Hardbound Hardships of a Hardcore Commando Comic Buff.
The Commando Comics were a childhood favorite. Right through
till the end of college they told me stories of the 2nd World War,
taught me history as never before, and even introduced me to a powerful illustration
style that shaped my artistic sensibilities.
More importantly they gave me a wonderful understanding of
framing and composition. And gifted me (though I didn’t realize it then) the
skill of storyboarding.
In all fairness I must admit that the other comic books I
used to read, Archie, Richie Rich, Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, Sad Sack,
Phantom, Batman also ingrained in me the visual grammar that I found immensely
useful in my film making.
How to compose a long shot, how to transition to a mid-shot
or jump to a close up, and all this seamlessly, is an instinct honed, thanks to
all the comics I read. And the Commando Comics occupied pride of place within
this world.
Friends were made by these comics. We exchanged them, we
discussed them and even studied them in class or at home with them, often
hiding them between the pages of a text book.
The heroes of these books became role models. And the
roughly sketched stories became our history lessons. Since war moves were rare
and one off experiences, the Commando Comics especially became page turning
addictions.
And then one day, I just stopped reading them. Comic
characters vanished from the shelves and more verbose novels took up our
reading time. Perhaps the only illustrated story book we continued to read was
MAD Magazine.
With the later advent of Television, Video etc. the reading
habit itself took a beating and later, the availability of audio visual content
on handheld devices like the tabs and smart phones thanks to vastly improved
Internet Connectivity all but rang the death knell for the printed word.
Comic books became a distant memory, enjoyed once in a while
with a dash or two of malt or a brew. Giving me however a vicarious pleasure in
knowing that we had better comic books than our children. And that was
important, because most of the other childhood-teenage experiences that our
children had, were far better than what we were permitted by our times.
But comics…we had the best. And events like Comic Cons where
many of our later day idols came alive were living proof of that.
Now comes the fun part of my story.
Remember, that the beauty of a cherished memory is that
however deep inside your soul you tuck it away, the moment the right trigger is
pulled, the memory re-surfaces in our minds with the freshness of a secret life
and the intensity of a never forgotten passion.
And so it was, when in a random conversation with a young
friend I found that he had a collection of some Commando Comics that he was
willing to share with me.
My eyes began to twitch in anticipation. My pulse rate and
heart beat started practicing the high-low: fast-slow patterns that were an
intrinsic part of our comic book reading. My language skills came to life as
familiar World War Words came back into regular parlance. ACHTUNG!!! Eintritt
verboten. SCHNELL!!! Banzai!!! And words of that vintage crept back into
conversation.
A couple of days later my friend placed in my hands what I
thought was the Holy Grail. A set of Commando Comics hard bound into a
Collection. I couldn’t wait to reach home and begin to devour the tales. I was
salivating and my digestive juices were prepping themselves for some heavy duty
action as I fed my appetite with stories from a war that the world had possibly
forgotten.
Dinner done with in a hurry, I slipped into my night clothes
and after finishing with some medicinal formalities, tucked myself into bed,
all ready for some in-bed reading.
And then disaster struck. The hard bound comic collection
was not bed reading friendly. It was too thick and too heavy for my single hand
to hold. And the book was in too pristine a condition to allow me to drop it to
the floor as I fell asleep.
So I shifted to my writing table. And in the shaded light of
my reading lamp I began the dive into the battle zone.
Within a few minutes this old soldier knew that his days at
the front were over. The veteran had to wait for the even light of the day to
be able to tackle the tales of bravery.
But sitting at a desk in broad daylight had never been his
thing. So the book is taking longer to read.
The magic is the same. The narrative as gripping. The war is
not yet over.
And the book has not yet been returned…
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