India, March 19 -- Comics and graphic novels fulfil a very fundamental requirement of art. It's, at its simplest, a storyboard - images and text that propel a tale forward. The format sets the pace, builds the action, lays out the montage and allows for both panoramic scenes and quiet moments. All a reader has to do is sit back and let the panels do the work.

It's probably what makes them such a great vehicle to convey complex ideas about power, gender, caste, and social structures, and often do it with humour, satire and irony. Kids love it. Grown-ups love it. Even those who'd look down on comic books recommend Art Speigelman's Maus (in which mice and cats stand in for Jews and Nazis during the holocaust); or Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi...