Rebranding heritage: Indonesian comic industry

Comic is one of the most accessible forms of visual art in Indonesia. If we looked back on our childhood, we might remember finding comic in the form of magazines, newspaper sections, or a whole book. We might learn about comic from relatives, friends, or just stumbled upon it ourselves. Some of us even like it so much they tried to create one themselves, learning the trade from reading a bunch of comic books they can access.

As a commodity that is embedded very closely in the lives of Indonesians, comic provides not only entertainment, but also a context to build an identity. Just like any other pop culture medium, comic books also reflect history, social issues, culture and many more.

Indonesian comic reflects the socio-political and cultural situation in the country. Known locally as cergam or cerita bergambar (illustrated tales), Indonesian comic has always been a medium to teach local wisdom and culture. The earliest Indonesian cergams were created by Malay-Chinese creators. For example, Put On is a reflection of the daily life of Malay-Chinese people in Indonesia back then.

The comic incorporates various cultural elements, such as the use of Peranakan language like “owe” to refer to one’s self or Hokkien language such as “gua” and “elu.” Culture expert David Kwa identified historical-cultural elements from the outfit Put On’s mother wears, which is a longer form of kebaya commonly worn by Peranakan women in the 1800s. However, changes were bound to happen as Indonesia opened to other countries and welcomed more works from overseas.

The boom of translated comic books affected the local comic industry. In the beginning, French-Belgian, Japanese and Chinese comic books dominated the translated comic industry. This influenced not only the industry, but local creators’ creative process. The growing stream of translated comic books provided more art reference for comic artists. Ayoga Nanda Restu, an editor for local comic books at M&C, deemed this to be a positive feat for the development of Indonesian comic.

This is one of the reasons why there is no specific style of Indonesian comic to this date. The styles vary and are often very distinctive from one another, which, in Ayoga’s opinion, is the special feature of Indonesian comic as a form of art. “In the last few years, the action genre is popular in local-made comic books,” he said. “This might be affected by foreign comics as well.” He added that horror is still a popular genre by default - a very telling characteristic of Indonesian comic and readership.

Even so, he acknowledged that the presence of foreign comic in Indonesia could pose a challenge for local comic artists. ”There used to be a time when Indonesian creators resisted the surge of foreign comic in the country,” he told TFR. “Over time, they started building a strategy to put Indonesian and foreign comic on an equal standing.” Even until now, comic creators, communities and hobbyists are still trying to find a way for Indonesian comic to stand alongside foreign comic.

He also noted that the challenge stemmed partly from the lack of the fixed marketing structure for local comic. Bonni Rambatan, co-founder of comic creator agency Naobun, confirmed that this is a particularly important issue in the local comic industry. “In Japan, there’s already a pipeline,” they said. “So you publish a manga first, get serialised, you get anime adaptations, you get toys…it’s a fixed thing.” Japan’s comic industry is set on a fixed business model that covers the production, marketing and sales. The structure is built around the industry, and it keeps the cycle going. Ayoga deemed that the Indonesian comic industry needs this kind of structure to introduce Indonesian-made comic to the market.

Meanwhile, shounen or boys’ comic skyrockets in the translated manga market. D. Tyagita Ayuningtyas, an editor for foreign comics at M&C, confirmed this trend. “It is because both boys and girls read comic books of this genre,” she explained, “meanwhile, girls’ comic (shoujo) is mostly read by girls only.” She also noted that action (which is usually embedded in shounen) is not the only genre that has been on the rise. The tragedy genre is also gaining traction, while the horror genre stays popular by default.

Line Webtoon’s entrance to Indonesia in 2014 marked a new form of competition in the local comic industry. Online comic platforms, such as Line Webtoon, do not only provide a new, accessible option to read comic; they also give opportunities for Indonesian creators to publish their works on their platform. This might seem like a drastic shift in the industry, especially considering the non-comic-reading crowd the platforms grab.

The local printed comic industry noticed the shift and saw new, growing patterns. As the platforms introduced more of the romance genre, Ayoga saw a rise in the romance genre on printed, local-made comic books. “This is probably because the platforms bring along the Korean pop culture that is very teenager-oriented,” he said. He also deemed that the presence of online comic platforms is great for Indonesian comic artists, saying that they now have more options for where they want to publish their works.

The rise of online platforms also introduced him to a generation of creators who are more familiar to the webtoon layout format than the conventional comic format. “Creators born in this digital era tend to be more familiar with this format because they might learn about comic from these platforms,” Ayoga explained. It created a bit of confusion at first because gradually, some of these webtoon authors began to grow interested in publishing their works in a printed version. This is when Ayoga comes in and assist them to reformat their comic to fit printed media.

Ayu said that M&C has started uploading several foreign comic titles to its online platform, Gramedia Digital and Google Books. “We are doing this one step at a time while getting approval from their publishers because not all of them would allow that,” she explained. “Before, we also cooperated with an online comic platform, but unfortunately, they closed down in 2019.”

From what Ayu told TFR, we can see that there is already an awareness in the industry that one day, what used to be printed would be digital. Therefore, digitising comic books and slowly shifting from printed media to digital are part of the industry’s strategy to survive. However, this strategy does not seem to badly affect the sales of printed comic books. According to her, the market for foreign comic, especially manga, is still eager to buy printed copy, either as a novelty or as a form of appreciation. “There are also readers who would first access comic from illegal comic websites, but then ended up buying the printed version from us,” she said.

Instead of affecting the market in terms of sales, Ayu said that the presence of online comic platforms affects the genres. As she mentioned before, the surging popularity of the shounen genre was partly driven by the genres offered in webtoon and the likes. “We used to be known for our girls’ comic, but now readers can find other sources for this genre,” she explained, “that was when we began to include more of the boys’ genre in our catalogue.” She added that to this date, sales for printed comic books are still higher than the digital version.

In the creative industry, ideas are often the very commodity that keeps the industry alive. When someone made a carbon copy of other’s idea and executed them, they might not be as good as the real deal, but they can also disrupt the cycle of the industry. Back in the days, pirated comic books were printed and bound in a way that made them look like the legal ones. However, once purchased, one would be able to see the horrible quality in so many aspects. Today’s comic industry is facing the same issue, but in the digital form.

As readers sometimes go to one of these illegal websites before purchasing the printed copy, this kind of piracy could do the industry good - in a way - and bad. “It mostly harms the industry,” Ayu said. Most people visit these websites to access comic for free. For the industry, this is a huge loss of money, and even worse for the creators. Illegally providing and accessing comic rob creators of the appreciation they deserve, but did not cease the public’s expectations on them. Comic piracy is a blatant disrespect to comic creators.