Kolkata Comics Karnival 2.0 – A Love Letter to the City's Comics Community

The Second Edition of the highly successful event once again sees the city's comic lovers come together for a weekend of excitement!
Kolkata 13th November, 2022: Kolkata Comics Karnival, a forum for comic book enthusiasts, creators and sellers was back with its second major event. Hosted at ICCR Kolkata from the 11thth to the 13th of November 2022, this event harbored some of the city's most enthusiastic comic book fans, cosplayers and comics creators across the span of three days.

Kolkata Comics Karnival 2.0 is the follow up to the highly successful inaugural event from May 2022. Originally organized by Kolkata Comics - a comic book store based in College Street, Kolkata - the event grew into what it is now with the combined help of several comic book creators, academics, enthusiasts and fandom groups. The shared goal: to celebrate the vibrant community of comic book lovers that the city is so proud to have in abundance and showcase their love for the industry.

Like its predecessor, the second edition of KCK is a forum for enthusiasts and creators to dive deep into the world of comics from a local perspective. From sellers, industry experts and fans; the aim being to create a fun and interactive experience that showcases the city's love for comic books and the work that goes into creating them. Attendees at the event were exposed to a wide range of activities that they could take part in, thanks to the contributions of the many stall owners, cosplayers, and guest panelists.

The following is a Day by Day Breakdown of the Three-Day event:

DAY 01

• The event kicked off with a Launch Pad session for several upcoming comics which included several esteemed creators showcasing their upcoming works. The highlight of this session was the esteemed Orijit Sen, who attended virtually, and took us through some exciting new projects that he had coming up soon.
  
• The second session of the day was on the history comics in Bengal and how the local culture has influenced this industry. We had riveting talking points from the panelists for this event: Pinaki De, Abhijit Gupta, and Rimi B. Chatterjee – all very prestigious academics and enthusiasts.
  
• The next session “Ray of Light” was held in anticipation of the upcoming Satyajit Ray Anthology collection, as well as the inspiration Ray's works have had on the comics culture of Bengal. Creators Harsho Mohan Chattoraj, Saurav Dutta and Charbak Dipta were the esteemed speakers for this session.
  
• “Longform – An Anthology of Subversion” was a sit-down with Debkumar Mitra and Pinaki De – two of the four creators of the highly successful LongForm collections of comic anthologies - to discuss how conventional stories can be told and subverted in new ways through the comics medium.
  
• The final session of the day was “Journey Into Mystery: Exploring Lovecraft in Comics” covered Lovecraft's impact on pop culture as a whole, and his surprising influence for Kolkata comic book creators who have been inspired to create fantastic stories filled with mystery and terror. This history, as well as some special Lovecraft inspired comics and upcoming new works were showcased by the guests: Harsho Mohan Chattoraj, Debojyoti Guha, Debojyoti Bhattacharya, and Dip Ghosh (Editor at Kalpabiswa).
  

DAY 02

• The second Day's events began with the Comics Workshop session, where creators Harsho Mohan Chattoraj, Charbok Dipta, Sujog Bandhopadhyay and Saurav Gain taught the enthusiastic audience how to make their own comics through a hands-on drawing session.
  
• Kolkata Comics founder and store owner, Subhomoy Kundu then spoke about his experiences on running a comic book business in Kolkata.
  
• The star studded “A History Between the Panels – Looking at the Greats of Bengali Comics” panel featured a host of Kolkata's comics creators including, Harsho Mohan Chattoraj, Rituparno Basu, Raj Kamal Rai, Dilip Das, Sujog Bandhopadhyay, Manojit Chattopadhyay and others who talked about the rich history of Bengal's great comics creators, how their influence that can still be felt today, and new ways in which creators are taking cues from and continuing their legacy to this day.
  
• Finally, the day ended on a high note with a gala Bengali comics quiz that had participants on their toes in an attempt to win some exciting prizes.
  

DAY 03

• The final day of the event began with a discussion on the history of Manga by Professor Ananya Saha, a highly respected manga comics scholar from JNU.
  
• The following Session “From Page to Stage – How Manga and Comics Translate into Cosplay” had artists Harsho Mohan Chattoraj and Charbak Dipta sit-down with some of the city's cosplay enthusiasts to discuss the cosplay process, their influences and how such talented presentations are ideated, created and performed.
  
• The main event of the day was the Cosplay competition which saw Kolkata's incredible cosplay community highlight their amazing costumes through stunning performances.
  
• The final panel of the day was held by members of The Comic Book Appreciation Society and DC Community of Bengal where a variety of topics from building fandom communities, diversity in recent comic book media and the importance of superheroes and other figures are for the fandom communities of the world.
  

Additionally, comic book art and poster design competitions were held to showcase the immense talent of the city's fans, with the chance to win some big prizes.

As Kolkata has always boasted a very rich and diverse comic book culture, KCK's aim was to highlight the passion and dedication that so many people have for industry and its continued success, with many more similar events and community building to come. And thanks to the support and help provided by every person involved with this event, it seems that process is well on its way.