Speaking/showing silence in Appupen’s graphic novels

Abstract

There are two uniquely engaging qualities about Appupen’s works: first, all of his graphic novels are predominantly near-silent graphic novels with minimal use of words

and second, there is a conscious and sustained artistic effort towards myth-making in all his works. In the ‘post-millenial’ Indian graphic novels scenario, where much of what gets published can be neatly categorised into sub-genres such as graphic retellings of epics (Amruta Patil), Classics and Mythology/Biographical adaptations (Campfire titles), mock-superhero comics (Gotham/Virgin Comics), political satire and the city-dweller’s angst (Vishwajyoti Ghosh and Sarnath Banerjee), Appupen’s works stand out differently, in almost every aspect of comparison: content, art style, visual narrative structure and ideology. This difference in his oeuvre, allows the artist and his works to defy canonisation. While it may be difficult to pin down Appupen’s works to a genre/category, they can be treated as silent graphic novels. The focus of this paper would be to show how Appupen uses silence as both a motif and a technique in visual narration, to weave a world of modern mythology, the purpose of which is quite literally to draw out a parallel with our living world and make the reader/viewer rethink our potentially apocalyptic conditions. © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.