Are bengali ghosts not scary? A critical study of the comical representation of the disembodied spirits in Shri Narayan Debnath’s comic universe

The theme of ghosts or the idea of using a gothic character in Bengali literature is one of the most dominant themes that create a horrifying situation in the lives of the story’s human characters. Eerie characters like ‘Petni,’ ‘Shakchunni,’ ‘Mecho Bhoot,’ ‘Gecho Bhoot,’ and, most notably ‘Brahmadaitya’ always try to disturb the system of the natural world. They love to eat fish and stay in ponds and dark forest areas. Most of the Bengali writers attempt to portray these characters as horrifying, with a traumatic past leading to the reason behind their deaths, which creates goosebumps among the readers, especially children and young adults. Many writers introduce famous main characters who become popular names in this genre. Among all the writers, legendary Bengali cartoonist Shri Narayan Debnath presents these spooky characters differently in his comic strips. Instead of showing them scary, he introduces them as comic characters that look funnier; they use English words to adjust to the trends of the everyday world, they can cook, and sometimes they love to listen to Bengali commercial movie songs. Sometimes, they get fooled or trounced by humans. These characters became popular and have broken the stereotypical norms and beliefs of being scary. This paper questions, are these ghosts terrifying? This paper will study the comical identity given by Shri Narayan Debnath and how it was justified in the comicverse concerning his most famous works, “Baantul The Great (1965)”, “Handa Bhonda (1962)”, and “Nonte Fonte (1969)”.