The first wave (circa 1967) was Anant Pai's Amar Chitra Katha which went on to release 436 issues in its first avatar and inspired a slew of publishers, including Diamond Comics and Bennett, Coleman & Company Limited (Indrajal Comics). The second wave includes recent efforts by entrepreneurs such as Sharad Devarajan and Richard Branson, and companies such as the Singapore-based Illustrated Orchids, to give an Indian feel to characters like Spiderman, render age-old Indian myths in popular styles ranging from manga to punk, or feed off India's movie mania with a line of Bollywood-inspired comics.

NEW RELEASES

THE JATAKAS: BIRTH STORIES OF THE BODHISATTA By Sarah Shaw Penguin Price: Rs 325; Pages: 339 The author traces the path of Bodhisatta through 26 stories, each of which reflects one of the 10 perfections-renunciation, wisdom, giving, restraint, strength, acceptance, truthfulness, resolve, kindness and equanimity. THE ILLUSTRATED PREMCHAND By David Rubin Oxford Price: Rs 195 Pages: 90 Rubin compiles 12 stories of the great Hindi writer, Premchand, keeping the young readers in mind. Each story is unique in its own way and offers a vivid glimpse of life in the villages and small towns of north India. THE SURAGI TREE By Prabhaker Acharya MapinLit Price: Not listed Pages: 452 The book takes the reader through six decades as it traces a path leading from a village in rural Karnataka, through a town, to the city of what was then Bombay, and then back again to where it all began.

The onset of the third wave should be cheered, but it is off to a bad start. The success, both historical and recent, of writer-creators such as Harvey Pekar (American Spendor), Daniel Clowes (Ghost World and Ice Haven), and Joe Sacco (Palestine, The Fixer) shows that themes ranging from the mundane life of a mundane man to the Palestine conflict can be dealt with through the medium of comics. The reader doesn't have to read between the lines, just follow them.

The Believers is a Cain and Abel story set in a modern-day Kerala that is witnessing the beginnings of a divide along religious lines. Hamid is the face of liberal Islam, an anthropologist in Edinburgh University. Rashid is that of militant Islam, pushed into violent ways by people and factors beyond his control. These are enough ingredients for a compelling story. If The Believers never achieves that hinted-at greatness, blame it on Abdul Sultan's prose and Partha Sengupta's illustrations.

The better-known authors of graphic novels are great writers in their own right. Sultan, alas, is not. His writing is clichéd (the smell of burnt fuel covered the smell of rural Kerala; as the sun got higher Hamid felt the moisture making his clothes cling to his body), uninspiring and flat. And Sengupta's illustrations are as uninspiring. His simple understated lines may work with stronger prose as Eddie Campbell's scribbles do with Alan Moore's text in From Hell, a retelling of the Jack the Ripper story, but are all but lost in The Believers.

Phantomville's first effort fails for the simple reason that there is more to a graphic novel than merely bringing words and pictures together. This reviewer believes in the future of the medium in India, but not in The Believers.