Another flaming title from Campfire, after Nelson Mandela comes to my notepad this week. I know you’ve read the title, so no marks for guessing the name. So, this is a mythological title, in a narrative style, from none other than RAVANA: THE DEMON KING.
Story: Abhimanyu Singh Sisodia
Art: Sachin Nagar
Colors: Sachin Nagar
Letters: Ghan Shyam Joshi
How many comics have you read on Ravana? Many. How many of them were narrated by Ravana himself? None. So the main difference between this Ravana and other ones published is it’s a narrative style graphic novel, and it doesn’t only cover the EVIL Ramayana part, but includes his whole life, birth-education-family-war and everything else. Abhimanyu Singh Sisodia has done a nice job in collecting the facts- which is a very important factor when you’re doing a mythological title. There are so many details about Ravana in the story, but the author has missed some very important incidents, like the one with Shroopnakha with it. But it’s not a major deal, since the title is “Ravana: Roar of the Demon King” rather than “Shroopnakha: Nose of the Demon Princess”. I’ll like comparing this title with Holy Cow’s Ravanayan, once I get it. The book is extensively researched, as I mentioned earlier. For instance, I did know about the boon Ravana got from Brahma, but never knew about the boon which Kumbhkarna asked from him. Another title, from which I’m gonna compare it is Sita: Daughter of the Earth, whose initial pages tell about her origins, much like this one. But I don’t know about the war. Maybe, it is from Sita’s perspective there.
So what’s more in this title? Campfire explores the journey of a half demon-half Brahman, a music expert, a great devotee, an intelligent Brahman, an immortal demon, who had only one weakness- he didn’t attend ANGER MANAGEMENT classes at his gurukul. This comic tells us how Ravana was killed because he was a “अमीर दादा की बिगड़ी औलाद “ . The end of this graphic novel is quite sudden, it seems like they took an year explaining his childhood, and in a moment of Vibheeshan’s speech(bubble)less action, it all ended. There should be more about it, and since it’s about Ravana only, something about his post-death events too. But it’s fine, since it’s SHORT and SWEET. ‘Nuff about the story, now let’s come to the art.
The cover, art, and colors, all are done by one talented soul: Sachin Nagar. I LOVED the art. It’s different, unique, and AWESOME. Look at the frame below, not less than a masterpiece. The art comes out of the book, to give the reader a 3D experience, and it’s not only in the above frame, it’s in the whole book.
There are some places in the novel, where the art seems a little sluggish, due to a lot of effects, as below but who cares when the rest of the stuff is amazing. There are tints throughout the novel, somewhere red, blue, silver, yellow, green etc. The effects are nice, but over of anything causes trouble, doesn’t it? Nevertheless again, I’m happy to give the art a 4.5, neither more, nor less.
There are many beautiful sceneries in the book, with a tint, as usual. The below frame of Lanka, which has a yellow tint- to give the GOLDEN LANKA effect is nice. One and only thing that I didn’t understand was Pushpak Viman, was not a ratha, it was a hi-tech glider. (O.o)
RATING:
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