Thejoumal o[Vaishnava Studies (JVS) is a bianu~, interdi<;ciplinary refereed JOURNAL OFVAISHNAVA STUDIES

publication dedicated to the in-depth study of the Vaishnava traditions of Volume 21 No. 2 Spring 2013
India, from ancient t.in1es to the present. The journal presents Lhe research
of Vaishnava scholars and scholars of Vaishnavism, thus representing both
practitioner and academic perspectives.
Introduction 1
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Iconography and its Relationship to Vaishnavism
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Contributors
 TRANSLATING VISHNU
NATIVE :\NTIJITION AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF MEANING IN
lUMAYAN 3392 AD AND KRISHNA: A}OVRNEY WITifJNl

Caleb Simmons

n the first episode of King of the Hill (season 3), one of the characters, named

I Kahn, delivers a eulogy in the form of a short Buddhist narrative about a

man being chased by a tiger. The man was forced to leap off a cliff only to
catch himself on a bush whose roots would inevitably break free from the rocks
sending him plummeting to his death. There, caught between these two vehicles
of inevitable death-the tiger and the cliff-he saw a strawberry. The man ate
the fruit and he found it to be the sweetest fruit that he had ever tasted. The
allegorical meaning of the tale was completely lost on the funeral attendees,
leaving the show's protagonist Hank to comment, "Can you believe this guy. He
tells a joke at a funeral."
Wilfred Cantwell Smith briefly wrote about the history of this narrative and
its many variations in his book Towards a World Theology in which he traces the
history of a Christian version of the story, which had influenced Tolstoi. He
demonstrates the shifting identity of the story's protagonist from the Christian
name Josaphat to a Muslim Arabic to Yudasaf and finally to a Buddhist bodhisat-
tva.2 Smith uses this story to argue that the theologies of all the religions of the
world are intertwined and, therefore, a unified theology of the world is possible.
Whether or not one agrees .or disagrees with Smith's conclusion, his methodology
leads us to seriously consider the processes through which narratives are dissemi-
nated and translated from one cultural context to another. Some of the processes
that the story had undergone are immediately recognizable such as the linguistic
translations (here: bodhisattva to Yudasaf to Josaphat) while other forms of trans-
lation are more nuanced, subtle, and less recognizable---the slight changing of the
type of fruit, the roots of the bush being changed to a rope, or the cliff becoming
a well. These latter less obvious modes of translation are the most intriguing for
scholarly consideration.
195
 196 Journal ofVaishnava Studies
The opening of this essay with a Buddhist narrative spoken through the mouth
of a contemporary American adult cartoon series was not merely an opening
conceit. Rather, it demonstrates the continuing translation and processes of
reception of religious narratives into different cultural contexts and mediums.
It also provides an example of failed translation-the allegorical meaning of the
Buddhist tale, which had been successfully integrated into many other contexts,
was lost on Kahn's audience.
In this essay, I will explore the processes through which a narrative undergoes
when being inserted into an entirely foreign context in which the audience lacks
any frame of reference with which they can relate to the tale. I will discuss the
translation of two Vaishnava narratives-the Ramcfy~ and the life of Krishna-
into the American comic book/graphic novel vernacular as articulated in the
American comic book serial Ramcfyan 3392 AD and Krishna: A journey Within by the
illustrator and author Abhishek Singh.3 Through an analysis of this contemporary
translation process, we can see how, at times, elements of a story are explicitly
and intentionally manipulated and changed as part of the very process of transla-
tion. My discussion of this cultural exchange will focus on the strategies through
which these narratives are delivered to a non-native audience, many of whom
would be unfamiliar with the story, its setting, and its characters. To harken back
to Kahn and the unsuccessful reception of the allegorical Buddhist narrative, I
suggest that these translations must draw upon the audiences' pool of signifiers to
be meaningful. Without the use of these culturally substantive signifiers, the con-
tent and meaning remain unfamiliar, ineffective, and meaningless.
