In January 2006 Virgin Group announced the £10 million deal that would see the company team up with Gotham Entertainment, the leading comic publisher in South Asia, to develop new concepts in comics to be spun off into movies, animation, toys, and video games. It's believed that within the next decade Asia will become not just the greatest producer of entertainment goods but also the greatest consumers. Asian countries also of course have rich mythologies from which to draw inspiration, mythologies largely unknown to Western audiences.

Straight away some heavy names were contracted to the new scheme, including Elizabeth director Shekhar Kapur, and Deepak Chopra, the author of spirituality books and alternative medicines, to create up to a hundred new concepts to be developed for the Indian audience.

In all the promotional and press release material, the company's intention to capitalize on the creative potential of the comic book medium in the country has been stated time and again. “Mythical themes influence our behaviour and even our habits of consumption,” said Deepak Chopra, Virgin Comics chairman in the company Q&A. “Myth encapsulates the collective imagination, the collective dream, the collective aspirations of society. We are in need of new myths as we move into a global culture. The super heroes of tomorrow will be cross-cultural and transcend nationalistic boundaries. They will provide the raw material for a new imagination that will take us across the seas of space, time, and beyond.”

Comics are the “brave new world of entertainment,” according to Shekhar Kapur, in a short interview printed in the back of the first wave of Virgin Comics, and repeated in other official literature. “The art of the two hour captive, non-interactive product called the “movie” is history. Comic book characters – traditional and digital – are the new cult, the new religion. India's six hundred million teenagers are now at the forefront of the creation of these new gods.”

The Virgin Comics line is divided into three imprints: Shakti, Directors Cut and Virgin Voices (previously Maverick). “The Shakti line is the only one focused on ‘reversing the funnel' and bringing a new wave of Indian-infused content to the world created by a new generation of young Indian artists and writers,” said Sharad Devarajan, CEO & Publisher of Virgin Comics / Virgin Animation, about these lines when I spoke to him recently. Sharad is also the head of Gotham Entertainment Group (GEG), a company he founded in 1997 with his colleague Suresh Seetharaman. GEG will remain a separate Company focused on translating and distributing the comic book content from around the world into South Asia, through publishing relationships with Marvel, DC and Dark Horse Comics among others.

LEFT: Art from DEVI

Virgin Comics is described as a “content development firm focused on creating the next wave of global properties”. For example, the Directors Cut line, intended to attract big Hollywood names, from which Shekhar Kapur's Snake Woman , was the first to be released.

“We also have a new title scheduled later this year from acclaimed action director John Woo entitled Seven Brothers ,” added Sharad. “We also have another comic under this line with Guy Ritchie which will launch in 2007. The third line is our Virgin Voices line where we will be making some announcements shortly about projects in development with a number of musicians, actors, novelists and creators. In fact we made a very discreet announcement at the 2006 San Diego Comic Con that we will be launching a new project in this line by actor Nicholas Cage and his son Wes Cage. For now all of our titles in all three lines stand alone and we are not looking to create a universe in the same way Marvel and DC have.”

RIGHT: Art from RAMAYAN REBORN

Another big name appearing alongside Deepak Chopra at San Diego Comic Con was Grant Morrison, on a panel entitled The Seven Spiritual Laws of Superheroes. “Just to clarify,” said Sharad, “though Grant is a like-minded friend of the Company and someone we hope to work with in some capacity, he is under an exclusive contract with DC Comics and is not attached to any Virgin Comics projects. However we are working with industry legend, Garth Ennis who we have paired with John Woo to develop Seven Brothers . Seven Brothers is a perfect template for the Virgin Comics mission, of seamlessly collaborating with creators across the globe to define a new type of globally appealing content. Woo is Chinese, Ennis is Irish, the cover artist for the series, Yoshitaka Amano is Japanese and the interior artist, Jeevan Kang is Indian. Similarly, we are seeking the greatest talent from all over the world, the best writers and artists to work with us to create a new wave of global mythologies that resonate with audiences from Boston to Beijing to Bangalore and transcend nationalistic borders and race, religion or culture.”

       ABOVE: Art from SADU

“So far we have been thrilled with the initial reaction with the comics in the States,” said Sharad when asked about the critical reception of the new line. “I feel the audience in the West has been very receptive to the Eastern flavour we have been trying to incorporate in our stories and the high calibre of the artwork and production quality in the books we are releasing.”

However the first wave of titles, including Snake Woman , Devi and Sadhu have been released to mixed reviews. Where people looked to Virgin as possibly revitalizing public awareness in the medium with innovative product and possibly even a mainstream advertising campaign in the West, the Virgin Visionaries have instead decided to keep to the old established routes. “Certainly we intend to make our comics available to the same comic book retail outlets that other publishers do,” said Sharad about distribution. “Absolutely we will be establishing a major presence at the Virgin Megastores around the world. Each market has its own strategy to build the Virgin Comics brand as well as to promote each individual property.”

