Supratim Sengupta’s first encounter with Kakababu happened on screen, with an action-packed journey to Mishawr (Egypt). The student of St. Xavier’s Collegiate School was at Starmark, eager to quench his thirst for adventure with a few more books from Sunil Gangopadhyay’s series when he was pleasantly surprised to find one in a graphic novel format.

Incredible Splendour (Bhayankar Sundar) is not only Kakababu’s very first adventure but also the first story from the series in English comic version.

The book launch coincided with the Kakababu creator’s first death anniversary and was attended by his wife Swati and son Souvik.

“It is sad that my father could not see Incredible Splendour in print. It is good that the graphic novel version has come out with the first of the series,” Souvik said. “Like everyone else, I also first read Bhayankar Sundar in Anandamela. The Kakababu series is like a travelogue. Baba (father) would visit new places and base his adventures in those settings.”

He was happy that the new format had retained the essence of the novel.

Swati shared how the first adventure of Kakababu, set in Kashmir, was a favourite both with her and the late author. “Kakababu was not meant to be a typical detective. He was more a man with wanderlust who was not deterred by his physical disability. It is good to see it in a new format.”

Agreed Rimi B. Chatterjee, who has transcreated Incredible Splendour. “Sunil Gangopadhyay’s detective is very inspiring. He never lets his disability pull him down. The cool way in which he deals with problems is very inspiring. The story should appeal to the child in everyone.”

The illustrations are by Kailen Singson and the opening page is reminiscent of the map of Gaul at the start of every Asterix book. “The artist is from Manipur and he loved drawing the mountains where Kakababu’s adventure is based,” Chatterjee said.

The new medium is aimed at reaching out to more children, especially those who don’t read Bengali. “We always had a genre of graphic novels in Bengali. We need to popularise this medium more. There is a feeling that comics originated in the West. We are trying to change that paradigm,” she said.

Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay, also present at the launch, agreed that pictures have their own appeal. “Pictures used to appeal to us too as kids. But now I think kids will take more to comics,” said the author whose Gosain Baganer Bhoot was turned into a graphic novel by Starmark with tremendous response. “Kakababu is my favourite and it is good to see him in this new medium.”

The author shared with the audience how he would often laugh at Kakababu. “I would tease Sunil ‘how can a detective with a defective limb solve cases?’. Sunil would just smile and I would be left counting his ever-increasing fans.”

“Children’s literature has a lot of adult readers. I hope this medium helps make Kakababu more popular. It’s good to see that the language of Incredible Splendour is as lucid as Sunil’s own style was,” Shirshendu said.

Gautam Jatia, the CEO of Starmark, promised this was no one-off effort. “Gosain Baganer Bhoot was a learning curve for us. We plan to convert more of Bengali literature into comic books. We already have the publishing rights of nine of Sunil Gangopadhyay’s Kakababu adventures. We are also working on some Shirshendu stories.”