Before I begin my discussion of these two texts or the processes and strategies
of translation that culminate in their final commercial form, let me begin by dis-
cussing my choice to engage the material through the lens of'translation' and my
employment of the term 'vernacular.' I use the word translation for several rea-
sons. First, I employ the term following A. K. Ramanujan's theory of translation in
which he extended the narrower lingnistic concept to the Indian epics.• Ramanu-
jan argues that within India the epics-and I would add many other puranic
narratives-become incorporated into the native intuition of Indians through
life-long interaction with the stories and characters. Through the constant inun-
dation of plot and characters in every strata of culture-be it popular, political,
etc.-and a constant interaction with the geographical landscape of the stories,
they become laden with meanings that range from the explicit and implicit to the
physical and spiritual and so on. As such, epic material forms a bountiful pool of
signifiers for Indian society that operate as a sort of independent language. Just as
language is picked up by osmosis, these epic signi£iers are learned without being
Riimiiyan 3392 AD and Krishna: A]oumey Within 197
learned, which led Ramanujan to famously observe that Indians never hear these
narratives for the first time. The epics continue to function as language within the
Indian subcontinent as they, like the construction of new sentences, can be rear-
ranged and developed into new renditions from the features embedded within
that narrative pool of signifiers. For Ramanujan such pervasive elements of cul-
ture function as a language giving meaning to one's life and forming a means of
societally particularized communication and, as such, only the members of that
society can ever truly grasp. Therefore, when the stories of Rama and Krishna, for
example, are taken from their native context and rendered into another cultural
milieu, it necessitates a translation of the story into a new set of signifiers that
have meaning for the new audience. In the case of the works under consideration :1'
!II
in this essay, the narratives have been altered to suit the sensibilities of the Amer- ,'i'
ican comic book and graphic novel market.
Additionally, I employ the term 'translation' because comics have a distinct
language through which the artists and authors have had to communicate. 5 In
the burgeoning field of comic studies, scholars have suggested that the structure
of comics is a unique language--or, at least, a distinct dialect-that has a unique
syntax and structure. Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics is a grammatical
textbook of sorts in which the distinctive grammatical structures are explained
for lay readers in comic format. By modeling comic language in this way, he dem-
onstrates an effective and intelligible rendering of the image-text comic format. 6
On the other hand, taking a far more classical linguistic approach, Neil Cohn
dissects the various aspects of comic language in order to show how the combina-
tion of text and image follow an implicit set of rules that if deviated too far from
become incomprehensible to the reader.' The comic syntax and structure, as is
explained in each of these works, involves a complex system of panels in which
both image and text are displayed. Different illustrated elements are employed to
signal direct speech (speech bubbles), thoughts (thought bubbles), and narration
(narration blocks). Additionally, other non-verbal elements are employed within
the text or image to express other sentiments, such as anger, exasperation, or
sadness, which include different styles of lettering and metaphorical symbols, or
what Joseph Witek calls visual puns or word surrogates (e.g., clouds, explosions,
etc.).8 The structure also extends beyond the individual frames. The illustrator
arranges the panels in a particular sequence using the blank space (commonly
called 'white space') between the panels that operate as a form of punctuation.
The layout of image/text, space, and sequence creates a distinctive mood and
sense of time that directs the reader through the comic while simultaneously
developing both the diegetic and extra-diegetic world of the comic.9 Due to the
:11
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198 Journal of Yaishnava Studies
complex graphic and textual grammar of comics, I refrain from using the com-
mon scholarly parlance 'sequential art,' in favor of employing the popular term
'comic' when discussing the textual and graphic language employed by the ~e­
ators of Ramiiyan 3392 AD and Krishna: Ajourney Within.
