I had the pleasure of reading Sunil Ariyarathna’s “Chithrakathawe Wanshakathawa” book recently. My friend Wasantha Samarakkody, who is a comic lover, had bought the book. He has a collection of old comics as well and he agreed to scan and send me those to be uploaded in to http://chithrakatha.wordpress.com/ which is done by a friend of mine in Mahawilachchiya.
The book is a good research. The book tells you how comics (chithrakatha) evolved from cave paintings to temple paintings, Sarlis Master to Susil Premarathna to modern day artists. A detailed description is given to each major comic artist while less information is given for minor players in the industry.
There are a lot of comics from the early days to modern days printed in the book. No wonder the price is more than 1,000 LKR. I wonder why the parents, teachers, adults objected only the modern comic artists for exposing nudity as the earlier artists exposed even more nudity. You can understand it well when you look at the way the ladies have been depicted in early day stories. How come the old nudity is good and the modern is bad?
Nanda Wanninayaka 