Charbak Dipta did not set out to write a Bengali comic. While talking about his recent Eisner nomination and the broader state of India’s comics industry with Outlook Respawn, the MA Philosophy-graduate from Jadavpur University, shared how he built his work on his own terms, avoiding commercial gimmicks or forced tropes. “I never included anything that can be sold to the market like some fighting, some action scenes in the comics... However, when he took the initial English manuscript to some of India’s well-known English-language publishing houses, he ran into a wall. “The English publishing circuit in India is in a corporate bubble,” highlighted Charbak.