The country that has more often than not been making headlines for all the wrong reasons has some reason to cheer. A few young artists from Pakistan are harnessing the power of their art to help reposition the domestic narrative and provide positive role models in a country severely lacking in them.
Among those leading the charge is ‘Pakistan Man’ – the self-proclaimed Pakistani superhero. With a handle bar moustache popular with the land-owning classes and kitted out in the dark green of the national colours, the crime fighter is set on the path of heroism after the brutal murder of his parents. Assisted by his mentor, Sultan Rahi, the character comes to assume superhuman abilities from a mystical power. Once he is fully trained and ready, Pakistan Man emerges from the wilderness as a champion against tyranny to fight against villains like ‘The Corrupter’ and ‘The Banner’, an evildoer intent on upholding the country’s infamous restrictions on YouTube.
Islamabad-based graphic designer and creator of the superhero Hassan Siddiqui began doodling the character ever since he was 12 years old. But when Siddiqui began university, like many young Pakistani artists he started publishing his work on the internet via Facebook. His page, HS Comics, soon grew to have more than 16,000 likes and the popularity of his cartoons gave him the impetus to re-launch the Pakistan Man character for a wider audience.
The first issue had a run of 500 copies, and in spite of equally modest subsequent print runs the comic has garnered plenty of acclaim and recognition. He has been invited to give a TED talk, featured in a number of national newspapers, and 17 institutions in the United States, including Harvard University and the Library of Congress, have ordered copies of the first three issues of the comic for their archives.
Television and cinema have proved an even more popular medium for comic artists than social media and print formats. Perhaps the most well-known member of Pakistan’s mushrooming dream team of superheroes is the Burka Avenger.
The eponymous hero of her own cartoon series, which first aired in July 2013, the character is a schoolteacher named Jiya who hides her identity under a long flowing burqa, while fighting for causes such as girls’ education and against opposition to vaccination campaigns. The show has been a runaway success and has won both a Peabody and a Kids Emmy Award. The Burka Avenger was also selected by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential fictional characters in the world in 2013 and, more recently, the series was launched in India on ZeeQ channel.
Pakistan also witnessed the release of its first fully-CGI feature film release in 3 Bahadur (The Three Braves). The movie, directed and produced by Oscar winning documentary maker, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, was embraced by Pakistani audiences and broke the domestic record for an animated film when it earned over 4.5 billion rupees at the box office. A prequel is now planned for 2017.