MB Recommends: ‘Untouchable’

A comic book series called Untouchable might evoke associations with caste systems, but this is instead a campy online “horror” title. The comic, co-written by Samit Basu and Mike Carey, was first released in the UK and US in 2010, and is now available on GraphicIndia’s website, where, starting this week, you can view a chapter a week for free. Fans of the duo—Basu is a noted sci-fi writer who wrote superhero novel Turbulence; Carey an acclaimed comic book writer who has penned among other titles X-Men: Legacy and Ultimate Fantastic Four—will need no incentive to devour the slightly annoyingly retooled screen version (it’s better viewed on a tablet). But even if you haven’t read anything by either Basu or Carey before, Untouchable is worth fidgeting around on your mouse for. Set in colonial India, the story follows a half-Brit, half-Indian outcast called Vimal who endures the racist taunts of his fellow colleagues at the Deolali Cantonement. The British characters with their upturned ’staches speak in such wonderfully archaic (and racist) phrasing—“Civilization in India begins when General Clive gives the Nawab of Bengal at Plassey a good old-fashioned hiding” lectures their captain—that you don’t need much imagination to conjure up their plummy voices. There’s a bare-breasted rakshas involved (she looks like a vampiric spawn of the Na’vi) who might possibly be friend or foe, but you’ll have to read next week’s installment to find out. In the meantime, you can read the first issue Untouchable: Blood and Bone here.