New Delhi, Jan 3 (ANI): The Indian comic industry has successfully revived its popularity, as comic makers are now entering newer spheres of media such as e-comics, television, mobile, social networking, merchandise and DVD's.
27-year-old Arhan Sett has been reading comics since his childhood, however, his reading habits were affected when the Indian comic industry went into a decline for almost a decade, after the entry of newer media like cartoon TV channels and the Internet.
Arhan, who used to read Amar Chitra Katha, Chacha Chowdhury and Dabu during his childhood, now has a collection of online comics and international comics such as Tintin and Green Lantern.
"At the age of 25, 35, 40... you can still enjoy reading comics. People still enjoy reading Tintin, Green Lantern. My mother is twice of my age and she still loves reading comics and likes Tintin," said Arhan.
Indian comics like Chacha Chowdhury, Nagraj and Doga are back on the shelves and the target group is no longer just kids as the market leaders are promoting graphic novels to attract the adults.
Pran Kumar Sharma, the creator of popular comic character Chacha Chaudhary, is of the view that Indians comics are popular with readers abroad.
"Our Indian comics are being sold in Great Britain, Sri Lanka, U.K., Malaysia, Singapore. I get mails telling me that when my friends visit India, they take back our comics for their young ones," said Pran.
Cashing in on the popularity of the Internet, Indian comic publishers have come up with online editions. Merchandising too has picked up in the form of toys and clothes.
All this has led to an upsurge in the popularity of comics.
According to estimates, the Indian comic publishing industry is worth over 100 Million dollars and it is expected to grow manifold in the coming years
Publishers are now looking forward to expanding the industry through digital platforms like Internet, television, Direct-to-Home (DTH) and mobiles.
Diamond Comics is making an investment of 94.42 million dollars to launch a 24X7 cartoon channel based on its popular characters.
Vimanika Comics launched its e-comics in 2008, which have been well accepted by online readers. The company is now looking at clinching deals with telecom players for mobile downloads.
Amar Chitra Katha has ventured into animation as well as merchandising.
Jitin Verma, the founder of a media house called Comic Con India said: "In terms of companies growing, there's a lot of potential. Again I would take the example of Amar Chitra Katha - they have now expanded their business from comics to other merchandise. Now we have different genres to experiment with, you don't have to restrict yourself to just books."
Currently the country is home to sales of five million English comic books annually, and together with all the vernacular languages, the figure is around 30 million. (ANI)
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