Finally, I have chosen to use the term 'vernacular' for a variety of reasons. first,
within the study of South Asian religions, there has been a great deal of discussion
about the concept of the 'vernacular,' often in contradistinction to Sanskritic cul-
ture and/or language. The relationship between regional languages and Sanskrit
has been cast is a variety of dyes by scholars from Sheldon Pollock-whose work
traces the rise of the 'vernacular' court from the Sanskrit cosmopolis-to postco-
lonial critiques of Orientalist exaltation of Sanskrit at the expense of the regional
languages. Others, such as Joyce Flueckiger, have used the term in an extra-
linguistic sense to discuss local forms of embedded ritual practice. In all cases,
the term 'vernacular' has been critiqued because it implies that the vernacular
(linguistic or otherwise) exists in contrast with some higher elite form, creating
a high versus low or normative versus non-normative dichotomy. It is for this
very reason that Kajri Jain in Gods of the Bazaar reworks the term to explain the
phenomenon of calendar art. For her, the 'vernacular' is nonstandard yet normal,
associated with a specific identity but not territorially bounded, and in contrast
with dominant society (i.e. subaltern) yet not always subordinate. ID
I follow Jain's definition of the term as it encapsulates the varied history of
comic book culture. Indeed, for many years, comic books have been viewed as
a lower literary form that distracts adolescents from more sophisticated litera-
ture.11 During the 1940s and 50s, comics, especially those published by EC Com-
ics, came under an immense amount of scrutiny for their gory and violent sub-
ject matter. This ultimately lead to the formation of the Comics Code Authority
in 1954, a body that regulated the content of comic books. The general consen-
sus was and, to some extent, continues to be that comic readers have weaker
minds and are apt to become violent through the influence of comic material.12
This led to a two-fold trajectory of comic culture: a mainstream comic culture
seen as an inferior but wholesome time-pass of children (think: Archie, Super-
man, etc.) as well as a vibrant sub-culture of adult-themed comics and graphic
novels.
The latter subculture developed both visual and textual art into an arena
that dealt with issues that were often deemed to risque or taboo for mainstream
society. In his work on underground comics, Joseph Witek shows this non-
standard form of comics-in contrast with the mainstream hnmor and super-
hero comics-created a format for more nuanced readings of past events and
Riimifyan 3392 AD and Krishna: Ajourney Within 199
the construction of alternative histories. 13 Having emerged into the mainstream
in the 1980s, the underground comic culture brought with it a heavy dose of
realism and moral ambiguity, most famously seen in the work of Frank Miller
(i.e. Batman: The Dark Knight Retums, 1986) and Alan Moore (i.e. Watchmen, 1987).
Through a complex dialectical process, these two distinct trajectories of comic
culture combined to produce our contemporary comic style. Martin Barker has
argued, in a similar fashion to Ramanujan's work on Indian epics, that these two
distinct paths formed a complex system ungraspable to someone outside the
community and who has not grown-up with the medium.14
Since the 1980s, graphic novels and comic books have enjoyed both criti-
cal and popular acclaim as exemplified by the 1986 National Book Critics Circle
nomination for biography and Pulitzer Prize win in 1992 by Art Spiegehnan's
graphic novel Maus: A Survivor's Tale and the recent record-breaking ticket sales
of superhero fihns such as Iron Man 2 and The Avengers. As a result, it would be
impossible to classify comic culture as subordinate or non-normative. Yet some-
how, comics-much like the calendar art discussed by Jain-remain isolated and
distinct from other culture productions that necessitates a process of transla-
tion into what I call 'the comic vernacular.' Now, let us tum to the processes
and strategies through which the stories of the Indian heroes Rama and Krishna
were translated into the comic vernacular. 'i.'I
In 2006 Virgin Comics was formed as a multinational joint corporate venture (
between Richard Branson's British Virgin Group Limited and Gotham Chopra's 11
U.S. based Gotham Comics. 15 Virgin Comics was ultimately launched as a joint '
venture by Richard Branson, the inspirational author Deepak Chopra, the film-
maker and director Shekhar Kapur, and Gotham Entertaimnent of Mnmbai.1 6 ' '
I ,I
The primary aim of Virgin Comics was to make Indian culture marketable in the
West-a strategy on which Deepak Chopra has built his career. The executives
of the newly formed corporation sought to enter the highly competitive and
lucrative superhero comic book market in the United States.
