The book is simultaneously formalist and naturalist.
Kumar and Astone’s art style is vital to the messages and themes in These Savage Shores Vol 1.
1 depicts the natural struggle inside us all reflected back upon ourselves and asks why? Why do we fight? How: And so through Bishan, These Savage Shores Vol. The war that take place inside himself is not just a spiritual one, but a physical one as well, and because he is immortal, it never ends. Bishan is this war, this myth, personified. We put on masks to hide the world from parts of ourselves. After all, many ancient texts have written that we are born sinned and that life is a quest for redemption.
These Savage Shores takes a lot of imagery we might recognize through Christianity and presents it in a new light. We impose rules, laws, and restrictions to restrain us inside our own grid. Instead we are Bishan and wage a constant, unrelenting, daily war against the monster that lies inside. After all, the restrictions of the grid never actually disappear. “It speaks to my nature, this place,” he writes because he sees this new land as unrestrained, but Ram V, Sumit Kumar, Vittorio Astone, and Aditya Bidikar make it clear how false this presumption truly is. His epistolary narration shows a man who feels he can be free in a place he views as more savage and uncaring. How easy would it be to be Alain Pierrefont, the character many of us thought, maybe even hoped, would be the story’s protagonist, and not care? Alain has conceded to the monster within him and lives a carefree, albeit damned, life. sticks around in our collective consciousness because it is able to fearlessly speak about the monsters that we fear hide within our souls. When you see a character struggle every day to hide a part of themselves that exists, does it hit close to home? When you see a young boy lose the only companion he’s ever had, are you reminded of someone? When you feel the cost of victory take a piece of one’s soul, are you reminded of a particular time? This is not our world. It’d be hard to find someone who could immediately relate, and yet when a privileged diplomat it sent away after committing a horrific crime instead of facing his wrongdoings, you feel angry because you’ve seen it happen. For many of us in this day and age, 18th century colonialism in India is as far away as outer space. The world of These Savage Shores is both far away and incredibly close to home. Listen to the latest episode of our weekly comics podcast!
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