Contrary to popular perception, Amar Chitra Katha was not created by Anant Pai aka Uncle Pai & neither was it in English to begin with! The story of Amar Chitra Katha begins in Bangalore & with ಕನ್ನಡ….
#comics #indiancomics 1/7
#comics #indiancomics 1/7
…The story of Amar Chitra Katha begins in namma Bengaluru as the brainchild of an India Book House (IBH) salesman, G.K. Ananthram who convinced his boss, IBH owner G.L. Mirchandani to let him publish books in Kannada as he felt there was lack of Indian stories at the time...
…The books ultimately became comics, & in the interestsof a quick start, Ananthram began the series – which he named Amar Chitra Katha – with translations of Disney Classics comics of fairy tales. Anant Pai at this time was with The Times of India handling Indrajal Comics…
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…These first ten ACK comics (Sl.Nos. 1–10) were first published in Kannada and then in the other languages. The Kannada translation was done by none other than the great Kota Shivaram Karanth!
…The success & popularity of these titles prompted IBH to take the idea of a truly Indian comic seriously and brought in Anant Pai to take Amar Chitra Katha forward, and this era began with Krishna (written by Pai himself). Here’s the original cover of ACK #11…
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…Yes, Krishna was the first English title from Amar Chitra Katha, but NOT the first ACK comic as many think, but the 11th (older copies still carry the old sl. no.11). Here’s the re-designed cover with art by the famed Ram Waeerkar, the version that's familiar to most of us…
And finally, read this article about GK Ananthram (that's him in the pic): outlookindia.com/magazine/story… P.S.: Guess who continued to translate a few ACKs from this era into Kannada? Take a look at the Sudama comic...
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