ABOVE: Art from RAMAYAN REBORN

The focus of revitalizing a medium however seems focused on the Indian subcontinent. “The Asian launch will happen in September and in January 2007 we expect our titles to be broadly released throughout Europe and Latin America through our new licensing arrangement with Panini Comics, Europe's largest comic book publisher,” explained Sharad, but “the agreement for Panini excludes the UK and Ireland.”

The concept of comics in India is quite recent compared to the European, American and Japanese industries. It has developed from the adaptations of the historical epics Ramayana and the Mahabharata in the 1960s , to educational comics for children, caricatures in print media, and adaptations of American superheroes . Despite the publication of about 100 million copies a year, comics in India is still largely dominated by American characters, and local production remains marginal.

In 1967 , the cartoonist Anant Pai of the India Book House , launched the series Amar Chitra Katha , the objective of which was to transmit to children the great mythological and Indian religious texts. The story of Krishna was the first in the series, joined rapidly by the epics Ramayana and the Mahabharata . The collection now has 426 volumes. This success inspired other publishing houses who launched their own series on their own themes: Dreamland Publications and Diamond Comics at New Delhi , and Jaico Publishing House at Mumbai . Some publishing houses specialized in making comics for the Indian international market, like the Chakra collection, the Cultural Institute for the Vedic Arts of New York . This last collection, which sells mainly in South Africa , Kenya and North America , competes with its contemporaries by adopting a very dynamic style, similar to manga .

Shekar Kapur has stated he grew up on comics in India, and the telling of stories through visual narrative is what led him to film. “[Comics} based on Indian mythologies, which at one time, were hugely popular all over the country and were published in various languages,” he says. “Somehow comics in India did not develop the new art forms they developed say in Japan. Kids, influenced by TV now, expected the comic books to, for lack of a better word, modernize, both in form and content. That did not happen in India.”

“I have had the privilege of being involved in the Asian comic scene for nearly a decade and helping to pioneer the introduction of the western comic medium in markets like India through my other Company, Gotham Entertainment Group” Sharad elaborates. “Though comic markets such as Japan and Korea are incredibly sophisticated and evolved, markets such as India, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore are still in their infancy in terms of developing their own wave of original product.”

ABOVE: Art from SNAKEWOMAN (use interview 5 art)

As with the West, the problems of distribution remain an obstacle in the East. “In India, the challenge was always creating an organized retail distribution that would support comics, since there are no specialty stores and very limited national chains such as Barnes and Noble or Borders. To build distribution in South Asia, you are literally aggregating thousands of small “mom and pop” retailers across the country to build a reliable distribution program. Thankfully we have been doing that for quite some time and have now built the infrastructure to hopefully see comics begin to aggressively grow and thrive in this region.”

The Virgin Comics CEO also believes much of the original content the company is developing with local Indian artists and writers will resonate much more strongly with these markets. “India is a perfect example of this, though indigenous comics were there for decades in India, unfortunately the level of art and story remained in the Stone Ages and did not evolve to cater to today's kids who were being exposed to international levels of production quality in comics as well as other entertainment mediums.”

For comics to evolve and survive in India, Sharad believes they needed to jump to the next level and really produce groundbreaking stories that spoke to this new generation of leaders and thinkers emerging in today's Indian youth.

“The comics we are producing at Virgin under the Shakti line are the voice of this new generation of Indian youth who are starting a revolution of thought in politics, culture, economics and entertainment. I have no doubt they will appeal in a very primal way to the yearnings and aspirations of this highly dynamic Indian youth market of today. With 550 million people under the age of 20 in ten years, this is a youth market that with sheer numbers will greatly define the future world.”

Sharad hopes that in the next five years, Virgin Comics will have helped to usher in a creative renaissance for India wherein the country is not only known for its great programmers and engineers, but also for its dynamic young artists and creators. “In the same way the Japanese ushered in a new era for character entertainment in the late 90's we feel South Asia has the potential to define a new wave of creativity for the world in the years ahead,” he says. Similarly, he hopes to establish Virgin's brand as a stable and leading force in entertainment. Sharad describes Virgin as “one of the most powerful youth trendsetting brands in the world today and though they have had a prolific career in music, this new venture really is their first foray into comics, animation and character entertainment. We are confident that in the same way Virgin redefined the music, airline, mobile and record store industries around the world, in the years ahead Virgin Comics will also be regarded as a trailblazer in comic book entertainment.”

LINKS:

www.virgincomics.co.uk

www.gothamcomics.com/

www.rajcomics.com

www. AmarChitraKatha .com

www.wikipedia.org

COMICS IN INDIA

Virgin Comics looks to revolutionise the comic book industry in India, intending to “modernise” its output to be more favourably compared to imported publications. It has developed from the adaptations of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata in the 1960s , to educational comics for children, caricatures in print media, and adaptations of American superheroes . Despite the publication of about 100 million copies a year, comics in India is still largely dominated by American characters, and local production remains marginal.

