How does it feel when you meet with a sudden thought of kick starting your own studio and then reach a level where you end up dealing with big brands like Yash Raj Films (YRF) and Red Chillies? The answer to this is a group of comic fan boys who got together to build a Studio named ‘Division 91’, way back in 2010. The Studio is spearheaded by CEO Vishvesh Desai along with a team of 12 illustrious team members
Creating Comics is not just a business, but a true joy and delight is what led Vishvesh and his team to work on successful projects like Yomics and Ra.one comic books and Vishvesh feels that a comic book artist is well recognized in today’s time and this boosts the confidence of Division 91 Studios.
Vishvesh has worked with Gotham Comics and Virgin Comics prior heading Division 91 and believes in creating a self trend rather than following what others do and he considers legacies like DC comics and Marvel Comics as true motivators.
The Studio brings out their creative expertise in the areas of story boarding for animation movies, concept designs, illustrations, game designs and are working in full swing on launching their original IPs revolving around the supernatural, mystery and action genres. The team has planned a series of these comic books, which would be released soon.
Though Vishvesh doesn’t want to spill the beans early by revealing a lot, he still has some crucial points about the books which he happily shares with AnimationXpress.com’s Zeenia Boatwala by saying, “my vision with these upcoming books is to create content in the most appealing way and get best reactions! I must say that the comics do relate very closely to the human psychology and emotions and the design style is heading to match the international look and feel.”
Also the Studio has delivered creative services for Ford Figo, Kellogs, Colgate and many other brands and several movies as well.
One more interesting stand point of Vishvesh is that he wants the readers to get engaged and entertained through these books.
Yomics came as a great achievement for Division 91! The Studio was lucky to get in touch with YRF Studios and Uday Chopra who shared his vision about creating a series of comic books and graphic novels which made up Yomics and then the road was clear for the team! They prepared varied designs and shared it with Uday and in turn received a very good response from YRF and created the designs, illustrations for all the comic books in the Yomics series. These included, Dhoom, Ek Tha Tiger, Hum Tum and Daya Prochu (a new and interesting character created for this space) and interestingly all the illustrations and designs went to Uday Chopra for his final review.
Did challenges come in way in the creation of Yomics? Yes they did and Vishesh shares more on this by saying, “As Dhoom was a celebrity comic book, we had to be very particular in crafting the characteristics of Jai and Ali and our focal point was always that Uday, who loves this medium and is extremely knowledgeable about it, should be happy seeing it.”
Adds more, “The script for Yomics series came from YRF and we had to prepare the illustrations matching the script.
Vishvesh is extremely happy about the extensive support given by YRF throughout the making of Yomics and he expresses this by saying, “We had to keep in mind that we do not divert away from the YRF franchise and feel extremely lucky that Uday and the entire team at YRF believed in us.”
Also, the Dhoom Case Files comics are in making, and even the latest Hum Tum comic book additions are in production and would release soon.
For creating Hum Tum comic book, the team at Division 91 has closely worked with Prakash Nambiar, to get everything right in place, considering he had worked on the animation parts of the original movie and also on the Hum Tum comic strip series which appeared in the Times of India before the movie released in cinemas!
There has to be some motivation behind giving out such creative expertise and yes it is Doremon for Vishvesh Desai and he says, “Incredible characters like Doremon, Batman etc are the drivers behind our creative energies and as a Studio we want to keep in mind the trends, genres and give new and illustrious design styles.”
Now Coming to Ra.one comics, which initially made its debut in the Times of India, Division 91 has passed a great challenge by creating this 16 page comic book within a very tight deadline. Red Chillies approached this team with the story of Ra.one and a few references. Vishvesh asserts,
“We usually take around 30 days to complete a project, but it all turned around when Ra.one comic came to us. Red Chillies provided us with video bits, images and color combinations, some references and we had to deliver the comic accordingly. We shared the samples of our work and it was appreciated by them.”
Not only catering to the needs of uplifting creativity of India but the Studio has also managed to work on a project for a company based out of Tanzania. This project included a series of 6 comic books, of 10-12 pages each revolved around social messages.
So after a background of such interesting projects, how has the vision developed for Vishesh, and we hear this from him, “If you present something well, it would work very well and at our Studio we have creative talents who strive harder for developing new concepts.”
Adds more, “We develop a character first and then decide which genre it would fit into.”
And now, the goal of the Studio is to target kids and the youth audience as a whole.
“We are planning to do a lot of designs for the kids community and want to support NGO’s by giving out creative services as well as fetch more international projects”, concludes Vishvesh.