In order to find their own niche within the comic book landscape that is
monopolized by several juggernauts, namely Marvel and D.C. comics, Virgin
introduced a variety of novel publications into the market. One such pro-
gram was the release of their "Shakti Series," which re-imagined traditional
Indian narratives through the vocabulary of superhero comic books. Its titles
included Devi, a story about a heroine possessed by the Goddess who fights
crime in the fictional city of Sitapur; India Authentic, a creative retelling of the
stories of Hindu deities; and Riimiiyan 3392 AD, a futuristic fantasy retelling of the
.Ra:miiya1,la narrative.
 200 Journal of Vaishnava Studies
l Riimifyan 3392 AD and Krishna: AJourney Within
Figure 1. Image from R.amiiyan 3392 AD.
(Copyright© 2006, Virgin Comics. Used with permission.)
. For this enterprise, comic books were only to be the beginning. The stated
VISlo.n of the company was to tap into the recent success of film adaptations of
conncs and graphic novels (like X-Men, Spiderman, Sin City, etc.), as Gotham Enter-
tamment had done previously with Bulletproof Monk. Shortly after going into
busrness rn 2006, Virgin published titles created by leading film directors includ-
ing Guy Richie, John Woo, and Kapur. One common feature amongst the "Shakti
Series" was Virgin Comics active construction of Indian deities within the mold of
Western superheroes. In April of 2008, Virgin announced that Stan Lee-creator of
the comic sensations The Amazing Spiderman, X-Men, The Fantastic Four, Daredvi~ The
Incredible Hulk, among many others-would be a superhero advisor for new comic
books.
The connection with Lee whose creations are easily adaptable and highly suc-
cessful crossovers to film demonstrated Virgin's drive for a wider market through
the film industry. Indeed, the strategy seemed to work and Virgin's Rarniiyan3392
201
AD quickly went into production in association with Mandalay Pictures and Mark
Canton (producer) set for a 2011 release, but it never came to fruition.
Virgin's active adaptation of Hindu gods and goddesses for Western consump-
tion brings up numerous issues of power, politics, appropriation, misappropria-
tion, and colonialism that are all ripe for evaluation and theorizing; however, this
process, when viewed as a process of translation from one linguistic unit with a
particular pool of signifiers into another completely different linguistic unit, is not
dissimilar to the products of millennia of translations (both linguistic, in the nar-
row sense, and cU!tural).
Chopra and Kapur confirm their project as a process of translation in their
introduction to Riimiiyan 3392 AD Reloaded (TPB) 112 in which the creators of the
series explain their understanding of Indian stories within the broader context of 11 •
1
I'·'
a globalized "cross-cultural, post-modern multi-ethnic" world, which is the Roset- I
ta stone for delivering these narratives to the "West."17 They explain that Rama,
though his face and name are not familiar in the "West," is known throughout
the world because his story is known in all cultures as the "hero." He cites Joseph
Campbell's "seminal work" A Hero with a Thousand Faces as he explains that Rama is
an ancient character that is applicable to all places and all times. For Chopra and
Kapur, Rama fits the profile of the ancient, modern, and futuristic superhero-all
of whom culminate in the form of the comic superhero. These statements quite
poignantly sununarize Virgin's project for the heroes and heroines of Indian
mythology, and it expresses how the company justifies lifting the tales from their
cultural context and reshaping them for a foreign audience, through the comic
vernacular in which they believed Rama is most at home. By placing Rama into
this mold, Virgin Comics was not attempting to educate the world in Indian cul- I I
ture, but it was seeking to translate Indian narratives into comic culture.
Abhishek Singh, one of the original illustrators for the series, who was active
in the formative stages of the process, was acutely aware of the difficulty entailed
in the recreation of Indian narratives for superhero comics.1 8 When he was hired,
Virgin Comics was in the process of creating the comic book serial Spidennan: India
in which they creators were undertaking the tedious task of translating Spider-
man into the Indian pool of signifiers (e.g., Peter Parker became the dhoti-wearing
Pavitr Prabhakar and Mary Jane became Meera Jain). As they worked through
the issues, the idea emerged that a comic book should be made using Indian
characters gleaning from the plethora of heroes and heroines readily available.
