academic, controversy, from the Internet

UPDATE: Two Universities Vie for Largest Collection of Indian Comics in U.S.

Illinois vs. MichiganLast October, Sacred and Sequential reported that the the largest collection of Indian comics in the U.S. resides at the University of Illinois under the care of curator Mara Thacker. In December, however, we received the following e-mail from Professor Siddharth Chandra, excerpted below:

Subject: Largest collection of Indian comics in a US library
Message Body:
Dear Mr. David,

A small correction to your article titled “THE U.S.’S LARGEST INDIAN COMICS COLLECTION IN IS IN ILLINOIS.” ‘Illinois’ should read ‘Michigan.’ For more information, please see https://magic.msu.edu/search~S39?/dIndian+comic+books%2C+strips%2C+etc./dindian+comic+books+strips+etc/-3%2C-1%2C0%2CB/exact&FF=dindian+comic+books+strips+etc&1%2C1763%2C .

This link leads to a partial listing of Indian comics in Michigan State University’s comic arts collection. There are hundreds of additional volumes in the process of being cataloged.

Kind regards,
Siddharth Chandra

After following the link and reading its contents, I caught the gist of his message and responded:

Actually, you’re saying that the premise of the article is incorrect — that the largest one ISN’T in Illinois, as stated by the article, but at MSU?

And his reply was polite and clear (as were his bona fides):

Yes, I believe so.

Siddharth Chandra
Director, Asian Studies Center
Professor of Economics, James Madison College and
Professor (by courtesy), Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics
Michigan State University

In fact, The Hindustan Times was already on the debate, noting not only Michigan and Illinois but also the University of Pennsylvania in this hunt for the largest U.S.-based collection of Indian comics.

Mara Thacker of Illinois, the focus of the October posting, expressed this good-natured Tweet in response:

Then again, things may be slightly more heated than it seems, says Yashwant Raj  in The Hindustan Times article:

And they keep an eye on each other. Thacker pointed to Michigan for her closest competition and Chandra said he was aware of the Illinois collection. And Randy Scott, the Michigan university librarian who has overseen what is the country’s largest collection — academic, he added the qualifier — comic books at around 300,000, that include those from Asia and India, playfully knocked a recent report Michigan has the largest India bouquet. “She has already declared victory,” he said, laughing. To be fair to Thacker, that was not really her, she had not made that claim. It was news report. Scott wasn’t much troubled by it, either way, and moved on.

Certainly, Sacred and Sequential, is happy to present Prof. Chandra’s side of this collection duel, and we likewise apologize for conveying The Illinois News Bureau‘s report without greater scrutiny.

As Rachel Maddow would say, watch this space.