By Shalom Gauri
*Jim Lee is the penciller and co-author of Batman:Hush 2003*
Dear Jim Lee,
I will not start by saying that I am your number one fan. Instead, that you are my number one hero. Almost.
It was my dad who taught me how to cycle. We’d leave home every other morning at 6 and head for the empty roads beside the railway tracks. I don’t know if you are much of a tea drinker, but my dad is, and we would invariably end up at a tea shop. But I didn’t mind. Tea shops sell more than just tea. As he paid for the chai and my two salt biscuits, my dad would peer up at the magazines dangling across the shop front. And he would then peer behind, at the comic books. The 25 rupee, A5 sized comic books. The ones that always ended with a “To be continued…”.
I bought my very first complete, full size, single issue comic book at the Bangalore Comic Con 2014 for a grand 1250 rupees. It was brand new, each page as glossy as the cover, and had for a title, the single, beautifully translucent word… Hush.
Finally, I would know the complete story behind issue 20 and 24 of my “To be continued” comic collection back home. Finally I could read your name, in slim and perfect type, without the obstruction of “Brought to you by Sharad Devarajan” in ugly yellow pasted on top.
I simply love your work. I delight in its every delicious detail (be it Catwoman creeping away in the shadows as Croc attacks the millionaire kid or the torn Flying Graysons poster in the rain), in your precision and in the crispness of your edges. I did art as a subject in 12 grade, and my dad was the one who taught me. And he taught me using your work. What better way to learn anatomy than from a figure in action? See that, my dad asks, pointing to Batman’s fist and making one of his own, that line there, is the muscle that tightens when you grip something. See that, this time it’s Harley Quinn’s back arching over Catwoman as she somersaults across the Opera stage, that curve is her spine and here you can see her rib-cage opening up. You showed me, better than Dali or Gogh or Picasso, the real power of composition as you use it to bring out the shear force in Nightwing’s kick, or the young strength in Robin’s pull on the batrope.
And then one afternoon during sociology class in school, a “Gender education initiative” came visiting. They set up the projector and got a slideshow going on our classroom screen. The first slide had a set of pink toys and blue toys and they talked about socialisation. The next had lyrics from a pop song we all knew. And the a next a picture of a woman in the kitchen. And then… the picture of a woman’s ass in a pink lace underwear. In her right hand, held between her thumb and forefinger, is a cocktail glass. I cannot help but notice the single stroke up her from her wrist, that pulls ever so slightly upwards, pressing the thumb in to hold the glass in place.
They did not name you. Or the “All Star Batman and Robin – Boy Wonder volume 1” issue that the picture was from. I was the only one in class who knew.
The lady conducting the presentation went on to use the picture as an example of the Male Gaze, a concept she had just seconds ago, introduced and explained. Further down the line, as we stared up at a slide of Malaika Arora, she talked about Objectifying and once again, referred back to your woman in pink underwear.
It hurt.
I was so insulted. How dare they? Were they even aware…? Did…did they even know that the picture they chose was drawn by the greatest comic artist that ever lived? That it was drawn by you? The artist I look up to and admire and adore for the perfection of his lines and grace and talent and composition and detail and and….
I am not your number one fan. But I love your work. And I hate feeling bad about loving it.