After the successful release of three volumes of Aghori, Holy Cow Entertainment is back with the Sampoorna Aghori Omnibus, a complete compilation of the three volumes of Aghori comic book. Aghori Omnibus is written by the well-known DC artist Ram V, drawn by Vivek Goel, Gaurav Shrivastav, Lalit Kumar Sharma, and Saumin Patel.
The 600 pages Hindi comic book will be released on 5 December and features the complete journey of Vikram Roy, an ordinary man who sets out to discover the reasons behind the night his life turned into a nightmare. Speaking about the latest Aghori Omnibus, Holy Cow Entertainment founder Vivek Goel told Animation Xpress, “Aghori Omnibus is the biggest compilation of comic book in the history of India. It features the complete run of Aghori comprising more than 600 pages which were written and drawn by a superstar artist. Aghori English version is one of the longest-running independent comic book titles in India. It is one of our most ambitious projects because of its sheer size and magnitude.”
Aghori annual features two variant covers; one regular cover created by Lalit Sharma and the other variant cover by Gaurav Shrivastav. On asking the idea behind coming up with Aghori Hindi version, Goel said, “We have been publishing Aghori since 2012 and the series ended in 2016. It took almost three to four years for us to make a decision to make comics in Hindi. During COVID, the Hindi market started to bloom and we got many requests for publishing comic titles in Hindi. I thought that the time to publish in Hindi has arrived and our first book in Hindi was Ravanayan, which was an overnight success and we made good money out of it. So we decided to come up with our super selling title Aghori Omnibus.”
Speaking about the challenges that the team faced, Goel mentioned, “It took more than four months to compile the whole version. It is very challenging for us to adapt it in Hindi as Aghori has always been published in English. It was a very heavy job as it took a lot of time to proofread the entire book. About three to four people proofread the book to make the book error-free. The translation and lettering part of the book was very hectic. But at the same time, the wait is worth it.”
The publishing house is actively involved in developing a Holy Cow Universe and is also planning the biggest superhero crossover events Operation Decay. Revealing the future plans, Goel added, “It has been 10 years since we have been publishing comics based on Indian superheroes. We are developing an HC universe and right now our first and biggest crossover event is going on Operation Decay. The first two volumes of Operation Decay are already published and we are planning to release the third, fourth, and fifth volumes after the release of Aghori Omnibus. We are also planning Phase-V for Holy Cow where we will be releasing three to four more superheroes. HC Universe is ever-expanding and with the ever-growing universe, more and more characters are coming in and the resident characters are getting more volumes by taking their adventures and stories ahead.”
Aghori Omnibus will be available on Holy Cow Entertainment’s official website and soon it will be available on Amazon. The hardcover deluxe edition book will cost Rs. 2,499.