The realist strain of Sacco is being followed up here too. Phantomville, the publishing house set up by Banerjee in 2006 exclusively for graphic novels, is taking its first steps into reportage and contemporary history. Of the three non-fiction narratives it has commissioned for publication next year, one is an investigation into the Vidarbha suicides and the second a collection of ten photo-text essays on Pakistan. The third is a first-person account of the changing neighbourhood of Bandra as seen through the author’s—TimeOut editor-at-large Naresh Fernandes—eyes. The works will be collaborative. Once the text is in, Phantomville’s illustrators and editors enter the scene. Mainstream publishing houses are also keen to test the flexibility of the form. Harper Collins, which brought out Kari, a graphic novel by Amruta Patil, last year, has lined up three works for next year. One is a personal account of the Emergency.

Comic art and realism? “If you look at it, a graphic novelist has to be visually authentic. If you are showing the world through images, you cannot but be true to the world,” says V. Karthika, editor, HarperCollins. Fernandes had sat down to write an essay on how Bandra’s Hill Road had changed in 90 years (his grandmother’s lifetime) from being a rustic road “without a spot of tar to an address of urban chaos” when he realised his story was much better told through pictures. “Sarnath’s idea of converting it into a graphic novel made sense. Hill Street, with its mix of quirky characters, jazz musicians, old firms, Mehboob Studio and old Russians was just the vehicle for this form,” he says.

... contd.