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison and Alan Moore.
They are dreamers that the world needs. They fuel our imaginations and make us believe that good does triumph over evil. Most of the time, anyway.
But does this really matter in Pakistan? Does anyone even
read comics here?
The answer is a resounding ‘yes’. Some enthusiasts, like
Khalid Cheema, have taken it a step further by turning a hobby into a business. For Cheema, a comic book enthusiast
having almost 20,000 comics in his collection, it made sense to turn his life-long passion into profit. Cheema started an online business called Hobby Mutant to introduce and promote comic book culture in Pakistan. Through his Facebook
page, he now sells comic books, action figures and posters. He prides himself on offering original products at reasonable prices. The fact that his business is thriving is a testament to how many comic book fans there are out there.
Now here’s the conundrum: given that we have an audi-
ence, and given that we have no shortage of creative talent, why haven’t we seen a truly Pakistani comic book hero yet?
31 22 NOVEMBER 18-24 2012
We’ve had no shortage of political cartoonists, such as the Maxim, Feica, Ra-
thore, Sabir Nazar, Khalid and Mohammad Zahoor. The serious stuff aside, 1971 saw the appearance of what is possibly our first indigenous comic strip, featur-
ing the polka dot print-loving housewife Gogi. Created by Nigar Nazar, this strip
focused on Gogi’s daily adventures, raising awareness on women’s and social issues along the way.
It’s been 41 years since Gogi made her debut, and while there are now many
comic strips out there (mostly online), we still haven’t seen a desi incarnation of Captain America or the Hulk. Once again, the question is why?
Ramish Safa, the brains behind the successful webcomic Kachee Goliyan, ex-
plains the lack of local comic heroes: “Pakistan has had great superheroes, like Maula Jutt and Umro Ayyar to name a few, but they have left no legacy.”
This might soon be a thing of the past, at least if the guys behind Udham Publi-
cations get their way. “When you talk to a kid about superheroes, they talk about
Iron Man, Superman and Batman etc. No one talks about local superheroes, unless you count Commander Safeguard as one,” says Danish Ejaz, the creative director of Udham’s upcoming comic book starring a hero known as Shamsheer.
“The motivation to make comics began when I started reading Spiderman. I
won’t go so far as to say that it taught me responsibility but there was a phase
where I hoped I would get bitten by a radioactive spider,” says Salman Nasir, the COO of Udham Publications and illustrator of Shamsheer.
“We are trying to create a narrative that is essentially Pakistani, a narrative
that Pakistanis can own,” says Zakaullah Khan, the writer of Shamsheer and the CEO of Udham. “There’s a deep reflection of our society in the story that we have
to tell and the superhero character has a huge part to play in building the identity of the nation,” he adds emphatically. The Udham team was inspired by the
Mughal era and incorporated a number of local settings into the comic. “Our goal with the comic is to explore our roots as Pakistanis.” says Zakaullah, “We incorporated modern concepts but also didn’t want to forget where we came from.”
One of the reasons why we still lack a home-grown superhero may be the im-
mense amount of work that goes into creating and marketing one. “We did a
good amount of research especially on armour styles, weaponry and war strategies,” says Zakaullah.
Despite having four issues of Shamsheer completed, Creative Director Ejaz in-
sists they complete eight more before they are ready to go public. This is being
done to ensure continuity between the comic issues, since they all are linked with one central narrative.
23 30 NOVEMBER 18-24 2012
COVER STORY They’re not the only ones with a story to tell. Frustrated with a lack of local
superheroes, US-based Pakistani Syed Hamdani has also been toiling at his own
creation. Aimed at a younger audience, Sergeant Pakistan is the story of a young army recruit who, while in despair over the country’s condition, is granted su-
perpowers that help him fight evil. “The inspiration for the idea was born out of a news story and a video about young kids in Swat re-enacting how to be suicide bombers. I have a son that age, and that video affected me deeply. So I decided to
create something that young children would read and aspire to: a protector of all Pakistanis and a force for good,” says Hamdani.
Without giving too much away, Sergeant Pakistan may soon make his debut
right here in one of The Express Tribune’s publications.
While physically printing a comic book may be a tough task, going online is far
easier. There, you don’t have to worry about editors, publishers, or advertisers,
and online cartoonists are relatively free to explore uncomfortable issues without being bound by any restrictions.
Web comics like Kachee Goliyaan, Mango People, The Secret Achaar Society, Alid Art and
HS Comics have become extremely popular online. Most of these comics derive inspiration from everyday experiences which makes them a great medium of expression not only for the artists, but for the audiences as well. What with lawn
exhibition billboards to price hikes being mocked, web comics are fast becoming
a way to expresses what’s on everyone’s minds. Thanks to social media, some of these comics end up going viral, thus reaching a wide, and very responsive, audience. The nature of the medium also allows for a lot of interaction between the
24 NOVEMBER 18-24 2012
artist and audience, which can lead to new projects.
