Amar Chitra Katha is a household name in India. Synonym with the visual reinvention of the quintessentially Indian stories from great epics, mythology, history, literature, oral folktales and with more than 400 comics in 20+ languages that have sold 90+ million copies to date, Amar Chitra Katha is a cultural phenomenon.
One of the newest addition to the legacy is Kubera, a tale of a wise and benevolent king of the yakshas, who once ruled over the city of Lanka. He would travel the world in his magnificent flying chariot, the Pushpaka Vimana, which had been gifted to him by his great-grandfather, Brahma. Lanka enjoyed an age of peace and prosperity under Kubera’s reign. But all that changed when his fearsome half-brother Dasagriva, the leader of the rakshasas decided to claim the city as his own.
Amar Chitra Katha pieces together from various sources in Indian mythology, the story of the Lord of Wealth. The 32 page comic book is written by Nimmy Chacko, Script Writer and Sub-editor at ACK Media. Sundira Moorthy has helmed the reins as chief artist for the book. Reena I. Puri, Editor at Amar Chitra Katha has headed the team of Kubera.
Speaking more on this, Reena I. Puri, Editor at Amar Chitra Katha stated, “Kubera is an important character in Indian mythology. The story deals with his birth, the boon he receives from Brahma to be the lord of wealth and his fight with his half-brother, Ravana, who displaces him from Lanka.”
“We had started working on the book around 6 months ago, it was scriptwriter Nimmy Chacko who pitched me with the idea, she had read various mythological sources for stories related with Kubera and has pieced them together to create the final story. I quite liked it and saw a good potential in it and then we started working on it”
The book is priced at INR 50/- for every 32 pg book.
“I believe the character of Kubera is still relatively unknown to many in the modern era, there is a mystery and curiosity still around him. Kubera is described in some texts as having three legs and a not very pleasant appearance. We had to show him as the hero of the story and had to balance the image. That took some discussion and many trial images by Sundar before we hit on the one we thought worked the best. Ravana, the other character in the story, has a very strong personality. Kubera’s character had to show up clearly and positively against that. People associate him as the Lord of Wealth and we wanted to explore the world of Kubera with this book.”
The book was launched at the second annual comic convention at Mumbai, receiving an overwhelming response over the course of the two days.
Adding more to it she said,” The experience was tremendous; the response we got was overwhelming and surpassed our expectations. We had got a positive response at Bengaluru and Mumbai was just the icing on the cake.”
“We are a very small team of 4-5 people for but our commitment and dedication is no less than 12 people. We write for young people but our books are read by all age groups. The marketing department creates a plan for each release. From the creative side we interact with our readers through workshops and through social media like Facebook. Our aim is to offer diverse content with every book of ours. Amar Chitra Katha has always thrived to offer more to its readers and we hope that all our efforts would just add to its legacy.”
“Our latest book ‘Saraswati’ was recently launched in November and we are currently on a couple of books. You would hope to hear a lot more from us in the coming year.” he concluded.
Amar Chitra Katha is also launching these stories in animated, live-action and gaming formats for all screens – television, film, mobile and online.