Ruing the death of the Indian comic book
Jul 16th, 2012 by morpheus
It’s not piracy that killed the comic book industry in India. Kids used to share comic books all the time.
Comic books just got phased out.
Just sample what the current crop of 6-14 year old kids prefer to do as a pastime.
Kids in 80s and 90s used to read comic books.
Kids today play video games.
Reading books – even Comic books – is no longer something kids would rather do.
The reason American and Japanese comic books still enjoy healthy circulation is that kids from several generations got to read and love them. American comic books have had a good 6-7 decades to grow and build on their popularity. Japanese comic books have had almost two centuries.
In India, on the other hand, comic books only had a "reign" of roughly a decade.
Boys who were teenagers during late 80s and early 90s used to love comic books. Their parents and their kids don’t.
Also, the publishing houses in America are giants/ in Japan are just plain numerous.
In India, however, publishing of comic books was confined to a very few, very small players. Most of them couldn’t keep up with the changing times and folded.
To make things even worse, the quality of comic books has plumetted.
And it is for this reason, that the one publication house that still stands (Raj Comics), will also gradually fade into oblivion.
Thanks, in no small part, to the god awful "improvements" being made in order to "revive" the characters.
Case in point, Jolly Sinha’s utterly dreadful writing.
It will be the sole reason for the Death of Dhruva/Nagraj/any other character unfortunate enough to get Jolly’fied.
Anupam Sinha’s original Dhruva used to have thrilling adventures like "Champion Killer", "Ek Din Ki Maut", "Aadamkhoron Ka Swarg", "Pagal Katilon Ki Toli".
Jolly’s Dhruva would rather partake in love triangles/divorces/custody battles.
Anupam’s Dhruva was, by and large, scientific and methodical.
Jolly’s Dhruva almost always deals with the super-natural ("Yogic shaktiyaan" … "Tilismi shaktiyaan" … "Manasic Oorja" … aaarghh), when he’s not busy dealing with women issues.
It’s a comic book – not a Saas-bahu soap opera, for heaven’s sake !!!
Comic books are targeted at teenage boys, not middle-aged housewives.
Similarly, the ruthless, all-around-badass, martial artist Nagraj of yore has been replaced by a desi version of Superman … with snakes.
They’ve gone so far as to give Nagraj a secret identity – "Raj", the meek, bespectaled news reporter.
They’ve also discarded the entire awesome backstory of (Parshuram Sharma’s) Nagraj.
Jolly Sinha rewrote it into a fairy tale befitting a Disney princess.
Tarunkumar Vahi’s Nagraj used to fight formidable and memorable villains like "Tuten Tu", "Miss Killer", "Nagdant", "Thodanga".
Jolly’s Nagraj fights "Nagpasha" – the single most annoying "villain" in the history of comic books.
Parmanu and Doga have been reduced to similar Saas-bahu soap opera characters.
The direction they’ve taken in an attempt to keep their characters alive, may well become the proverbial final nail in their characters’ collective coffins.
hello,
As you have mentioned the reasons behind downfall of indian raj comics, and your primary focus was on the writings and thoughts of jolly sinha then as a real comics lover i would like to paas my thoughts regarding your comments .You don’t actually know the real meaning of comics. Comics is for pure entertainment purpose, not for learning new maths tricks ..i admit that anupam sinha’s dhruva bit more technical and inspiring for engineers..but when talking about fantasy..then supernatural powers is the prime ingredient..and you know modern guy..hollywood horror movies are going famous on the box office in the era of NASA and ISRO so now you need to understand that variety in genre is really important to bring something excited and unexpected..and what i feel i used to enjoy jolly sinha’s comics better than others and its pretty disgusting that you compared the concept with sas-bahu opera..i really feel sorry for your pathetic review..and even Nagraj storylines under jolly sinha writings are awesomeee…and one more thing..ok leave it..lol !
But yes , invasion of videogames hugely impacted the existence of comic industry in india..that’s only the point for which i can say the main reason behind lack of craze among teens or kids and many modern kids don’t even know the sheer fun in reading indian comics, mainly the mighty ‘Raj Comics’