Only recently Ramish, along with Nofal Khan, the marketer for Kachee Goliyaan, started work
on a series of comics based on the responses of their audiences to a set of questions such as: “what are the things that people lie about” and “things that make you sad.”
Still, the greater interactivity also means that creators can come in for instant criticism as well.
“The most recent [complaint] that has been levied at us is how we have gotten really mainstream,” says Ramish with disdain. “People don’t really know what they are talking about.”
A number of themes covered in the comics, owing to their sensitive nature, have been taken in
an altogether different light, with furious audiences sending hate mail to the comic artists. When
asked about getting mixed reviews from the audiences, Toonistan’s Umair Kamal said, “Criticism is
a part of life, especially when you have achieved something. You can never really satisfy everyone. I enjoy what my critics say since there’s always room for improvement.”
And then, there are those who lash out at the artists when the content is not perceived to be
humorous enough. “There’s this misconception we have that if something happens to be in comic strip format, it’s should make you roll on the floor with laughter,” says Ramish while talking about
his Sick in Bed comics that have serious underlying messages. “With Kachee Goliyan, things are pretty
simple. We stay clear of politics, Bollywood and religion. Basically, you need to work on the content to make it more understandable. When people don’t get our comics, I fail to see why,” he says.
The people behind The Secret Achaar Society and Alid Art, however, prefer keeping their content hu-
morous as “it has a greater outreach.” Ahmed Hassan of iDraw says, “Comics can be about inspira-
tion and humour or sadness and grief. I choose to make people laugh.” Kamal agrees, saying: “Life is very tough and everyone has their own set of troubles. I believe humour is actually what adds a little zing to our everyday routines.”
It’s those very everyday routines that give Hammad Haroon, the artist who draws comics for The NOVEMBER 18-24 2012
25
COVER STORY
Secret Achaar Society, his inspiration. “The absurdity of life in Paki-
stan: the traffic, the violence and the constant danger appears to depress a lot of people. What we, in our comics, wanted to do was
to allow the society to view it in a satirical way, through humorous takes on the prevailing situation (target chilling instead of target killing, for example).”
Hassan Sohail of HS Comics believes that comics have the
power to “make people view things differently,” but sees himself
making short videos and animation projects in the long run instead of bringing out a comic book in print.
In fact, of all the ‘online’ comics, Kachee Goliyan seem to be the
only ones really interested in making a transition to print. So far, they have four comic books in print, the most recent of which
is expected to be distributed to around 10,000 people. With just this one model to learn from, the viability of venturing on the print side of things has so far not been established.
Ventures like Shamsheer and Kachee Goliyan are also exceptions in
the sense that these ventures have actually been planned, with a well thought-out marketing strategy in place. “It was never just
about art. We have a lot of other comic projects and Kachee Goliyan
is just a front. We spent two months planning and strategising.
26 NOVEMBER 18-24 2012
We have already achieved in one year what we didn’t expect to achieve in five,” says a confident Ramish. For these artists, comic production is serious business.
But with Sarcass Stick, iDraw, Alid Art and others, coming out with
good content has been the only marketing strategy, and then “things just happened,” as Adil Hussain of Alid Art says. Likewise, Umair Ka-
mal of Toonistan claims, “I never had any plans or strategies. Awesome things always click.”
Comics may be great fun to read, but making them is not all fun
and games. It involves a focus on research, strategising and marketing. The timing of uploading them, the content and the language are all factors that influence how well a certain comic is received by the readership.
Most of these comic creators are young adults who have just com-
pleted their undergrad studies or are at the beginning of their careers.
What with this medium of expression being new and the interest in
the field just beginning to blossom, one can safely say that forward is the only way the comic scene will go from here.
27 NOVEMBER 18-24 2012
FEATURE
who’s the fairest
of them all? Heaving bosoms and skin-tight spandex. Are female comic characters doomed to be mere sex symbols? BY MAHVESH MURAD
There she stands: a tall, statuesque leggy blonde clad only in animal skin. Standing with her legs apart, she turns away from a slain black panther on the ground, moving presumably to attack the roaring lion that leaps out at her. With arms akimbo, a sharp knife in one hand and a spear in the other, she looks tough, she looks fierce and she definitely doesn’t look like she needs help. She is Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, in her 1942 debut. Sheena was the very first female comic book character to have her own series — she
even beat out the much longer lasting Wonder Woman. With no superhuman powers,
gadgets or special weapons, she excelled in hand-to-hand combat, dealt with wild ani-
mals of every sort (men included) and often found herself rescuing her little male sidekick — or ‘handsome escort’ as he was known.
