Sunday, June 03, 2007

Ramayan 3392 AD

Virgin's latest comic book series - Ramayan 3392 A.D. appears to be doing very well. Late last year, they roped in Spiritual Guru Deepak Chopra, filmaker Shekar Kapur, illustrator Abhishek Singh and writer Shamik Dasgupta to create this futuristic science fiction based on the Indian epic. According to the TOI, the comics are flying off the shelves not only in India but also in the US.

The re-packaged classic is a nice offering alongside the classic Amar Chitra Katha comics, which I still relish. The art work is fabulous and the new story refreshing. You can download the comics in PDF and read them using Adobe Acrobat to find out for yourself!

If George Lucas could be inspired by the Mahabharata to create the lucrative Star Wars series, I dont see why the original epic can not find international fame on its own.

According to Virgin Comic's CEO Sharad Devarajan:

"
Similar to the phenomenon we have seen with Japanese Anime and Manga, which has influenced virtually every aspect of popular media in the West today, our mission is to reinvent contemporary Indian popular art and permeate this new style and vision throughout the globe.

In the same way Indian children have embraced Batman, Spider-Man, Scooby-Doo and Britney Spears, today's Western world has an increasing global appetite for the most engaging content, regardless of its cultural affiliation. If you told parents ten years ago in America that their children would know characters named Yu Gi Oh! and Pokemon as well as they would Spider-Man, those parents would have thought you were crazy – yet in America today an estimated 30% of major children's animated programming is now Japanese animation."

1 comment:

Unknown said...

yesssss....excellent. I can't wait to buy these! I didn't know they were out...