In these comics,ink meets eco

Shikari Shambu may not have succeeded in shooting a single animal in his career, but he was still a hunter, gun in hand.

Not this Shambu though. In his new avatar, the hunter has turned conservationist. He shoots, but only with a camera, and takes children around on safaris to grasslands in Maharashtra, explaining which animal and bird species are going extinct because of encroachment.

It’s not just Shambu. Suppandi, another favourite Tinkle character, too has become an eco-warrior in the latest series of ‘Tinkle Explains’, which has appeared in the popular children’s magazine, created in collaboration with Bengaluru-based research organisation Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment (ATREE).

“While environmental issues have been presented earlier in comic books, this is the first time current research in the field has found a place,” says Gayathri Chandrasekharan, editor-in-chief, Tinkle.

In fact, the past few years has seen a boom in illustrators putting out cartoon strips on social media that spotlight environment issues. “The impact is immense,” says Ashvini Menon, copywriter, who has a comic strip, ‘Overherd’.

Ashvini started out on social media and her work was later picked up by mainstream publications. She currently does strips for bimonthly newsletter ‘Protected Area Update’. The strips have just two panels each, and sometimes no text at all, but convey the ideas forcefully. One of her latest was on how tiger claw jewellery is being flaunted by Bollywood celebrities despite it being illegal, and the cruelty behind the making.

“Many of us call ourselves nature lovers but our daily lives are such that we are unaware of the impact of our actions – consumerism, the use of electricity and the kind of products we buy. We are also disconnected from what is happening in the field of environmental research,” she says.

Tinkle, says Gayathri, has always had features on nature since its inception. “But these are outputs from papers which are being written today. Children don’t get to access such information in their textbooks or even other publications, since the research outputs are mostly published as journals.”

In one of the strips, a group of baby frogs can be seen gathering around the ‘dad’ frog, asking him to tell them their favourite story of how he watched over them as eggs. The strip also has information on the kind of bamboo nests the frogs lay eggs in, and how dusky striped squirrels create holes in the bamboo, which is found only in the Western Ghats.

The panel is based on exclusive findings of a study led by ATREE researcher K S Sheshadri on how male bamboo frogs guard over fertilised eggs unlike other frog species and become sole caregivers of their offspring.

“We have been exploring ideas to take such stories about our research to a larger child audience. Tinkle has a huge child subscription base,” says Jaya Peter, head of communications at ATREE, who initiated the project. Besides grasslands and bamboo frogs, Tinkle has published strips on diatoms, changing migration patterns of harriers and bee species.

Tulika Books, based in Chennai, also features current environmental issues in its picture books where the concepts are conveyed through colourful illustrations and minimal text.

‘Bumoni’s Banana Trees’, for example, by Mita Bordoloi from Assam, is based on a newspaper report on the idea of providing food sources for elephants in Assam to minimise human animal conflict.

‘Shore Walk’, on life along Tamil Nadu’s coasts, is based on real life studies by author Yuvan Aves.

“Sometimes, the children are vaguely aware of these facts but when they see illustrations, it stays in their mind,” says Radhika Menon, publishing director of Tulika books. “Even when there is no conventional storyline, the images have an impact, like that of the main character finding plastic in a whale’s stomach.” Gayathri Bashi’s ‘Big Rain’ from the publishing house is based on the 2018 floods in Kerala, and has images of people sitting on the roofs, waiting to be rescued.

“The urgency for children to know these issues is greater than ever now,” says Radhika. Textbook rights have been bought for many of Tulika’s books, and the illustrations have been reproduced in CBSE school textbooks. Meanwhile, Tinkle has been getting letters from their little readers asking more questions with some saying the new series has made them change the way they look at grasslands.

The scientists at ATREE too are open for more and have started pitching ideas, based on their field of research, says Jaya.

“Comics can be layered with as much complexity as you want. Kids read cover to cover in one sitting, and the beauty of this format is that you can break down difficult things and put the information forward without it sounding educational or preachy,” she adds.

“The scientific community can only write journal articles and can’t do much to take the output to the public, citizen scientists and nature lovers whom it should reach,” says Arjun Kannan, researcher at ATREE, on whose work the strip on the migration patterns of harriers is based. “Grasslands are as important as wetlands, but awareness is low even on the field. Unless people find these research findings important, policy makers won’t,” he says.

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