Mumbai based Vimanika Comics, the company that’s soon getting the reputation of striking gold with every book it launches.
Following up on the good performance of Shiva – The Legends of the Immortal Book’, the second part to the graphic novel “Shiva Book- II”, has received resounding response from the readers and reviewers alike. It is the most pre ordered Indian Graphic Novel on Flipkart.
Vimanika Comics currently produces graphical novels and digital comics for both Indian and western markets, with titles such as ‘Shiva’, ‘The Sixth’,/”Moksha” and ‘I am Kalki’ to their credit.
Karan vir Arora, the Creative Director of Vimanika Comics has a reputation of a man whose super focused, respects creativity, believes in processes and is armed with very sharp business acumen.
Animationxpress’ Ishpreet Chandock caught up with Karan, talking about his thoughts on the success of ‘Shiva Book 2, the vision and mission of Vimanika Comics and more…
Congratulations on the recent spate of successes at Vimanika Comics. First and foremost, we’d love to know your thoughts about it?
I am extremely happy with the kind of success ‘Shiva Book 2’ has achieved, the first part of the Shiva series was a success and this one has surpassed all our expectations. It has been the most pre ordered Indian Graphic Novel/Comic on Flipkart and this obviously is a moment of pride for the team at Vimanika Comics and personally, I am glad that our hard work has paid off.
How did you come up with the concept for the Shiva book series? Did anything inspire you to write Shiva in particular?
I would say Shiva inspired me to create the Shiva series, Shailji & I came up with the concept and Kshitish Padhy has written the Graphic Novel, I was also involved in the conceptualization of the book. Shiva as a character inspired me, a great warrior and the God of Gods, it is one of the most intriguing characters of the Hindu Mythology and Shailji researched on the character and from there we conceptualized the whole series.
How would you describe your comic book writing process?
Comic book making is step by step systematic process, the first thing as a creator, you have to zero on what exactly is the idea of the book and then you have to work on the synopsis, the plot, sketching, coloring and compositing ,Editing it is a lengthy process but the most important thing is that you should have belief in what you are doing.
The Shiva series has Indian mythology as its base but has a contemporary feel to it, tell us about it?
I would say it is not contemporary art; it has a realistic feel to it. It has a sense of reliability to it which makes it contemporary. We have one of the most ancient history, it is not easy to show oriental art, for instance, for the Shiva series, we have to show a difference in the structure of Lord Shiva and Parvati respectively, and we wanted to show a sense of muscularity and feminism in both the characters.
How different was your approach towards the second book? What efforts did you take for ‘Shiva Book 2’?
‘Shiva Book 2’ is a completely different book in itself, it has a first person narrative pattern by Lord Shiva, its a biography of Lord Shiva, its his life journey which has particularly three key events.
1. His journey on the Earth after Sati’s Death.
2. The meeting of Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati, the reincarnation of Shakti.
3. The battle of Lord Kartikeya, Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati’s son.
Who are the key people behind this success?
It has been a team effort, we have worked on this book for about 6- 7 months, I feel the key people behind this book and the success it has achieved are Shail Gulhati, who is the editor and researcher of the Shiva series, Kshitish Padhy, who has written the book, Artist -Amit Tayal who has done both the beautiful Front Covers in both the Book I & II,penciler- Hemant Kumar, colorist-Abdul Rasheed ,letterer Raghu & Vikram and the whole team of Vimanika Comics for their undying support.
What’s exciting about Indian comic industry and what’s depressing?
Exciting is to see the growth in the Indian comic Industry, it is good to see events like Comic Con India being held which encourages comic artists in India. Comic Industry is growing and I hope this continues in the future, the depressing part, is the lack of encouragement to the new and upcoming Comic publishing companies, I would like to see more encouragement and support to the new companies which would only help the Indian Comic industry to grow and reach new heights in the future.
How has been your experience working on the Shiva Series so far?
The experience has been wonderful, there have been tough times and good times, at Comic Con Express Mumbai last year, when we had deadlines for the launch of the first Shiva Book I, there was a lot of stress around, but with my talented team we crossed those difficult times and I am happy with the resounding success we have received through the series and we promise to provide with some more fascinating comics in the future.
What’s the team strength? Who is the core team at the company? What’s the
culture like?
Vimanika Comics, as a company currently houses an extremely energized and talented team of writers and artists. At the Management level, it is me and Shail Gulhati, whereas Kshitish is handling the writing department then there is Artist Amit Tayal with his outstanding talent, penciler- Hemant Kumar, colorist-Abdul Rasheed and letterer Vikram Naik. I would like to thank them for being associated with us from the initial stages of the company and help us build Vimanika Comics from Scratch. From a culture perspective, we are a Team focused organization and we have a healthy culture. The main area of focus is to create stories based on characters related to the Indian Mythology. We try to provide the readers with extraordinary work which will be cherished by them.
What are you currently working on?
We are currently working on the latest addition to ‘The Sixth Series’& Dashaavatar Vol 2/I am Kalki The Black Book Vol 3 which would be out soon in the market!