Leaving aside the awkward racial politics involved: Sheena being the ‘white queen’ of
the primitive ‘jungle’ tribes (this was all entirely acceptable at that point in history, of course), or how the ‘Golden Girl of the Congo’ stayed so fair while running around mostly bare in the jungle sun all day, Sheena was startlingly modern for a Golden Age heroine.
This was when most of the female characters in comics were considered empowered
just for having jobs or managing regular lives without men. Again, all this was in keep-
28
ing with the prevailing mores of that era. NOVEMBER 18-24 2012
But the comics that win the gold standard for having never
Sure, Sheena was dressed in a ragged cheetah hide ‘dress’ —
treated their female characters as mere sex symbols are the
as a fetish — the age of over-sexualisation of female comic book
at ‘sophisticated readers’. Carrying a ‘suggested for mature
skimpy by the day’s standards — but she wasn’t ever presented characters was yet to come.
I’d like to say that Sheena escaped that age entirely, but she
did re-emerge decades later, having evolved inevitably into some sort of tacky Jungle Barbie in the 2000s.
While there are a great many examples of positive female
characterisation of comic book heroes in graphic novels today,
particularly in indie ones (we are far from the days of the stereotypical damsels in distress when the only role of a female
ones published by Vertigo, a subsidiary of DC that is aimed
readers’ warning (perhaps because immature readers truly believe women crime-fighters can stop bullets with cleav-
age?), Vertigo has most famously published Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series and the longstanding Fables comics, which
focus on fairy tale characters who have been thrown out of their homeland by ‘the Adversary’ and are now forced to live as a hidden community in New York City.
Creator Bill Willingham has taken a free hand with rein-
character was to either wait for rescue or die violently), there
terpreting many classic fairy tale characters, and while the
serialised comics that would never pass the Bechdel Test — a
gard/plump (they’re fairy tale characters — what did you ex-
are still a shockingly large number of stories in mainstream litmus test for sexism, which requires a comic to have (1) at
least two women in it, (2) who talk to each other, (3) about something besides a man.
Neither of the two largest comic book publishers, DC and
Marvel, seem particularly interested in breaking past the ste-
women are either all archetypically beautiful or old and hagpect?), none of them have been fetishised. These are adults
— when they need to run their world, fight the Adversary or sort out the problems of others, they tend to keep their clothes on.
Fables’ most recent spinoff has been Fairest, a series which
reotype that’s been set up for what’s constantly talked about as
tells the ‘secret histories’ of the female characters in the Fa-
To many writers, that seems to mean a hyper-sexual woman
Rose Red, and in the case of writer Lauren Beukes, Rapun-
a ‘strong female character’.
who is able to knock out a gang of thugs while bursting out of fetish gear while also wearing 6-inch heels. Of course this is
fiction, though I’m certain many women would want 6-inch heels to be that practical and comfortable. Of course this is just
wish fulfilment and fantasy — but whose wish? Whose fantasy? The lack of women writing for mainstream comics and the excessive number of female heroes and villains dressed in
what author Warren Ellis calls “body condom pervert suits” should give you a hint.
bles-verse: Sleeping Beauty, The Snow Queen, Snow White,
zel. Beukes, the Arthur C Clarke award winning writer of Zoo
City, became involved in the Fables-verse after meeting creator Bill Willingham at the The World Science Fiction Convention. Her arc for Fairest is set in Japan — Rapunzel travels there from Fabletown to sort out some secrets from her past.
Here is a rare case — a woman writing a comic book about
one of the world’s best known and loved female fairy tale
characters — that sad, pathetic, beautiful little girl locked
The main reason for this is that DC and Marvel seem to be-
lieve the comic reading audience is overwhelmingly male.
Even the women hired to write for comics starring the entirely female superhero team of Birds of Prey appear to have accepted
the status quo. In comic books, even when women write about women, it’s always for a male audience.
But perhaps the smaller publishers will help change this;
publisher Dark Horse Comics stands out in its depiction of pro-
gressive female heroes. With a line-up of comics that feature stellar heroes like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Alien-slaying Ellen Ripley, I’ll even forgive them a dubious run of a Barb
29
Wire series.
NOVEMBER 18-24 2012
FEATURE
in a tower waiting for a prince
to save her. Except that the Fables-
verse has never featured such a single-
faceted and weak female character. Beukes
creates a Rapunzel who — while still with problem-
atic hair — is far from the girl of the fairy tale. This Rapunzel
is not innocent: with a turbulent love life that involves affairs with a Japanese fox spirit and having her children stolen away
from her, she is in control of her life — if not entirely in control of her hair.
