Life begins at 52 for Gundala creator
Evi Mariani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
French philosopher Roland Barthes wrote in The Death of the Author that "the author is dead".
Barthes' theory was proved last week when Hasmi, creator of the comic book Gundala Putra Petir, met and dined with a number of fans at a restaurant in South Jakarta.
The author and his fans engaged in a lively yet comical discussion.
"Nemo (Gundala's sidekick), a character actually based on myself ... is a coward and a loser," said Hasmi. This is a frequent claim made by Hasmi, that he is a loser, especially in the area of romance.
One of the fans, Andy Wijaya, swiftly responded, "No! Nemo is not a coward." This was immediately followed by an equally hearty reaction from another fan, Hartono Soenarto.
"Oh, yes, he is," Hasmi responded.
"No, no, no. Once Nemo jumped into a fight and he fought courageously until he was beaten," Andy said.
"Well, he was only being reckless, not courageous," Hasmi retorted.
"No, he is brave, he's not a coward," Hartono and Andy said in chorus.
Hasmi merely smiled and stopped trying to argue with the young fans.
"Well, he was probably a coward at the beginning but became more courageous at the end," Andy said in a softer tone.
End of discussion. It seems Barthes was right once again: The author is dead, the characters he creates take on a life of their own in the minds of readers.
Hasmi, whose real name is Harya Suraminata, seems to realize this and lets the fans have their own opinions about Nemo, Gundala and other characters.
Hasmi himself is of course far from dead; he looks healthy despite having to deal with diabetes for the last 10 years and his habit of smoking clove cigarettes.
In fact, some could say his life has just recently begun again.
Born on Dec. 25, 1946, Hasmi married for the first time in 1999 at the age of 52 and his first child, a daughter, was born last year.
Now at 58, his 1970s masterpiece, Gundala Putra Petir, has been reprinted and the publisher and the comic community have asked him to create new Gundala stories as part of efforts by the Komik Indonesia community to revive Indonesian comics.
At a book signing event, fans queued patiently for Hasmi to sign their comics, both reprinted and original versions.
Hasmi, who studied at the Indonesian School of Fine Arts in Yogyakarta and a language school, first published Gundala in 1969.
Inspired by American superheroes, especially Flash Gordon and Thor, the Gundala character was an engineer named Sancaka who was doing experiments on creating lightning rods for people.
His experiments led Caesar Crons, the ruler of the lightning kingdom, to choose him as his adopted son and the kingdom's military commander.
Sancaka received a special uniform from Crons and then his adventures as Gundala began.
Gundala's adventures survived until 1982 with the 23rd title in the series, The Letter from the Next World.
"It ended because I was lured by another comic project to depict the glory of then president Soeharto. Me and some other artists and comic creators in Yogyakarta thought we would be rich after the project," Hasmi said.
At the end of the day, the project turned out to be almost a complete bust and the publisher of Gundala never contacted Hasmi again after he abandoned Gundala.
"I was too ashamed to contact them," Hasmi said.
He then earned a modest living as a freelance illustrator for children's magazines and school textbooks.
Besides Gundala, Hasmi also created other superhero characters like Kapten Mlaar, Maza Si Penakluk and Kalong.