Fortuitously, Singh, who was just out of college, approached Gotham Comics Asia
with the idea to create a comic book from in which the story of the Riimiiyar:ia was I I
retold through the medium. Together, the idea quickly grew to the point that it
I,',
I
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202 Journal of Vaishnava Stuclies
seemed suited for a larger and "Western" market. From there, Ramilyan 3392 AD
wasbom.
. As Singh had been vital to the creative process, he was assigned as one of the
illustrators for the series, which gave him the project through which he could fiilly
consider the process of creating the RamayaJ;la narrative in a comic vernacular.
Indeed, the construction of a "visual language" that effectively incorporated the
s~ture and syntax of comics yet remained true to traditional re-tellings of the
~a was extremely important for him. For Singh, the process of creating
Ramayan 3392 AD was part of a larger project of developing an Indian visual lan-
guage that would rival Japanese manga in the American market and Amar Citra
Katha within the Indian market. His goal was a unique realm of distinctly Indian
creativity that was independent of American or Japanese popular media. For him,
if this goal was to be reached, the Indian artist must look back into the subconti-
nents artistic history and infuse the contemporary style with that tradition and
its value system and incorporate current Indian perspectives. However, Virgin's
executives and editonal staff were interested in the immediate success of the
comic book and not an extended quest for a new vernacular. Thus, Singh's theory
of visual language had to be adapted for "compatibility" with the superhero comic
vernacular, as the project became focused on a one-way translation of the mate-
rial into the 'language' of the desired audience.
Sin?'_continued to reflect on the processes through which he was submitting
the Riimayai:ia tradition. To successfully translate the narrative, he believed that
the visual language of the retelling must adapt elements of Indian visual culture
into the "elements of creative expression" in the American comic book vernacu-
lar. The translation was envisioned as afive part cyclical process. First the transla-
tor .begins with (1) ideas-ideas, whose expression is driven by conte~ (here: the
Indian.epic pool of signifiers). Next, the (2) context must be adapted. The (3) adap-
tation is governed by (4) mterest, which is stimulated through the effective usage
?f the target groups pool of signifiers (here: superhero comic vernacular). Once it
is (s) accepted, the expression once again exists on the level of the (1) idea having
been successfully mtegrated within the new context.19 Therefore, Singh and the
other creator.s of Riimilyan 3392 AD began the project of making Rama and his tale
into an Amencan superhero comic.
Due to the size of the proj~ct Singh's role as illustrator limited his ability to
fully engage with the translation on all levels, but the visual aspect of the trans-
lat10n c~ntmued to be a difficult task. In his initial sketches, Singh sought to
make Rama look more "Indian" with a slim frame that was suited for "India's
tropical climate,'' thinking that the vascular cut physique that is typically rep-
Ramiiyan 3392 AD and Krishna: A]oumey Within 203
resented in American comic books did not encapsulate the essence of the epic's
hero. He also paid particular attention to the hero's eyes making them large and
oval, which for Singh is one of the quintessential Indian traits. These sketches,
however, were never published but started a series of translation negotiations
between the artist and the executives who sought a different type of hero-one
more like the sketches previously discarded by Singh. Singh and his co-workers
then set about altering the representation of Rama in which he was completely
transformed from an Indian deity into a universal superhero, or as Singh put it,
they "made him ['and the story] less Indian."