Via email, Beukes recently described the choices for charac-
ters in Fairest: “You want heroes who have issues, who make
mistakes, who flounder and **** up and still find a way to come through. I think Bill Willingham’s always done an amazing
job on Fables with exactly that — creating deep, real people hav-
ing complex relationships with themselves and each other, using the original fairytales archetypes as a springboard.”
tures. Alice grows up a lot — but her little blue and white outfit
Fables characters — there has been no difference in the treat-
version of what I presume was once a dress. Wendy cavorts with
The important thing here is that this can be said about all
ment of the female characters, as there evidently is in many mainstream comics. Beukes has taken this same stance with Rapunzel. It’s not a matter of creating female characters de-
void of sexuality entirely — just a matter of avoiding the cliché of sexy in a “cleavage-popping-window-in-your-costume kinda way,” as Beukes puts it. And even though she didn’t “write
her that way in reaction to more common and problematic portrayals of heroines,” Rapunzel is still refreshing because,
the nefarious Captain Hook while wearing a thong. Tinkerbell straddles and strangles a naked ‘evil’ fairy in mid air, who is
‘clothed’ only in tattoos. The body of each of these characters
is interchangeable with the other. That’s fitting, since the
prototype for their bodies seems to be a Barbie doll. Zenescope has even published a ‘swimsuit edition’, just in case the nudity wasn’t gratuitous enough in their regular editions.
It’s not enough to simply call these heroes ‘strong female
as Beukes says: “I wrote the character she needed to be for this
characters’ and have them fight it out occasionally — when that
past.”
tunately, this remains the case with most of the female heroes
story. Sharp, dark, a sensualist with a provocative haunted So how does a writer or a comic book artist manage a charac-
ter who is sexual and yet not hyper-sexualised the way Power Girl or Black Canary are? Beukes explains, “We (editor Shelly
Bond, illustrator Inaki Miranda and I) were all very sensitive to how we depicted that. I don’t think any of it is gratuitous.
It’s there as an essential part of the story and the sex scenes,
like the violence or the horror, have to be real. I want readers to really feel it.”
Unfortunately, Fables remains an exception to the rule. Ze-
nescope Comics, for example, also carries a line based on Fairy Tale archetypes, but in a way completely unlike Fables’. Where
is their only characteristic. They remain single-faceted. Unforin serialised comics today: Catwoman is still found in far too
many oddly compromising positions — on her knees drinking
milk from a bowl Batman has placed on the floor on one DC cov-
er, bursting out of her catsuit on others — for her to be anything other a mere fetish object for what is presumed by publishers to be an aggressively heterosexual teenage male audience. It’s a longstanding tradition of comic books of course, but some-
times, just like the tightly fitting latex outfits, it just doesn’t leave any room to breathe. “Sexism is real,” adds Beukes, “on and off the page.”
A few writers like Bill Willingham and Joss Whedon, creator
Fables features a mature handling of female characters, with
of the Buffy series and director of the Avengers movie, have tried
Grimm Fairy Tales is an unmitigated sexploitation extravaganza
There’s still too much debate around the need to create well
no desire to depict them as mere sexual objects, Zenescope’s with every single female character scantily clad in standard
clichéd fetish versions of their Fairy Tale wardrobe. All the
30
doesn’t. The Queen of Hearts is dressed in a Halloween-stripper
female characters — all the time — are purely fetish caricaNOVEMBER 18-24 2012
to change the zeitgeist of serialised mainstream comic books.
realised female characters instead of just sexual ones. When
asked why he wrote ‘strong female characters’, Joss Whedon replied, “because you’re still asking me that question.”
the terrific
ten
So you think Archie and the Gang are all there is to comics? Well, think again! Here’s a list of all the creative comic book geniuses whose work you should be reading right now! Right after you finish reading this list, that is... BY SHAHERYAR POPALZAI
Grant Morrison
Grant Morrison is a madman! Yes, I said it! The Scottish writer is, hands down, one of the greatest
comic book writers this planet will ever see. Morrison’s work is heavy; don’t expect a walk in the park when you open that copy of Doom Patrol — Musclebound or any issue of The Invisibles. Grant Morrison will not hold your hand and walk you across the street — he’ll take you to the middle of the
street, wait for the traffic light to turn green and leave you standing. His greatest work, in my very
humble opinion, has to be the run with Doom Patrol. Of course, that in no way means you discount all the amazing one-shots he has done with DC Comics and in 2000AD. Pick up Arkham Asylum, Judge Dredd: Inferno, Kill Your Boyfriend and New Adventures of Hitler.
Then there is All-Star Superman. Superman has one year left to live, courtesy Lex Luthor as always, and there are 12 tasks that he… okay no spoilers.
