Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, india

India Ink: A Billion Reasons To Publish Comics

Published Thu, 23 Jun 2011 06:00:58 -0500

Mayank Khurana writes for Bleeding Cool;

Hi folks, welcome back to another edition of India Ink, a semi regular column where we talk about the Indian comic scene.

As people who have been following this column know, there used to be a huge indigenous culture of comics in the 80's in India that slowly waned away with the advent of new entertainment mediums. Many publishers went bankrupt and closed down. Comics had become almost a rarity in India.. Until recently!

People like me who have grown up on heavy dosage of comics in our youth , and now have access to foreign comics and have seen the culture abroad especially in countries like the US and Japan are assembling everywhere across the country to do something about the lack of our own comic culture.

Last two years have seen more and more publishers and independent comics coming to the limelight and we are at a juncture now where the right push could lead us over the dark days and we can rightfully claim to have a solid comic culture

Critics would say that I am being overly optimistic, but here is why I say that we are standing at the crucial point in Indian comic industry:

This year saw the first ever comic con happening in India in the capital city of Delhi, which we covered for you right here at bleedingcool.com.
New publishers that have come out with comics in the last year include : Level 10 Studios , Manta Ray, Comix.India and Holy Cow Entertainment. That's an increase of over 50% in number of publisher count.
There are rumors going around the comic reading circles of revival of Arkin comics and new publishing houses being set up by several erstwhile artists and design studios. I envision another 2-4 publishing houses opening up before this date next year
There are people working in various cities across the country holding regular comic meet-ups. Comic industry is taking advantage of these meetups to connect to fans.
We have another comicon coming up before the year ends in October, now based in Mumbai and if our sources are to be believed , they are selling out shelf space fast!
March saw the launch of a comic related community: www.comicaddicts.com , our very own go-to place to find out what's happening in the world of comics. Most of major publishers in India are supporting this site.
Comic addicts have made their presence felt not only online, but also on the ground with organizing comic related events in the capital city of India, Delhi. They have started doing comic launches and workshops with comic industry professionals to get the industry even closer to the readers. As of now, most of their efforts are based out of Delhi.
Anime/Manga culture is picking up, with almost every major metropolitan city having their own Anime clubs which meet regularly and discuss everything Japanese
We have our very first Manga inspired comic book called "Batu Gaiden" being published by Level10 studios
Manga India, a company based in France is running a contest where artists and writers from India are requested to submit their own manga storylines , which would be released to the public audience. The entry closes in July.
An Anime Expo happened late last year, and is planned again this year with a much larger scope and audience in mind.
This year also saw the revival of Bahadur (arguably the first Indian hero) in the form of a webcomic.
Talking about webcomics, we have a few Indian based strips coming up such as Kinnari,etc

There are other projects such as Hyderabad graphic novel project, feast etc that have been in development for some time. The creators aren't saying much , but I expect that to change as they get close to finishing those projects

If all the points above aren't a sure-fire sign that we are standing at an interesting time for Indian comics, I don't know what else is. How did this come about, I am not certain, but I do know if we can sustain the momentum for another couple of years, we should be in a good place comicwise…

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