While the "Indian-ness" of the project was an integral part of Singh's vision
for the narrative, it was not as important to the executives including the famous
names, Deepak Chopra and Shekhar Kapur, who functioned as chief visionaries
of the project. Ron Marz, an acclaimed comic book writer and the editor for
Virgin's "Shakti Series" to which Riimiiyan3392 AD belonged, took it one step fur-
ther in his introductory essay to the Ramilyan 3392 AD Reloaded trade paperback
titled "Rama is my hero," in which he says ''. .. once I dug into the material, I
realized Rama's journey was already familiar to me. He's Beowulf, he's Luke
skywalker, he's any of the other heroes you'd care to name. The trappings here
may be unfamiliar, the names may be strange at first. But you kuow this story
too, because it's part of who we are (emphasis added)." In this quote, as well as
in the selection from Chopra and Kapur referred to above, it becomes obvious
that the editors and executives had no intention to preserve the narrative's
tradition, but viewed the cultural specificities as mere "trappings" that one
ought not worry about. The narrative is simply a re-manifestation of any other
familiar hero, several of whom are from the Euro-American narrative context.
In Marz's phrase "it's part of who we are," the "we" refers to the target Anglo-
American audience-a sentiment that was echoed in my conversations with
Singh, whose Rama had ceased to look Indian (and perhaps even like Rama) and
been (re)created in an American ideal image (as Superman, perhaps, or maybe
even a Calvin Klein underwear model).
The Riimiiyan 3392 AD translation was ultimately ineffective as it never really
gained any large following either in the US or in India. In 2009-2010, I was able
to visit youth hostels in India as well as comic book conventions where I con-
ducted interviews and focus groups with Indians, who were largely unfamiliar
I 1i
with superhero comic books, as well as with Americans who were largely unfa-
miliar with Indian culture and the Rimya~ narrative.20 In these sessions, I
had the participants read the first trade paper back of the series and give me
their feedback about the style and content. For the most part, both sets of par-
,, I
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204 Journal ofVaishnava Smdies
ticipant were slightly (and sometimes greatly confused) by the material. The
common response of the Indian participants was questions about why ~am
was depicted in the future when he was from the past as well as why the setting
was in space and not in India? The Americans cited both the lack of moral ambi-
guity and character development within the narrative and the over usage of
"strange" Indian words, which was somewhat odd given that the lexical history
of superhero comics has given us words like 'kryptonite' and 'adamantium.' For
me this points to the underlying issue which is that Riimiiyan 3392 removed the
Ramayana from its native context; however, it was not fully integrated into the
new context, thus rendering it an ineffective translation that is incomprehen-
sible to either side.
After leaving Virgin due to creative differences, Abhishek Singh decided to
once again attempt to develop a uniquely Indian comic style using Indian themes,
artistic elements, body structure, and narrative. After over four years of work, his
exploration resulted in Image Comics publishing Krishna: Ajourney Within.
Figure 2. Cover of Krishna: AJourney Within
(Used with permission,© Abhishek Singh.)
Riimiiyan 3392 AD and Krishna: A]ourney Within 205
Singh took a different approach in the creation of Krishna. Instead of primari-
ly looking outward and focusing on the target genre, he intentionally prolonged
the writing and illustrating of the graphic novel in order to digest native modes
of understanding the story of Krishna's life. However, his native intuition is an
interesting confluence of Indian and Western influence. In the afterward to
the graphic noveL Singh acknowledges that his retelling of the life of Krishna
was influenced by the Bhagaviidgfta and Bhagavatapuriil}a commentaries and
translations by A. C. Bhaktivedanta and Yogananda Paramahamsa. While he
was conducting research for the book, he also read many other English editions
from teachers like Osho, that have been widely read and have played an influ-
ential role in the 'West;' he was also inspired by Western musicians, like Pink
Floyd. In addition to these non-Indian forms of inspiration and source material,
Singh was also influenced by Indian literature, such as Yiigandhar by Mrnalini
Sivaji Savanta as well as traditional forms oflndian art, such as miniature and folk
paintings. Therefore, in the process of translating the Krishna narrative, Singh
was not attempting a wholesale recreation, as had been the case in Riimiiyan 3392
AD. Instead, he worked from an intermediary point from which the distance of
translation was more manageable as he incorporated a retelling of the narratives
that had already been constructed for a non-Indian audience while still introduc-
ing artistic elements from his Indian background.