Alan Moore
I’m not even going to talk about the greatness of V for Vendetta or Watchmen here. Both were amazing series that led to killer movies and had a far greater impact in the real world (Guy Fawkes is the official face of the hacktivist group Anonymous). Moore’s work is, in one word, intelligent. There is
no straight up action and the villains are not beaten into a pulp here. There is detail though, lots of detail. I’m going to be totally clichéd here and quote Killing Joke as the greatest story Moore has written. A window into the Joker’s past and the paralysis of Barbara Gordon, Moore sets the record
straight on why the laughing madman is one of the vilest villians ever created. If you really want
to dig in to his work, pick up From Hell, Swamp Thing and Miracle Man runs and, of course, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
Bill Willingham
Who is Bill Willingham and why is he on this list? Fables. That’s why. Fables is possibly one of the
greatest comic book series of our times. Willingham writes a story of fairytale characters who have crossed into our world. Why? Because they were forced out of their homes by a villain known as
Adversary. Nothing short of amazing, Fables features all the characters from childhood bedtime stories and poems thrown into a gritty real world setting. Hansel is the head of the inquisition, the Big Bad Wolf is a sheriff... and so on. You can also check out some of his Sandman Presents work.
Brian Vaughan
I haven’t read much of Brian Vaughan’s work and I’ll be dead honest here: I don’t care much for it
either. But Y: the Last Man is a must-read. And by must-read I do mean you go buy it right now! Another Vertigo series, Y is the story of Yorick Brown. Both Brown and his male monkey are the only ones left besides women after something kills anything with the Y chromosome.
The search for his mother leads him on a quest to look for a cloning expert, but then there is also the search for his girlfriend and so on… no spoilers here.
Brian Wood
If I had the space, I’d write a 1,000 word essay on the awesomeness of Brian Wood. I was introduced
32
to Wood’s work via DMZ. Manhattan is a demilitarised zone and the US government is at war with NOVEMBER 18-24 2012
an entity known as the Free States. Matty Roth, an intern, is left stranded in Manhattan and he is the only news source inside the DMZ. You’re hooked once you start reading.
The series gives you a glimpse of what could possibly happen to a boiling-pot city like Karachi if things really go downhill. Now I’m a big fan of the Vikings, and that is one of the things Wood did
really right. Northlanders was a 50-issue series set in the age of Vikings. If you like reading stories based on historical events, this is a good place to start.
Neil Gaiman
This English author is best known for re-writing the Sandman series, from the gasmask-wear-
ing superhero to one of the Endless, a pantheon of immortals. The series follows Morpheus (aka Dream) through multiple plots, including a visit to Hell, a search for his lost brother Destruction and then to his death. You’d want to pick up the collected works as soon as possible and go through
them before the prequel comes out! Gaiman also created as bunch of characters for Tekno Comix, the most prominent one being Mr Hero. You might also want to check out Black Orchid and Marvel
1602 for some of his other work. Besides comic books, Gaiman has also written amazing books. I’m just going to go ahead and recommend American Gods to you.
Warren Ellis
Pissed off journalist in the future plans on taking the president down, and no it isn’t Hunter S
Thompson. Warren Ellis’ Transmetropolitan has to be every aspiring journalist’s favourite comic book.
Set in the future, Jerusalem is a journalist living in retirement. A wake-up call from his publisher forces him to return to the city and resume work as a journalist. Most people can only hope to be
as ballsy, and as deranged, as Jerusalem. Pick up The Authority, Planetary and Ministry of Space for additional Ellis’ reading.
Garth Ennis
This man is brilliant beyond words. You need to go out right now and pick up Preacher! Jesse Custer is a preacher who is possessed by a being that makes him more powerful than God, who he just happens to be gunning for. Ennis’ work is like someone grabbed you by the hair and smashed your face
on the sidewalk. Ennis also loves gun-toting vigilantes. Another essential read is The Punisher… and
I’m talking the MAX series here. For those of you who aren’t aware, MAX is an imprint of Marvel that caters to an adult audience. The MAX run is more real world. Frank Castle deals with mafias,
terrorists etc and even goes on a mission for Nick Fury (but bear in mind there are no superhero or supervillian appearances in this series). And if you don’t love Barracuda, there might just be something wrong with you…Also recommended reading: Adventures in the Rifle Brigade.
Frank Miller
No list is complete without mentioning Frank Miller, the man behind The Dark Knight Returns, The Dark Knight Strikes Again, Sin City AND 300! Quite an impressive portfolio, eh?
The Dark Knight Returns and The Dark Knight Strikes Again are both set in a dystopian future: an older Bruce Wayne who makes his return as the Batman, a new Robin and a dead Joker. And that’s just the first
series. You can also catch the first part of an animated The Dark Knight Returns. The second is due next
year. Sin City is more sex and violence, and if you dig that, you’ll dig the series for sure. I’m not going to talk about 300; it’s amazing. Plus I cringe every time someone goes, “THIS IS SPARTA!!!” Want more Miller? Pick up his Robocop run on Avatar.
