History of comics in India

We often read comics in hiding textbooks in our school and bought them from the A.H wheeler store during our summer vacation on a train journey.We have many memories with Indian Comics.The golden age of comics starts in the 80s and 90s.

In 1947,the Indian comics were an overpowered thing for children and teenagers.A great artist of India Aabid Surti told that in the time of second world war,some army soldiers traveled from Bombay to Barma in a slow motion train. Sometimes,some kind hearted soldiers threw some coins, chocolates etc.One day a soldier threw a comic book of Mickey Mouse. The pages of comic books are distributed to every child. Aabid saw the courage in the children.He started drawing.He added his name in the list of famous people who have the word of comics in India.

First Comic of India:-

In India,the first on ground comic was "Indrajal".It was a copy of western comic "Phantom".Indian artists acquired the right from western companies to publish these comics in translation form and became popular with the name " Vetal".

In the 70s the comic world became famous. "Indrajal" boost the culture of comic in India

Revolution of comic:-

The real revolution started in 1967.Anant Pai launched a comic "Amar Chitra Katha" which promoted the Indian culture heroes and Indian freedom fighting heroes.

The first Comic book of Anant Pai was " Adventure of Krishna '' which became famous and 5 million copies sold.It had completed 50 years of comics.

Famous character of comic world:-

Indrajal comics launched its first character " Hawaldar Bahadur" created by Aabid Surti. He lived at the place of Chambal Ki Ghati and wore a kurta. Aditya and Dura were also the characters of Indrajal but Hawaldar Bahadur got more popularity.

In North India,Pran sir created a character named "Chacha Choudhary" which was published in Diamond Comics.

The interesting fact of this comic was the colour of blood was shown black because Pran sir belonged to Pakistan and he had seen the violence during partition.In 1948, he came to India and started work in comics.Billu,Srimati and Pinki were comedians also created by Pran.

In 1948, Diamond Comics created a science fiction hero named " Foladhi Singh"who wore tights,kept a typical moustache and did adventures in space.

It also created some characters like Ram- Rahim and Sagar-Salim. These characters create awareness of equality between Hindu and Muslim.

Golden age of comic:-

In the 1980s,the comics world was at its golden age. More than 25 publishing houses published comics but none of them have super power heroes or Indian culture inspired heroes.

In1986, terrorism was a hot topic for India.

Sanjay Gupta and Pratap Mullick created a character of "Nagraj" who fought against terrorism.It became popular among children.Then Radha Comics created a character "Nagesh"and Goyal Comics created a character "Nagputra".

In a comic book, Amitabh Bachchan was shown in the character of a supreme hero who wore a supreme dress.

Manoj comics also came in the competition whose comics were based on the stories of King and Queen or world famous stories like Gulliver Travels,Arabian Nights,Dracula and some famous characters like Inspector Manoj, Croup Bond,Gagan,Vinas Doot etc.

The Raj Comics expanded their universe.The artist Anupam Sinha created a character "Dhruva" who fought with villian without using super power but gadgets and intra actual brand devices like bike, gun,bombs etc.

In 1991,the Raj Comics laughed at the combo character in a comic named "The Nagraj and Super Commando Dhruva whose 9 lakh copies sold within three months.

The Raj Comics created a character named " Doga" who fought and kill at night of Mumbai with criminals.

Failure of Comic world:-

The Raj Comics was on peak and Indrajal had vanished.Then the digital world started with cable connection, Video games, PC gaming which gained more popularity than comics.

After 2000 only Raj Comics, Diamond Comics and Amar Chitra Katha were left.

But Raj Comics wanted this world in an active phase so they acquired all the rights of characters.

Come back of Comics:-

After one decade, comics are popular again. Yali Dream Creation, Graphic India and Bullseve Press companies are starting to publish comics.

Some youth groups also start to publish comics and share comics at free of cost on the internet.