Comic Con India is thrilled to launch their own line of merchandise called ‘Comic Con India merchandise’ in India. Humorous, quirky and comical is the USP of the merchandise. The CCI merchandise will be available from May 2012 via Buzzingaa.com and BombayMerch.com.
Talking to AnimationXpress.com Jatin Varma, Founder, Comic Con India, says, “Looking at the kind of response we have received in Delhi and Mumbai from the mascots (Super Kudi, Wolver Anna and Wonder Bai); and comic characters that we created, we had no option but to come out with our own merchandise. There was a huge demand by audience and our aim is to let fans take home a piece of their experience.”
“Comic Con India merchandise will be available nationally via Buzzingaa and BombayMerch (Web Merchandisers) and also will be available in select stores in Delhi. We plan to expand to Mumbai, Bangalore, Calcutta, Chennai and other metros in the coming months. We are starting with a limited number of products which range from mugs, posters, coasters and metal badges. We’ll be expanding it to t-shirts and other accessories in the coming months. The products will be available Pan India within next 12 months,” Jatin adds.
Anish Beri Co-Founder, Buzzingaa.com, says, “Buzzingaa has been associated with Comic Con India right since it had all began at Delhi and has since participated in all their events. We have seen Comic Con India grow and reach out to a till now virtually untapped market in India. We are quite excited once again to associate ourselves with the Comic Con India team and retail their merchandise.”
Comic Con India has seen International Brands like Walt Disney/Marvel promote their merchandise and movies in Comic Con Express Mumbai and 2nd Comic Con India in Delhi. What was witnessed was a healthy acceptance by Indian audience.
Ra.One came with their Movie merchandise at Comic Con Express Mumbai, again kids willingly bought Ra.One notebooks, mugs, keyrings, the blue-hart, comics etc. Merchandise Brands like Buzzingaa, Bombaymerch, Inkfruit etc are also a huge hit with Indian audiences. T-shirts, Mugs, Posters, Toys, souvenirs etc earn a big chunk of revenue at these conventions.
Jatin says, “Merchandise has been one of the main attractions at all our conventions, it contributes over 50% of overall revenue at our conventions. For a lot of the publishing companies it is providing a lucrative revenue line. At 2nd Comic Con India overall sales touched Rs 50 lacs, out of which approx. 25 lacs of revenue was earned via merchandise.”
When asked if Comic Con India Merchandise would also include other publisher’s IP characters, Jatin asserts, “I don’t think we are open to it right now but once we have good enough presence Pan India we may licence other publishers’ characters. Right now we are concentrating on building physical presence in India in the next 12 months.”
There is a dire need for people to realize the enormous potential that comics and comic characters possess and their effect on other entertainment mediums. In the past decade, the biggest films, animated shows, games have all been developed through comics, using established as well as new characters. Comics and animation is something that is seen being accepted by all age groups. This opens a number of opportunities to further scale up business of Comics, Comic merchandise being on top. The potential is enormous.
Jatin is also looking forward to bring the characters from Random magazine in the merchandise zone. “We have so many characters in our archives of Random magazine that it seems like a good idea to concentrate on that as well. We in fact, recently launched the Anthology of Random magazine to commemorate its 3 years.”