Mark Waid
Monumental is the best way to define some of Mark Waid’s work. And that work is Kingdom Come. The story is, as with most killer series, set in the future. The Justice League reforms, Batman hates
Superman, Superman versus Captain Marvel… well, you should just read the rest. Waid is also the man behind JLA: Tower of Babel. Members of the Justice League, save Batman, are taken down by Ra’s al Ghul, courtesy of the Dark Knight. Batman had been keeping records of the superheroes’
strengths and weaknesses…in a just-in-case situation, and the Demon manages to steal the records from him. You might also want to read Superman: Birthright, a redone origin of the Man of Steel,
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and the Onslaught saga.T
NOVEMBER 18-24 2012
COMMENT
“There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves” — Will Rogers BY BAKHTIYAR KAZMI
Finally being able to watch my childhood superheroes prance around the silver screen and pulverise super villains is quite an amazing feeling; one that combines wide-eyed wonder with misty-eyed nostalgia. Back in the days, when reading Marvel and DC comics was how children spent their study breaks, actually watching Thor wield the mighty Mjolnir, being able to see Hulk defeat the Abomination and hearing the Fantastic Four’s Thing shout “Its clobbering time!” was not something I could have even remotely imagined. Kids today may not be able relate to the fact that Television was once a novelty, that there were no computers or video games and that your voice had to travel through underground copper wire to reach the person on the other end of a, yes, land line telephone. Unbelievable but true, I assure you. Ironically, though just about everything else has changed, the
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impacted language skills. Au contraire; while comics might have popularised the usage of slang, with me they were responsible
for inculcating the habit of reading. Believe me, it was a better
option than countless hours spent playing video games, which is not good either for the mind or the body.
An article promoting reading when hardly anybody reads is
in itself a paradox. However, as the saying goes, when there is
nothing, there is hope. Wikipedia defines literacy as the ability to read for knowledge, write coherently, and think critically
about the written word. Avoiding the debate on knowledge and wisdom, there is no doubt that knowledge in any case precedes
wisdom. Socrates first had knowledge to know, then the wisdom to accept that he knew nothing. And while knowledge can also
be acquired through debate, reading remains the foremost way to acquire knowledge. Even then, it’s not quite enough. How
useful is a high literacy rate when all it means is that people are able to read and write, but are unable to think?
Nevertheless, the importance of reading can simply be gauged
dictum that ‘all good things are bad for children,’ has survived
from the rate of advances made after the advent of the Gutenberg
the conventionally wise believed that reading comics adversely
edge in print, one can only imagine where the world might be
the test of time and the advent of technology alike. Even then, NOVEMBER 18-24 2012
printing press. Minus the ability to accumulate and store knowl-
today. The ancient practice of transmitting knowledge through
Positively speaking, the information age might have elimi-
word of mouth and relying upon human memory for its preser-
nated the need for a physical conduit to transfer knowledge.
best, the retention of this knowledge over the intervening centu-
directly be implanted in the human brain, there is still no short
vation, with all due respect to Simonides, was hardly reliable. At ries, was mediocre and had a limited audience. Without books, Newton could hardly have stood on the shoulders of giants. As someone rightly said, reading is to writing what hearing is to speaking.
The objective today, however, is not to promote books; it is to
focus on the importance of reading in general. Personally, reading from an LCD screen is tiring for the eyes and quite distract-
ing. The advantage in reading a book is the inability to click and wander across virtual space every few seconds. Those afflicted with the nigh-incurable habit of reading on the throne, must
also abhor Kindle and Nook. Of course, how the mind can fully function while one is sitting on the pot is another ageless mys-
tery…one that shall not, at least, be resolved in these pages. Not today, anyway.
“The difference between what you are today and what you will be a year
However, since technology has yet to develop a chip which can cut to reading.
Unfortunately, reading is a dying art, as if irrefutably evi-
denced by the scarcity of book stores. The critics will rightly
point out that eBooks don’t require physical outlets of sale, but a
significant portion of the urban population don’t own hand-held devices and simply downloading books does not guarantee that they will actually be read. More critically, the quality of debate
on electronic fora and social media seems to confirm the conclu-
sion that nobody reads. If a nation does not read, it will not gain knowledge and wisdom will remain at best an illusion; so how can it be expected to vote intelligently?
Having established the importance of reading by directly link-
ing it with the nation’s most passionate past time, there is still a need to destroy a few fallacies.
• First, reading fiction is not a waste of time. What is litera-
later will be the people you meet and the books you read”. Apologies to the
ture, if not the fiction of yesteryear? Reading the product of
search have both failed to uncover his identity. The quote none-
nation. Don’t believe me? Then just consider Albert Einstein who
author for not giving due credit, since memory recall and Yahoo theless remains a very perceptive observation. For the persistent cribber, please substitute books with the electronic device of choice.
