Local heroes: The history of Indonesian comics on display at the Komik itu Baik comic festival at the dia.lo.gue art space in South Jakarta. (Photos by A. Kurniawan Ulung)

For the late literary figure and senior journalist Arswendo Atmowiloto, singing and drawing were two skills that he wanted to master but could not. Therefore, he often asked his cartoonist brother to illustrate stories that he wrote in the 1970s. 

“He thought that if his stories had illustrations and he then sent them to news agencies in Jakarta, the chance for his work to get published was bigger,” said Arswendo’s son, Sony Wibisono.

Arswendo did not care much about textbooks that he read at school. What he cherished the most was turning the pages of comic books.

After learning that Arswendo liked renting comic books in the 1980s, his father visited a comic store near Sriwedari Cultural Park in Surakarta, Central Java, and bought his son a pile of used comic books, including the Ramayana series by RA Kosasih.

“Those books were, of course, paid in installments because his father did not have much money at that time,” Sony said. 

Arswendo, who passed away in July at the age of 70 from prostate cancer, was not a comic artist, but his love for comics was unquestionable, said Sony during the opening of the comic festival, Komik Itu Baik: Tribute untuk Arswendo Atmowiloto (Comics are Good: Tribute to Arswendo Atmowiloto), on Sept. 28 in South Jakarta.

Running until Oct. 20 at the dia.lo.gue artspace in Kemang, the festival showcases archives and Indonesian comic works from various eras. Among the featured works is Put On, considered the modern first Indonesian comic.

Put On was first published on January 1931 in the daily newspaper Sin Po. Created by Kho Wang Gie, the comic strip follows the everyday life of Put On, a humorous Chinese-Indonesian man who lived in Batavia (now Jakarta).

The festival also displays an essay series entitled Komik itu Baik that Arswendo wrote for Kompas daily in 1979. Through the essay, Arswendo countered a general perception that comics had no educational value. It was deemed an eye-opener for teachers, parents and politicians who used to assume that reading comics would adversely impact children’s academic achievements.

“[Poet and writer] Ajip Rosidi, for example, answered ‘never ever’ in a press conference in 1971 when he was asked whether [his publishing house] Pustaka Jaya would publish comic books. He thought that they were bad reading,” said the festival’s curator and comic expert Hikmat Darmawan. 

Hikmat said that comics had been cast in a negative light since the 1950s, partly because of a growing tendency among Indonesians to be suspicious of anything deemed new or foreign. At the time, comics were labeled as being too Western or not Indonesian enough.

Jakarta Arts Institute (IKJ) rector and prolific author Seno Gumira Ajidarma concurred with Hikmat. 

“There is no scientific research that proves that comics are bad. [The rejection] was caused by moral panic. However, a stigma involving comics was strong at that time because people were not used to facing pop culture,” Seno said.

The situation got better after Arswendo served as the first editor-in-chief of teen magazine Hai, which debuted on January 1977. The magazine featured the works of Indonesian comic artists, including Harya “Hasmi” Suraminata, the creator of superhero comic series Gundala Putra Petir (Gundala, Son of Thunder). 

Arswendo teamed up with renowned comic artists in creating new superhero characters, such as the fierce woman warrior, Mahesa Rani, which was based on his collaboration with comic artist Teguh Santosa. Many still consider Mahesa Rani one of the strongest female characters in Indonesia’s comic universe to date. 

Hai also gave space for poetry-to-comic adaptations, such as the Misteri Balada Sumilah (mystery story of Sumilah) comic by Hasmi based on W.S Rendra’s work of the same title. Under Arswendo’s leadership, the magazine also introduced translated comic strips, like Britain’s The Trigan Empire, to Indonesian comic readers. 

At a festival discussion, Seno told how Arswendo had spurred his interest in comics. Growing up, Seno loved reading Hai and Arswendo’s essays. His love for comics prompted him to write a PhD thesis on Hans Jaladara’s classic comic series, Panji Tengkorak (the skull-faced man).

“In Indonesia, this is reputedly the first dissertation about Indonesian comics,” he said, adding that Arswendo’s essays also motivated him to hold the country’s first comic exhibition and seminar in 1981 in Yogyakarta.   

Award-winning scriptwriter and director Salman Aristo said Arswendo had helped him expand his horizons about comics, which eventually shaped his storytelling style.

“When I wrote a script for the comedy flick Skak Mat in 2015, I was inspired by Setan Catur,” he said, referring to a comic book by Mansyur Daman. “Hai was like a sacred book for me.”