By working from a point closer to the target audience and by allowing for a
longer process time, Singh was able to push many of the boundaries of typical
graphic novel style. The most successful aspect of Riimiiyan 3392 AD and the entire
Virgin line has been its artwork. Many critics and comic connoisseurs have raved I
'I
about the intriguing style of art contained within the series, which even gave
rise to an exhibition of its art in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2009.
However, within the commercial framework of the superhero genre, the stylis-
tic boundaries-like the Indian features discussed above-could only be pushed
so far. Singh's art in the series was an unusual style in which he lightly penciled
the image and inked them in wispy black brush strokes on large parchment that
would then be scanned and digitally colored/inked. The digital inking, which was
more often than not, very dark and a bit rigid would often mask what seemed to
be an underlying sense of grace that Singh was trying to convey. In Krishna, Singh
took on the task of penciling, inking, and coloring the entire book on his own. He
returned to many of his initial explorations of the Indian hero and moved forward
using his paradigmatic 'Indian' form in his illustrations in an attempt to develop
something unique and something truer to his own context by developing an
Indian aesthetic that could connect with the American comic book vernacular.
 206 Journal of Vaishnava Studies
Since Singh was author and illustrator of Krishna, he had greater flexibility
and the ability to match the coloring to the penciling and inking tq achie'le the
mood that he had intended to convey. The styles of the resulting images exhibit
a wide range ohechniques and technologies as well as mood. In the majority of
the graphic novel, Singh progresses the narrative in the style of traditional comic
illustrations that depicts the actions and dialogues of the characters. However, he
introduces two new effective styles that lie at the opposite ends of the technical
spectrum-scenes that were created entirely digitally and those that have been
inked in watercolor. According to Singh these styles helped him "articulate in a
creative medium" a 'journey to the other reahn of the dreamer" in a manner that
could be "understood and internalized. "21 Singh illustrates with both of these
styles when he seeks to convey different senses of scope and atmosphere within
the narrative. He uses the digital style in panels in which the vastness of the scene
is necessary, for example when Krishna is contemplating existence, when the cos-
mic nature of Krishna is being expressed, or when the scope of the world is being
taken mto consideration. This technique is used throughout the novel as well as
the beginning and end panels and provides a depth through which Singh is able
to express an inexpressible cosmic scope that forms the foundation of the book.
The scenes in which he inks in watercolor set a very different mood. In con-
trast to the vast scope of the digital images, the watercolors express fluidity, vicin-
ity, and ethereality. These images appear ouly in the riisalila section of Krishna, but
they convey a mood that is reminiscent of bhakti poetry that envisions the same
sensual play of Krishna with the gopis. In these images, Krishna and the gopis flu-
idly envelope one another, almost merging together but still remaining distinct
The panels ooze with visceral sensuality, yet they convey the eminent spiritual
undercurrent of the scene. They stand in contrast to the other scenes that portray
the entITely transcendent forms of Krishna, such as the ViSvarilpa, which were
penciled and inked digitally.
Despite the novelty ofSingh's artistic style, he has arranged the graphic novel
in traditional comic manner following the standard panel sequence with the
inclusion of ample white space to direct as well as allow for the reader the free-
dom to imagine the diegetic world between the panels. Therefore, Singh is able
to engage the regular comic reader by employing the standard comic vernacular
throughout Krishna, while introducing her to a new style that is uniquely Singh's,
mcorporating many elements of Indian aesthetics. These amalgam of illustrative
and narrative styles also always Singh to maintain articulate, both in the tex-
tual narrative and illustrations, the divinity of Krishna, which had been entirely
removed from his role as the hero in Rilmiiyan 3392 AD. By adding the cosmic
Riimiiyan 3392 AD and Krishna: A]oumey Within 207 r
and transcendent quality of Krishna to his graphic novel, Singh gave the narra-
tive an element of depth, which is absolutely critical to a contemporary graphic
novel. Additionally, by expressing the divinity of Krishna, Singh demonstrates
that Krishna is not simply a hero, but he is also a deity that continues to be wor-
shipped throughout the world. 22 While the Virgin Comic's project was overly con-
cerned with a complete translation process that adapted Indian narratives into
the superhero comic vernacular, in Krishna Singh started from points of common-
ality from which he was able to effectively introduce a variety of new elements
and remain true to its original context without disturbing either pool of signifiers.