Experience has confirmed the truism of this quote. The ability
to store knowledge is irrelevant if it is never accessed. Reading
feeds into knowledge which nurtures wisdom which, finally, is the key ingredient for the development of character. A friend,
who loves to travel, had this brilliant insight (not that it had any practical impact on him): “no wonder the goras rule the world,
anytime you see them at airports, trains or in the tube, they are reading books”. Arguably, the rise and fall of civilisations is di-
somebody’s imagination invariable enhances one’s own imagisaid “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
• An inability to perfectly retain knowledge is a common fail-
ing of the human brain, and given that the existence of a photo-
graphic memory is not scientifically evidenced, odds are you’ll
have to revisit what you’ve already read from time to time. This is why French philosopher Roland Barthes said, “those who fail to re-read are obliged to read the same story everywhere.” Also, as you yourself change, your interpretation of something you
read years back will also change. Try it out if you don’t believe me.
• Reading the first and last few pages of any given work does
rectly associated with their patronisation of the arts and sciences.
not provide the “gist of it”. According to the hermeneutical circle
grants in order to supplement the knowledge “hanging in the
ting the gist of the parts is essential and vice versa. Speed read-
Great rulers were cognizant of the need to encourage immi-
air” around the seat of power. Here I must make a somewhat
serendipitous observation that, irrespective of other conjectures, the current negative attitude of the only super power towards
(google it for yourself), in order to get the gist of the whole, get-
ing gets you nowhere and summaries prepared by others are only as good as the summary writers’ own level of incompetence. • Reading daily newspapers and weekly magazines is not
immigrants is surely the beginning of its decline. The universal
enough either; in fact these also adversely impact the concentra-
and everything has a downfall.
pleasure. After having lost the habit of reading over the years,
truth being, of course, that nothing in this world is permanent The Knowledge ‘hanging in the air’, in any land, is the con-
solidated experience, knowledge and wisdom of its inhabitants.
People generally learn from observing and learning from others.
tion span. Book reading, on the other hand, is pure extended
coming back to it was like scaling my own personal Mount Everest. The view from the literary heights was stupendous.
Perhaps someday a resourceful philanthropist might just be
Variety in what constitutes those ‘others’ is therefore desirable.
motivated to finance media programs focusing on book reviews
drivers of innovation and growth. Nonetheless, even in cities,
House culture amongst the elite. In the meantime, given that
This is the reason that cities, and not towns or villages, are the productivity and innovation is directly proportionate to the receptiveness for fresh thoughts.
or set up libraries or establish book clubs or even revive the Tea
I’m neither wealthy nor a philanthropist, let’s just keep trying. NOVEMBER 18-24 2012
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REVIEW
thank you for not smoking, mr bond BY KHURRAM ALI SHAFIQUE
A secret agent in a white car chases two motorcyclists in a crowded bazaar and shoots them dead. A Land Cruiser, in a bid to scoop up the agent, speeds on the wrong side of the road and accidentally runs over another motorcyclist. The rescue attempt fails, and the agent is caught by the crowd and arrested by traffic wardens. The name is Davis, Raymond Davis. The world-infamous incident occurred in Lahore on January 27, 2011. Only sixteen days earlier, Eon Productions had officially announced the pre-production of the 23rd James Bond movie. The weeks when the Lahore incident stayed in the headlines across the world was apparently the period when John Logan, Neal Purvis and Robert Wade were working on the script of the new movie in the light of director Sam Mendes’ vision: “It was still possible to make a big, fabulous, glamorous, escapist movie and yet, at the same time, to say something about the world that we are living in.” Is it then no coincidence that the opening sequence of Skyfall is set in a busy bazaar? It’s Istanbul instead of Lahore, and other details differ too as they should. But the political and diplomatic implications still get represented symbolically. Conventionally, the pre-title sequences in the Bond movies have been used for establishing 007 as a man who can do the impossible and cannot be defeated or killed (with some partial exceptions such as in You Only Live Twice and Die Another Day). This time, the sequence concludes with the secret agent getting unceremoniously shot in the middle of the action. The hard disk stolen in the process blows the cover of other secret agents (as the electronic devices recovered from Raymond Davis reportedly led to arrests on charges of espionage in Pakistan). The question whether the trigger-happy approach to espionage has become redundant in our times is central to this film. The film answers the question in the affirmative to the great dismay of pacifists. However, being a true artist, the director has offered his answer through a multi-dimensional masterpiece which can be used to explore the present stream of British consciousness. Mendes has destroyed “the entire genre, in order to rebuild it” (to quote him from an interview). He has been helped by ‘a dream cast’ — Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Ralph Fiennes, Helen McCroy, Albert Finney, Bérénice Marlohe, Naomi Harris, Ben Whishaw, Ola Rapace and, of course, the Oscar-winning Spanish actor Javier Bardem, one of the most memorable villains in the entire James Bond series. This is apt for a film where the protagonist is not exactly perfect. Bond is incapable of shooting his target accurately and ends up losing. He kills a villain who was going to commit suicide in any case, and he fails to save the person whose assassination was the villain’s 38 goal. NOVEMBER 18-24 2012
The current director has completed the ‘reboot’ of James Bond and MI6 as symbolic representations of what Great Britain is in recent history: “We are not now that strength which in old days/ Moved heaven and earth…” These lines from Tennyson are juxtaposed with a worn-out James Bond, a besieged M, a tribunal of British parliamentarians and a former agent of the British secret service now turned into arch villain. The emerging theme is revenge through suicide, the strings of which are shown to be in the hands of a former British agent rather than anyone else. A British writer’s fantasy that Her Majesty’s government issues its servant a ‘license’ to kill people in other countries was a symbolic statement that Britain still rules the world. That may have been the reason why 007 sprang in the mind of Ian Fleming in 1952. It may also explain why Bond’s 23rd big-screen appearance at an exceptionally difficult time in British history has broken all records of firstweek revenues at the box office in that country.
