Though it may not be very in the face, India has had a rich legacy of comic books and weeklies for children. Right from Chandamama to Tinkle, from Champak to Chacha Chaudhary, Comics in India have created characters and superheroes which Indian readers love.
Fortunate were those who attended the session on ‘From Comics to Animation‘ at FICCI this year as the panel for this session had stalwarts from the comic book and illustrations industry. With Rajesh Turakhia moderating the session, the members on the panel included Tim Mostert, Creator of Speedy, South Africa; Manish Gupta, CEO, Raj Comics; Viswanath Reddi, CEO, Chandamama, Global Stalwart Margaret M. Dean and Suresh Seetharaman, President, Virgin Comics and Animation.
Giving a brief background on Raj Comics, Manish Gupta kick started the session by saying, “We have been in the publishing of comics for close to 40 years with over 3000 comics and the first regional Indian superhero, Nagraj.”
Taking it further he said that 20 years ago Indian comics market had reprints of foreign comic strips and Indian subjects such as mythology but now the scenario has changed drastically. This was so because mythology had familiar stories which provided for less work on characters and the story being simplified. The downside of this was that there could only be a limited number of stories otherwise it would lead to monotony.
“Kids need shows based on their own superheroes and hence we decided to create Nagraj,” commented Manish. 70% of Raj Comics‘ content is in digital format which started in 1994. Nagraj is being made into an animated title. Manish feels that the socio-legal challenges faced by comic book companies are piracy and brand creation.
According to the experienced Maragaret Dean who has been a great believer in India and has been sending work to Indian studios for several years shared “Comics are a good source for animation and can be handy as reference material. It‘s an inexpensive way of developing characters and stories, they are a medium of graphic visual storytelling, as an IP they are testable. Comics are a good way of building an audience giving credibility and also bringing in revenue through the property that has been created. “The advantage of comics, she feels is that since the stories and characters have already been created, the communication is clear when the animated feature is made”
Margaret at the session showed a short clip of BLOCKHEDZ, the 2d animated hip hop film on which she is working. This is what she said about it, “The guys whose idea it was to make the movie first published comics. They became really popular and within no time the first two issues were sold out.”
Next was Virgin Comics which has established its reputation in the contemporary comics industry. Speaking on the importance of comics he said, “Comics are the foundation as they are the architecture of entertainment. They create environments and characters which are detailed and clear.” In his opinion comics create a brand loyalty and in a way prove to paid research and go onto becoming stories that are sought after. There have been more that 200 movies on comics, hence comics prove to be incubators. Speaking from the experience of the kind of work that Virgin Comics has been doing, Suresh said, “If you have a good idea then try realize that idea through comics which has various options of ancillary revenues.”
Tim, the creator of Speedy, one of the most popular comic strips in South Africa spoke to the audience at the session saying that the biggest challenge while making strips is to write gags. “It‘s all about the gag and all one needs to is to sort out the basics and then the process of creating comics after that becomes much easier,” he shared. Tim through his presentation took everyone back in history to when comics and animation were started. Tim spoke about Popeye and how the comic strips around him came to be created. What came as a surprise was when he mentioned that in 1936 Popeye was bigger than Mickey Mouse. In the 1950s the comic book series, MAD came out.
While making comics, Tim said that there are a lot of legal issues involved. One has to keep in mind that under no circumstance should they give up their IP and settle for backend deals. Talking about the properties that he has created, Tim said, “My two popular comic strips are Speedy and Bugs in the Home. Speedy connects and relates to everyone because of his colour which is brown since most of the world consists of people who are non-white. Somewhere down the line they can relate to him. In short Speedy is third world character with a first world sense of humour.”
Tim has also created animated shorts such as Ciivil Service, Finer Things, Silly Poems and will soon launch a TV channel on the mobile. Speedy has also been developed into a 3D animated series. As he was concluding his presentation, Tim commented, “If the property that you are creating proves to be funny in the present day, then it will remain so forever. It depends on the creative ability to make it work. Animation in India is a sleeping giant. There is no lack of ideas and stories here, all we need to do is structure them.”
With a heritage of publishing children‘s books for the last 60 years, Chandamama is a brand that will ring a bell in most people‘s minds. “Chandamama has always developed original content and we have almost 12000 titles under our belt. We had the opportunity of bringing animation to India in the 1980s but we didn‘t do so but helped Disney comics establish themselves here. The content that we have represents the soul of India and can be licensed to different mediums. India is the birth place of storytellers but what they have to keep in mind is the message that they are trying to convey to the young readers.
During the question and answer session on the queries on the kind of animation that had to be created for different shows, Tim concluded the session by saying, “The show dictates the kind of animation. The bottom line is that the content has to be irresistible.”