As a kid… if we couldn’t get a ride to the comic book store, we would walk a mile and a half each way to get the latest issues of Batman, Chacha Chaudhary, Tinkle, Spider-Man, X-Men etc. and still were always confused on how to choose one over the other.
It is also true that today in this 21st century one of the reasons the comic book industry now exists is for this purpose, to create characters for movies, board games and other types of merchandise.
Palestinian American literary theorist Edward W Said once said, “I don’t remember when exactly I read my first comic book, but I do remember exactly how liberated and subversive I felt as a result.” After reading our favourite comics we start connecting our life with the comic characters.
Year 2014 was the year for Comic folks. As we all know that it’s about to end, let’s go back and shed some light on the biggest comic festival, partnerships, take-over’s, new launches, movies based on comics and much more.
This year the comic industry came out with flying colours especially in terms of E-commerce (Flipkart, Amazon, personal sites of comic artists) skyrocketing. Thanks to this, sales of comics have gone up like never before and e-commerce has grown more than 40 per cent this year, breaking all the records so far.
As merchandise based on comics is a new concept in India, fans seems to be keen on it. Estimates are that the entire comic and derivative merchandise sectors are valued at around Rs 350-400 crore.
There are two kinds of people- readers and collectors. Keeping that in mind, the Comic Industry saw a big jump in the merchandise sector this year, with all the publishers selling free posters or stickers along with their comic books. Founder of Vimanika Comics, Karan Vir Arora launched new Vishnu figurines priced at Rs 2499; T-shirts and sweat-shirts, all ranged between Rs 699 to Rs 1599 respectively.
Abhijeet Kini introduced some latest cartoonised ear-rings, key chains, mugs and coasters (Rs 100 –Rs 500) and saw 50 per cent growth in its sale.
This year Uncle Pai’s Tinkle comics celebrated its 34th anniversary and for the first time came out with new line of three bobbleheads – Suppandi, Shambu and Billy, all priced at Rs 999.
1970 saw the emergence of an event to build the comic community across the world. Shel Dorf, Richard Alf, Ken Krueger, Mike Towry, and Greg Bear founded San Diego Comic-Con International is now one of the largest conventions of its kind in the world, primarily showcasing comic books and science fiction/fantasy related film, television, and similar popular arts.
At the San Diego Comic Con 2014, The Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice trailer was shown, Marvel comics also announced Guardians of the Galaxy sequel, Comics legend Jim Steranko was a special guest along with award-winning writer and artist Jeff Smith. There was an interactive session by the cast of Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, new NBC TV series Constantine, based on the DC Comics series, The Hobbit: The battle of five armies team and the list goes on and on…
Four years ago, to shun the costly affair of travelling abroad to comic conventions, a group of relatively young people in Delhi decided to create one of their own in their home city. With that simple mission, Comic Con India was formed and has grown to multiple events across states like Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Delhi.
This year Comic Con India saw many new comic, graphic novels and merchandise launches by various comic publishers and Indie artists as well. Comic Con India (CCI) also announced a joint venture with the world’s leading event organiser, Reed Exhibitions, to grow the pop culture space in India and bring world class events to Indian fans.
Comic Con Bengaluru and Hyderabad saw more than 60,000 visitors this year with David Lloyd (Illustrator- ‘V’ for Vendetta), Sana Amanat (editor Marvel Entertainment), Dan Parent (Artist-Archie comics), Ron Marz (Writer-Green lantern) and many more as special guests.
If we are talking about Comic Cons, it’s important to mention about ‘Cosplay’ or ‘Costume Play’ that has become a growing trend at comic and pop culture conventions in the last couple of years. Most people do it for fun, but for few it has turned out to be profitable.
Raj Comics one of the largest comic book distributors and publishers in India celebrated ‘Nagraj Mahotsav’ on 5 October 2014 as a tribute to its iconic character Nagraj and distributed few comics and merchandise online on the auspicious day. It also came out with two new editions –Sarvasangraam and Dragon King at Comic Con India.
Indie artist, Abhijeet Kini came out with the third edition of his famous trilogy involving guns, fists and katana, Angry Maushi at Comic Con. His comics were also sold out at Dubai and Singapore Comic Con which concludes that the good content can be liked across.
Tinkle released new editions namely Shikari Shambu, Butterfingers and Defective Detective. It increased its subscription numbers by 30-35 per cent, with great support from advertisers (35-40 per cent increase). Tinkle’s App also got very good feedback and was announced as the fourth Best Publishing App on iOS in India with best sales at MFCC.
2014 got together two of the most likeable comic brands, Chariot Comics and Meta’Desi. For the first time they collaborated under a new brand, ICBM (Indian Comics Badass Multiverse) and launched Love Me like a Psycho Robot at Bangalore Comic Con this year.
Cartoon Network Enterprises (CNE), the licensing and merchandising division of Turner International India, partnered with PepperScript Publishers this year and brought back the evergreen 90’s characters like Powerpuff Girls, Johnny Bravo, Dexter etc through its new comic books, ‘Remix’.
In addition to this, other comic brands like Fenil comics, Ratapallax and Crimson studios launched Secret Agent Om, Priya’s Shakti and Train of thoughts respectively.
Now because we are talking about Comics how can we move on without talking about the redhead character – ‘Archie’ who died this year in July. In the last edition of Archie comics which has gone onto sell more than two million copies since its inception, the freckled teenager is finally killed by a rogue gunman who attempts to assassinate Archie’s friend, Senator Kevin Keller. But Archie’s fans have reason to rejoice: Fox has gained the rights of the TV adaptation of the comic series, so Archie will now be an hour long drama on TV as Riverdale and a new comic with a new avatar based on Archie Andrew will be launched next year. The looks will remain the same but with a new attitude and a new team will be penciling this upcoming comic.
What better way to engage young people in discussions about diversity and character than to use comic books? That was the idea behind the partnership between the BBDO (Batten’s, Barton, Durstine & Osborn) Diversity Council a worldwide advertising agency network and Marvel Custom Solutions (in-house creative agency of Marvel Entertainment). Writer Eisner, Award-winner Brian Michael Bendis and illustrator Mark Brooks, came out with a new Avengers Comic.
The Partnership between Marvel Comics and Walt Disney Animation Studios for Big Hero 6 was one of the unforgettable moments of the year as the movie went on to win the US box office race with an estimated $56.2 million from 3,761 theatres alone.
The next few years at the movies will most certainly be exciting times for comic-book-movie fan boys and girls, if the recently released schedule of dates from powerhouses Warner Bros/DC and Disney/Marvel hold. Starting in 2015, through 2020, both studios will be releasing a total of 23 of these movies, for an average of about four a year. Some of the movies that you will be able to see in next two years are: 1 May 2015 – “The Avengers: Age of Ultron”, 17 July 2015 – “Ant-Man”, 25 March 2016 – “Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice”, 6 May 2016 – “Captain America 3”, and 8 July 2016 – “Doctor Strange”.
Overall this year ended on a good note for the all the people from the comic industry but we also lost the legendary cartoonist Pran Kumar Sharma, creator of the iconic character Chacha Chaudhary, who died of colon cancer this year on 5 August.