REVIEW
each piece a masterpiece BY NOMAN ANSARI
How do you review a film like Cloud Atlas? With three directors, six stories, and an ensemble cast of actors who play multiple roles, this is a supremely ambitious sci-fi drama film unlike any I have ever seen. It is like six separate, yet poetically connected, orchestras, cleverly edited to play as one piece of music. Each tale has a beginning, middle and an end, with all six stories gradually raising the tempo in unison to a feverish pitch, where eventually each story’s climactic end follows the other, generating a series of powerful emotions that are delivered with a bravado that is only a bit short on subtlety. The film has a highly spiritual message about love and forgiveness, about selflessness and friendship, and above all, about karma. Cloud Atlas believably demonstrates the snowball effect of a small positive action which, if given the right circumstance and direction, can build into something powerful enough to tackle oppressive regimes. Three of the middle stories are directed by Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run), while the first and the final two are helmed by Lana and Andy Wachowski (The Matrix). Cloud Atlas begins somewhat confusingly, as it tries to establish characters from all six stories very quickly. Set in 1849, the first story is about Adam Ewing (Jim Sturgess), an American lawyer from San Francisco who, on a ship voyage, aids a stowaway slave. But he is slowly poisoned by an evil doctor, played by Tom Hanks, who is looking to steal Adam’s valuables. The second story, set in the United Kingdom in 1936, is emotionally the deepest. It is about the tormented Robert Frobisher (Ben Whishaw), a hugely talented musical composer who is victimised because of his bisexuality and forced to leave his lover, Rufus Sixsmith (James D’Arcy). Robert is in the process of composing the “The Cloud Atlas Sextet”, a masterpiece that finds appreciation in the future. The third piece takes place in California during 1973, where investigative journalist Luisa Rey (Halle Berry) meets the nuclear scientist Rufus Sixsmith (Tom Hanks). The fourth story is set in the United Kingdom in 2012, and centres around Timothy Cavendish (Jim Broadbent), a sixty-five-year-old publisher who runs into trouble with extortionists. This piece is the most amusing and endearing, although I couldn’t figure out the connection with the rest. Perhaps there wasn’t one. Aesthetically, narrative-wise, and in terms of action, the fifth story is the slickest and has the Wachowski sci-fi signature all over it. It stars Sonmi-451 (Bae Doona), a genetically created clone who is little more than a slave, until a rebel leader named Hae-Joo Chang (Jim Sturgess) rescues her. The story is set in Korea during 2144, and has a visual style straight out of Japanese animation. The final story is set in post-apocalyptic 2321, and is the film’s weakest in terms of narrative. The two main characters are Zachry 40 (Tom Hanks), a primitive tribesman, and Meronym (Halle Berry), a NOVEMBER 18-24 2012
member of an advanced civilisation left behind by colonists who deserted the planet. Meronym is in search of Cloud Atlas, a communication station that will enable her to send a help signal. But Zachry’s people refuse to help because of tribal superstitions. Oddly enough, Zachry constantly talks to an imaginary green demonic creature (Hugo Weaving), who looks hilariously silly and is a misfit in the film. The first five stories of Cloud Atlas are good enough to be fulllength feature films on their own. Yet Cloud Atlas has its flaws. Aside from the mediocre final story, the largest fault lies in the occasional uneven acting, where even veteran actors Tom Hanks and Halle Berry aren’t always up to the lofty challenges of their roles. They are, however, assisted by some outstanding makeup, which leaves many of the actors unrecognisable at first glance. Cloud Atlas reaches for the sky in terms of filmmaking. Although it doesn’t always accomplish its lofty goals, the fact that it tries so heartily is something to be admired, and makes it an endeavor worth watching.
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BY ALID ART
END OF THE LINE
Are you capable of drawing a straight line? Do you have a comic or doodle that you think will have us rolling on the floor with laughter? If you’ve answered yes to all
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those questions then send in your creations to magazine@tribune.com.pk NOVEMBER 18-24 2012