THOUGHT BUBBLE MONTH 2024! Comics that use the form to interweave narratives in ways that only comics can are always going to be high on our list for potential commentary at Broken Frontier, especially for major events on the site like our Thought Bubble coverage. Avial by Bhavani Balasubramanyam, aka Bhavani Bala, is described as “an exploration of connection, loss, and societal pressure in a South Asian context and how to find universality in the specific.” Its narrative and premise is built around the inhabitants of an apartment block in India. The main focus is on one of those tenants in particular as they prepare the titular dish Avial while the lives of the others dip in and out vignette-style.
This is an undoubtedly ambitious short story given that Bala has set out to tell it without narration, obvious exposition or dialogue. If you are imagining that means this is a “silent” comic, though, then you could not be more mistaken. Instead we are given insights into the characters’ lives and their environment through a pronounced use of sound effects, whether that be the flow of traffic outside, the echoing normality of everyday domesticity, or the accompanying noise of electronic goods.
As the preparation of Avial continues in multi-panelled sequential intricacy we move in and out of the lives of some of the other people in the block. These tiny snapshots of their lives provide not so much alternate narratives on the page as stories off of it; the reader getting the merest glimpses of their worlds but just enough information in terms of rich humanity to make their own expansions and extrapolations from events. Themes of personal attachment and expectation can be inferred, filtered through a South Asian perspective, but ultimately what we experience feels familiar and recognisable. Small moments in people’s lives that nonetheless speak existential volumes.
Bala’s visuals have a scratchy rawness to them that is so appropriate for the immediacy and sense of motion to Avial while the reliance on lettering and sound effects to quietly propel the story forward is applied with consideration and effect. The comic represents Bala’s Masters degree thesis from the Glasgow School of Art and, as such, provides Thought Bubble punters with a fine opportunity to be introduced to another emerging talent in Harrogate this year.
Bhavani Bala (W/A) • Self-published, £10.00
Review by Andy Oliver
Bhavani Bala will be at Table C5b in the Bubbleboy Hall at Thought Bubble.
Thought Bubble 2024 runs from November 11th-17th with the convention weekend taking place on the 16th-17th. More details on the Thought Bubble site here.
Read all our Thought Bubble 2024 coverage so far in one place here.
