Narayan Debnath

Narayan Debnath was the creator of some of the best-loved characters in Bengali comics, among them Handa Bhonda, Bantul the Great and Nonte Fonte. He was named for the Padma Shri in 2021 in the field of art, from West Bengal ^[1].

Learning to draw

Debnath was born on 21 November 1925 and was drawn to art from childhood ^[2]. He studied fine arts for five years at the Indian Art College but left before taking his final degree ^[2]. He began as a freelancer, making film slides and logos for advertising agencies ^[2].

In 1950 he started working with the publisher Dev Sahitya Kutir, and over the next eleven years illustrated many children’s books, including adventure novels and translated Western classics ^[2].

The comics

His comics career began in 1962 with Handa Bhonda in the children’s magazine Shuktara ^[2]. Bantul the Great followed in 1965, probably Bengal’s first superhero, drawn in red and black ink ^[2]. His tales of mischievous pairs, Handa Bhonda, Shootki ar Mootki (1964) and Nonte Fonte (1969), set in a boarding school, changed Bengali comics ^[2]. Nonte Fonte ran for decades in Kishore Bharati ^[2]. He also created the serious detective series Detective Kaushik ^[2].

His characters spoke in the easy banter of a Bengali adda, full of down-to-earth humour and puns ^[2]. He also told the lives of Rabindranath Tagore and Swami Vivekananda in pictures, and drew the Tarzan stories for 42 years ^[2]. Nonte Fonte and Bantul the Great became animated television shows ^[2].

He received a special recognition award from the President in 2007 and the Sahitya Akademi’s honour in 2013 ^[2].

Narayan Debnath died in Kolkata on 18 January 2022, aged 97 ^[3].