For far too long, comics have been seen as just simple entertainment, colorful pages meant for childhood, filled with humor and escape. But as of recent, artists took hold of this chance and started using this same medium to do something more meaningful: either to talk about suffering, speak for the unheard, and make the unseen seen again.
Many social crises are quite predominant in India; they usually take place in rural regions, and traditional reporting often finds it hard to talk about the emotional weight of what people are going through day by day. This has resulted in a new way of storytelling called graphic journalism. Difficult occurrences that happened in the past are now being documented so that others can feel and relate to them by the use of frames, which tend to slow the reader down.
This article captures the way comics and this digital form of art are becoming powerful tools in reporting issues. It also seeks to examine a more modern case study from Manipur to show how illustrated reportage is reshaping the way we understand crises that words alone often fail to hold.
Graphic journalism can be defined as the very act of using comics and art sequentially to document things that are happening in the real world. Instead of traditional news articles, these stories unfold through panels that are illustrated and contain visual narratives. The goal here is not only to inform readers but to immerse the reader in an emotional way.
Studies show that, dating back to the 2000s, graphic journalism has been happily promoting editorial success in an international way. Authors have also been required to exercise new abilities to transform the graphic narrative that holds existence in reality, which offers an alternative to the mass media by minimizing problems of the already existing actors. The development of graphic reportage has taken on a format in different publishing landscapes, which all arise from alternative production to that of major outlet regions.
In India, where certain crises remain politically sensitive or underreported, graphic journalism fills a crucial gap. Artists can enter rural communities, record testimonies, sketch daily realities, and slow down stories that are often reduced to headlines. For issues like farmer suicides in Punjab or ethnic conflict in Manipur, the visual form becomes a way to honor nuance and humanity.
India is one of those countries where the deepest wounds stay hidden in villages beyond network towers, in homes that never make the news, in communities whose pain is often softened or censored. That is why visual storytelling has certainly become a necessity instead of just an artistic decision.
The Graphic journalists present in India are starting to fill the spaces where mainstream narratives sometimes fall silent. Artists such as Orijit Sen, Vishwajyoti Ghosh, Sarnath Banerjee, and Amitabh Kumar are part of a few of the many Comics India uses for panels and not just expression, but for proof. Their works tend to talk about the suicide that happened to a farmer in Punjab, gender-based violence, and even the fragile nature of life in conflict zones.
Unlike the normal traditional articles, their representations tend to slow the reader down.
A quiet frame forces us to notice the details we normally skim over a tired face, a burnt field, a broken window, a mother’s silence. Comics become a bridge between fact and feeling. They make distant suffering visible, relatable, and unforgettable.
In a country where many social crises are underreported, this visual form of journalism becomes a powerful alternative lens one that preserves memory and exposes realities that statistics alone cannot hold.
What remains one of the strongest examples of graphic journalism in modern India is the talked-about reportage “The Night of 14th June,” a collaborative work of art documenting the 2023 Manipur ethnic violence.
A series of independent artists and journalists brought about this idea to capture what mainstream headlines were failing to capture: how the homes burned overnight, the families were displaced without warning, and the fear that reshaped daily life. Through representing art in a sequential manner, they were able to put together testimonies of survivors, applying the use of sketches to preserve details that cameras had never reached.
The power of this case study lies in its slowness.
Readers pause on each panel.
They absorb the expressions of people fleeing their neighborhoods.
They sit with the emptiness of abandoned homes.
They witness grief without sensationalism.
“The Night of 14th June” travelled widely across social media and activist circles because it did something traditional journalism struggles with it restored humanity to a political crisis. It showed the lived experience behind the statistics. It gave perspective to major communities that have been speaking for a while now and have never been listened to.
The result is not just a collage of art, but a documentary of memory the one that challenges narratives, ignites the dialogue, and ensures that the people of Manipur are never to be forgotten.
As a writer, I’ve come to understand that information educates us, but the majority of the time, it’s our emotions that propel us. And I am certain without a doubt you’ll know why I feel graphic journalism is more human to me. It allows the reader not just to understand a crisis, but to sit with it. To slow down. To look closely.
Unlike a traditional article, a comic doesn’t rush you through a paragraph.
A single illustrated moment can hold you still a mother clutching her child, a burnt field, an empty corridor. Panels are able to develop a rhythm that reflects the manner in which memory works.
I also believe that’s why the younger generation responds more strongly to the visual storytelling. It feels real. It makes injustice harder to ignore because you’re not just reading about it… You’re seeing it.
Visual journalism is not simply art it is empathy in a form that people can finally grasp.
Some critics argue that comics can oversimplify extremely complex political crises. Others believe the visuals can introduce emotional bias, making the work seem “less objective.” There also exist some practical challenges, like how graphic novels take far longer to produce than written articles, which affects how quickly they can respond to events. Graphic journalism is no longer seen as a creative experiment it’s now becoming an important aspect in tools for documenting India’s storytelling.
Comics slow us down in a world that encourages us to scroll past suffering. They make us witness, not just read. They turn crises into memories that stay.
If journalism is the first write-up of history, then graphic journalism is its illustrated memory
One that ensures no story, no matter how painful, is forgotten.
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