In conclusion, the process through which narratives have been translated from
one context to another is complex. The role of the translator is to remain true
to the original while simultaneously rendering it into a completely foreign con-
text. For this to be done effectively, the translator must find a confluence of the
pools of signifiers from which to work. In the case ofRiimiiyan3392 AD, the process
became too focused on the target vernacular and lost much of the meaning that
made the Riimiiya:J1a narrative so powerful. However, in Krishna: A journey Within
the process developed more slowly and organically, giving rise to a dialectical
process that focused on an expression of the story that remained true to the origi-
nal context but was also intelligible within its new comic book vernacular.
Endnotes
1. Special thanks to Abhishek Singh, who graciously sat through several hours of
interviews and answered all of my questions, no matter how odd. Thanks are also due to
Sarah Hicks and Mekhola Gomes for their comments on drafts of this essay.
2. A special note of thanks is due to Vasudha Narayanan for recognizing the story and
pointing me to the writings ofW. C. Smith.
3. All information concerning Abhishek Singh has been gathered through personal
i~teracon and formal interviews from the summer of 2009 through the summer of 2010
and in the fall 2012 through spring 2013.
4. Ramanujan 1991a and 1991b.
5. Throughout this article, I will employ the term 'comics' for a wide array of literature
that employs sequential art along with text. This includes, but is not limited to, comic
strips, comic books, and graphic novels.
6. Mccloud 1993.
7. Cohn 2003.
8. Witek 1989, 34.
9. Pascal Lefevre, "The construction of space in comics" in Heer and Worcester 2009.
10.Jain 2007, 14-15.
11. In his essay "Why are comics still in ~earch of cultural legitimization?," Thierry
 ,-

Riimiiyan 3392 AD and Krishna: A journey Within 209

208 Journal of Vaishnava S~dies

Ramanujan, A.K. 199la. "Repetition in the Mahabharata" in Arvind Sharma, ed.

Groensteen highlights the four modes of critique against !:Omics, which he enwnerates as:
1) It is a hybrid/cross-breeding between text and image, 2) Its storytelling is at the level of Essays on the Mahabharata.
sub-literature, 3) It has connections to a common and inferior branch of visual art (nfilnely, - - - - - - - . 1991b. ''Three Hundred Ramayanas" in Paula Richman, ed. Many
caricature), and 4) even though it is now frequently intended for adults, comics propose Ramayanas.
nothing other than a return to childhood. (Groensteen in A Comic Studies Reader). Singh, Abhishek. 2005. "Ramayana-The Epic Reborn." Unpublished Diploma Pro-
12. Baker 1989. ject National Institute of Design: Ahmedabad.
13. Witek 1989. Witek, Joseph. 1989. Comic Books as History. Oxford, MS: University Press of Missis-
14. Barker 1989, 108. sippi.
15. Gotham Comics Asia and Gotham Entertainment were already active in the Indian
comic book market reprinting older comics and developing Spiderman: India and was
crucial to in the formation of the Virgin Comics conglomerate.
16. They published the graphic novel Bulletproof Monk, which was later made into a
film by the same name by director John Woo.
17. Riimiiyan3392 A.D. Reloaded: Tome of the Wasteland.
18. All information concerning Abhishek Singh has been gathered through personal
interaction and formal interviews from the summer of 2009 through the sunnner of 2010
and from his Diploma Project from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad (2005).
19. Singh 2005, 72.
20. The Riimiiyan 3392 AD series was and remains fairly popular amongst groups that
have an above average knowledge ofboth comic books and Indian culture.
21. Personal correspondence 15 March 2013.
22. In Knowles 2007, the author even makes the case ~tour superheroes have become
the gods of the modern age.

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