The Four Color Media Monitor

India Today asked what's become of local comics creations in an age where manga and Marvel have become more recognizable:

Ask any kid of the 90s, he will count Nagraj, Super Commando Dhruva, Chacha Chaudhary and Sabu, Suppandi and Shikari Shambhu among his friends. And they will also remember smuggling comic books into schools and placing them in a school book to read on the sly.

So what are our Indian superhero friends doing in the age of Naruto, One-Punch Man, Captain America, Iron Man and the Hulk?

What is the reason that the once-popular superheroes of the Indian multiverse who were ever-present at every book stall, bus stand and railway station have vanished from plain sight? How did the Indian comic lose its plot? And is there a way to breathe life into it again?

NO SUPPLY, NO DEMAND

Tinkle is available and has used the digital medium to promote its magazines and comics. Diamond Toons (earlier known as Diamond Comics) has also adopted a similar strategy. But sales have nosedived and the superheroes, mostly from the house of Raj Comics, Tulsi Comics and Manoj Comics, are hardly seen anywhere now.

"The biggest problem is the availability of Indian comic books. But it is also about pricing and craze," says Gavin Sharma, a 20-year-old manga fan from Delhi. Gavin, who is pursuing a bachelors degree in computer science from Canada, started his journey into the world of comics holding the hands of Chacha Chaudhary.

Manga is a term used for comic books and graphic novels originally produced and published in Japan. Animated Japanese films and TV shows based on the manga books are called anime. Both manga and anime are a rage in India now. One Piece, Naruto, One-Punch Man, Jujutsu Kaisen, My Hero Academia and Hunter X Hunter have taken India by storm. Their merchandise can be seen everywhere.

"The content is readily available online and most readers use mobile and tablets to read manga. That's not true for Indian superhero comics," says Gavin. "There is a lot of variety one can choose from too. There are 18 genres of manga," he adds.

Gavin says he grew up reading Chacha Chaudhary, Nagraj and Super Commando Dhruva and would love to read them again, just that they aren't available.

Well that's a shame if they're now hard to find, and if nobody's organized for the goal of promoting and marketing local creations again. But this much is clear: those who realize what a shambles Marvel/DC have become since the turn of the century shouldn't be wasting time and money on their output since then. One of the interviewees, however, argues:

"Changing reading habits, technological advancements, and shifts in pop culture have definitely influenced the comic industry today. But comics continue to be created and enjoyed by youngsters. Chacha Chaudhary and Sabu are still a craze among people of all ages and have a massive fan following," Diamond Toons CEO NK Verma tells IndiaToday.In.

Well let's hope that's correct, if only based on my belief that it'd be far better to read those local classics than get taken for a ride by the 21st century artistic disaster the Big Two have become.

Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap wanted to adapt Doga 15 years ago. "We tried for five-six years. The owners of the copyright of Doga and Raj Comics, they did not resolve their own issue. So it never happened and it won't happen till they resolve their issues," Anurag Kashyap told IndiaToday.In.

Anurag Kashyap says he is not the only filmmaker who tried to adapt Raj Comics superheroes for the big screen. "Because after me, there were a lot of other people who attempted to do it. But I don't think they (Raj Comics owners) have any idea how films are put together."

"The biggest problem is, before we even started out, it went into their (Raj Comics owners) heads that we would make it like Marvel. And they want that (result) without wanting to do any of the hard work. So everybody turned them down. It doesn't work like that. I don't think it will happen with their attitude towards it, they will probably have to do it themselves," adds Anurag Kashyap.

Though none of Raj Comics superheroes have made it to the big screen, Sanjay Gupta tells IndiaToday.In that comic superheroes remain as popular as before. "The popularity of Raj Comics superheroes never diminished among readers. The issue was that newer generations were not introduced to reading as a form of entertainment," says Gupta.

Well that latter part is worrisome. In the USA these days, reading is collapsing as a medium, and something tells me even the internet isn't changing things for the better. Let's hope current educators will make a more serious effort to get things back on track. As for filmmaking, if the producers were aiming to turn these Indian creations into live action films, it's honestly better to stick with animation. But to make it like Marvel? Well not like the live action films of the past 2 decades, if you ask me. All that'd do is diminish the impact of illustrated medium. I don't know if India's got an official animation industry, but I'd strongly recommend it, based on the material in focus, and also if they can market the medium successfully to adults as much as children.

But back to the issue of availability, the Coronavirus outbreak sadly damaged everything even more:

One of the people who have witnessed both the popularity and the disappearance of Indian comics from the market is Bharat Bhushan. The 41-year-old runs AK News Agency in South Delhi.

"Even though in small numbers, Indian comic books were visible even until 2015-2016. Sales had already tapered when the Covid lockdown sounded its death knell," says Bharat Bhusan. He says the shutting down of book stores and roadside stalls after the pandemic hurt the industry badly. "People used to buy comic books from these stalls, the loss of visibility delivered an irreparable big blow."

"There is very little demand for comics now," says Bhushan, who was himself a Super Commando Dhruva fan. He says the lockdown hurt the entire magazine and book industry, not just comic sales.

THE PRICE FACTOR

Gupta of Raj Comics has a contrarian view. He says PDFs of comics were being circulated during the lockdown, which made people reconnect with their superheroes. It has revived reader interest, he says.

"The period of pandemic and lockdown has kicked in a feeling of nostalgia in the minds of Indians and in that period, a majority of the population reconnected with their reading habits too," he says.

That was true even for old TV serials, and people got hooked on Doordarshan's Shaktiman and Mahabharat. Shaktiman was also turned into a comic book series.

But the post-lockdown period saw something unusual -- prices of comics rose manifold.

In the 1990s and even the 2000s, Indian comic books had the price advantage over Marvel and DC Comics.

"Before the lockdown, comic books used to cost between Rs 50 to Rs 60, now most comics cost above Rs 100," says Bhushan. "Some of the fatter editions, called digests, cost Rs 500. Parents obviously would buy a Tintin rather than an Indian comic at that price," he adds.

The kids of the 90s would remember buying a comic book for under Rs 10 and a digest for Rs 15 or Rs 20.

Then there were people and stores in some cities that would give a comic book on rent for Re 1 a day. That ecosystem has completely vanished now.

Youngsters, however, say they won't hesitate to pay for readily available and engaging content.

That's good to know. They should just avoid Marvel/DC like the plague, considering where they're going. Because if the following is correct, the Big 2 are becoming far too much of an influence:

Expanding on the disconnect, Animesh says the Millenials and the Gen Zs grew up watching Cartoon Network and are alien to the grandpa-grandma stories from our culture that the earlier generations grew up on.

The Indian superheroes actually were rooted in those stories. Nagraj, for instance, is based on the concept of 'Icchadhari Naag' (self-transforming human-snake), a concept which youngsters would find both alien and ludicrous.

"Youngsters aren't reading, but are watching Marvel movies and anime. It's like a cult and there's competition. We didn't read to compete," says Animesh.

Zinia admits that youngsters consume a specific kind of content that is trendy to stay relevant among their peers.

But Sanjay Gupta, who is also one of the authors at Raj Comics, doesn't see manga or Marvel as competition. "Manga is just complementing the Indian comic industry," he says.

The influence of manga can be observed in certain aspects of the Indian comic industry, says NK Verma of Diamond Toons. Indian artists, he says, can take inspiration from manga's dynamic layouts and expressive character designs, but we need to create content that resonates with our readers. "We have to maintain our storytelling traditions," he adds.

Correct. Most vital of all is to maintain some positive ideas like heroism and selflessness, along with being courageous when facing evil menaces. Something USA entertainment is all but abandoning now, while both men and women are degraded by wokeness. I think, if the youngsters are reading Marvel/DC just to stay cool with other kids at school, that's a mistake, or maybe the answer is that those children who'd take a negative view of you just because you don't read certain items or go by certain "trends" need to be taught that it's disrespectful to expect and demand other children follow what they are to the letter. There's only so much coming out of USA entertainment now that's a bad influence, and parents in India would do well to wean their children off of bad foreign influences and products, and get them more interested in local stuff again. The part about finding a shape-shifter "ludicrous" is odd, because there's only so much you could find in science fantasy of this sort, and even USA comics have plenty of shape-shifting figures around.

And they're right in a way that Marvel, as it stands now, is far too much of a bad type of cult influence, based on the woke directions they've been embracing. One more reason why it's time for even foreign moviegoers to reconsider.

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