When we think of Uncle Pai aka Anant Pai, we think of Amar Chitra Katha & Tinkle. But his journey in India comics began actually with Indrajal Comics (which came about for an interesting reason). & if it wasn't for Anant Pai, Phantom wouldn't be so big in India.
A short thread...
A short thread...
Early 1960s Anant Pai was working at Times of India, whose publisher, Bennet Coleman & Co. owned rotary-presses which they used to print calendars. But after Deepavali/holiday season these presses would lie idle. So Pai's boss, P.K.Roy got him some imported Superman comics and...
...asked him to explore the possibility of printing Superman comics to keep the presses busy. Superman rights were easily available. Pai had other ideas & suggested Phantom instead whose faux-Indian trappings were already familiar to many. After all...
...Lee Falk himself had created the Phantom's Afro-Indian domain to indulge his desire to write stories about rajas & Bengal tigers. Pai also suggested that 16 out of the 32 pages be reserved for educational content & local content. So, thanks to idle rotary presses & Anant Pai..
...on March 1964, the 1st issue of Indrajal Comics came out & the Phantom rode grandly into India in a comic-book format. Here's the cover. Art by Govind Brahmania (who did all Indrajal's covers in the beginning). Note the Indrajal logo (& Phantom's eyes)...
#IndianComics
#IndianComics
The story chose was Falk's 1954 story, The Belt. Of course, few things were changed from the original to suit Indian raders. 'Bengali' became Denkali. The Singh Brotherhood became the Singa Pirates. & subsequently Rama the killer of the 20th Phantom became Ramalu...
Pai stayed true to half of every Indrajal Comics dedicated to GK &/or local content. So the early Indrajals had "Around the World with Kunju Pillay" by Kavadi, "Our New Age" by Athelstan Spilhaus & strips like Small Wonders by the legendary Ram Waeerkar...
#IndianComics
#IndianComics
Indrajal Comics would become a rage & kickstart comics reading in India. As Phantom became more popular, the GK/local strips started getting lesser pages until they almost disappeared. Soon Mandrake would join Phantom at Indrajal and the rest as they say, is history
[end thread]
[end thread]
*sheet-fed presses not rotary presses (the latter were busy printing the TOI newspaper anyway)
For the interested, here's a thread on the origins of Amar Chitra Katha, which Anant Pai would join at IBH after his stint with Bennett Coleman & Co. Yes, joined, not started. Because ACK was already in existence (though not as we know it). More here:
