South Indian-based Tara Books’ I See the Promised Land, an unusual graphic work based on the life of Martin Luther King, is the inaugural title in their new line of graphic novels that link the Bengali scroll art tradition with contemporary texts. The book will be released November 30. The Patua Graphics line, named after the scroll art it utilizes, is the company’s first dedicated graphic novel imprint.

“Given the way the sequence of images in a Patua scroll unfolds, we thought it was more than halfway towards the structure of a graphic novel,” said Gita Wolf, publisher of Tara Books. “The images are sequenced—they are 'read' one after another. Substituting a written text for an oral song would be a design challenge, but more than that, we were keen on moving the Patua form forward with the artists, and decided that a series of graphic novels would be an exciting venture.”

Martin Luther King Jr. dedicated most of his adult life to the idea that all people should be equal. He preached for a world of tolerance and cross-cultural communication and understanding. It is only fitting then, that the latest work about his life is a multi-cultural affair.

I See the Promised Land tells the story of Martin Luther King Jr.’s life through the Patua art of artist Manu Chitrakar and the words of writer and griot storyteller, Arthur Flowers. The book was an idea that originated in-house in India, but soon became a project with contributors worldwide. Chitrakar is a Patua from a village in Bengal who has been studying painting for scroll art since he was 12 years old.

“Tara Books invited me to a workshop on graphic novels, and told me the story,” said artist Manu Chitrakar. “I loved it, because it spoke deeply to me. I know that the people in it are foreign to me, and it is in another country, but this story belongs to all human beings. Martin Luther King reminded me of our own revolutionary freedom fighter Khudiram.”

Author Arthur Flowers, an English professor at Syracuse University and a blues singer, was brought into the project because of his unique style of writing as well as his personal history with the life of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement.

“I’m a child of the sixties, the civil rights marches, the whole bit, including being at the temple the night that Martin Luther King gave the ‘I’ve Been to the Mountaintop’ speech,” said Flowers. “So being a part of that movement was just a decisive moment in my life and the life of my generation.”

The book is written with a very particular idiom. The influences of hoodoo beliefs, griot storytelling, and his background as a performer are abundantly clear in Flowers’ writing.

“There is an astonishing match between Arthur's version of the MLK story, and the structure of Patua art itself,” said Wolf. “This is something we sensed, when we began the project, and given the way it has worked out, we're very gratified.”

The book’s layout is as unique as its prose. Unlike the panel and speech bubble style of conventional graphic novels, London-based designer Guglielmo Rossi took a less traditional approach. His design balances text and illustrations by using different panel shapes and a mixture of pages with large white spaces to give each image its full significance. The text is broken into small phrases and often boxed in to accentuate each important line. The overall effect is a book that reads more like spoken word poetry than prose and would be just as effective as a performance piece, much like Flowers’ work, or a Patua.

Tara Books is distributed in the US by Consortium Books and the publisher has a backlist of 62 titles. Most of their books are picture books for all ages, and many of them are handmade, though the Patua Graphics line will be printed traditionally. While the book's audience is probably not in the direct market (aka comics shops), Tara Books publicist Jennifer Abel said Consortium sells to Diamond and has an independent rep dedicated solely to comics shops, so the book is available to comics shops as well. Tara Books is also working with booksellers to promote the book through performance readings with Flowers. The book will launch with a reception at Burke’s Books in Memphis Tennessee, Flowers hometown, on January 13 and Flowers will appear at another event to promote the book at Quimby’s in Chicago in February for Black History Month.

The Patua Graphics line will continue next fall with Sita’s Ramayana, a retelling of the Ramayana story from Sita’s perspective. The book will be co-published with Canadian publisher Groundwood Books.