For example, in March 1964, the publisher of The Times of India , Bennet, Coleman & Co., launched a new series called Indrajal Comics . The first 32 issues contained The Phantom stories, but thereafter, the title alternated between various King Features characters, including Mandrake, Flash Gordon, and Buz Sawyer.

The Mumbai based publisher India Book House published magazines such as Tintin and Asterix , often in Indian languages. Their most famous published series of books is the Amar Chitra Katha series, that portrayed caricatured depictions of Indian mythology and folklore .

India Book House also launched the first Indian comic magazine for children in the early 1980s , called Tinkle , which was a big success. Tinkle diversified on the educational themes developed by Amar Chitra Katha , including science, contemporary culture, etc. The magazine introduced numerous recurring heroes like the amusing Suppandi, Mooshik the adorable mouse, Kalia the crow and the malicious minister Tantri.

Another notable Indian comic publishing house is Raj Comics , formed in 1984, and home of characters such as Nagraj , a Hindu superhero who has subsequently made the transition to television; Doga ; Super Commando Dhruva and various others. It has produced close to three thousand individual comics to date. The company focuses mainly on superhero -centric comic books, often inspired by Marvel or DC characters. The majority of their output is in the Hindi language, but a few titles and special editions have been translated into English. In India, comics are still regarded as an exclusively child-oriented medium. Nevertheless, there is no Comics Code in India. Consequently, the comics frequently depict graphic violence, though sexuality and nudity are generally considered taboo in India.

In 2002 the comic industry became aware of an unassuming cult comic that had hit the scene. Slave Labor Graphics published Bombaby the Screen Goddess . The comic introduced a character by the name of Sangeeta. Sangeeta doubled as a dutiful daughter by day, and as a reincarnated Hindu goddess by night. Though the comic did not have wide distribution, it received much acclaim and was even featured in Time Magazine . Bombaby hugely affected the comic industry for an independent release - despite the profound effect India has had on worldwide culture, and the interest it elicited in the past, people in the west, especially America, were quite unfamiliar with Indian culture, Hinduism, etc. Within a few years of Bombaby being released, the comic industry was suddenly a buzz with imitations and a sudden move towards Hindu mythology and Indian culture. Larger comic houses began their own take on the idea of an Indian superhero or using Indian themes in their books. Two years later in 2004 Spider-Man was reimagined, with much media attention, in a series created by Sharad Devarajan , Suresh Seetharaman and Jeevan J. Kang . Peter Parker became Pavitr Prabhakar, Mary Jane became Meera Jain, and so on.

India's first graphic novel, Corridor , written and illustrated by Sarnath Banerjee , was published the same year, gaining critical accaim and wide sales amongst India's book reading community, introducing adult themed comics to the Indian scene for the first time. Set in contemporary Delhi , a shop owner by the name of Jehangir Rangoonwalla , an enlightened dispenser of tea , wisdom and second-hand books, interacts with other residents of Delhi that all visit his shop. The first print run of two thousand copies were snatched up by booksellers within just one month. Penguin India, which published Corridor , has the first rights to Banerjee's forthcoming second graphic novel set in his native Calcutta.

As comics become more widespread in distribution and creators such as Sarnath Banerjee, along with Virgin Comics, introduce the concepts of comics as a maturing medium rather than a distraction for children, there is a massive potential for India to be a producer as well as consumer of graphic literature to rival Japan in the next decade. Now, if only some of that would rub off on the UK…

TITLES OVERVIEW

SHAKTI:

The various uses of the word Shakti range from a means of signifying the ultimate primordial creative power to expressing the capacity or power of words to convey meaning. Specifically, Shakti means power, force and feminine energy. Shakti represents the fundamental creative instinct underlying the cosmos, and is the energizing force of all divinity, of every being and every thing. Devotees believe the whole universe to be a manifestation of Shakti, who is also known by her general name Devi , which like our word "divine", is from the Sanskrit root 'div' which means 'to shine.' Shakti is also the name given to Virgin Comics Indian infused line.

RAMAYAN REBORN:

One of the most important literary works on ancient India, the Ramaya ? a has had a profound impact on art and culture in the Indian Subcontinent . The Ramaya ? a is an ancient Sanskrit epic attributed to the poet Valmiki and is an important part of the Hindu canon. It consists of 24,000 verses in seven cantos and tells the story of a prince, Rama of Ayodhya , whose wife Sita is abducted by the demon king of Lanka , Ravana . In its current form, the Valmiki Ramayana is dated variously from 500 BCE to 100 BCE, or about co-eval to early versions of its epic cousin Mahabharata . The Ramayana is not just an ordinary story, but contains the teachings of ancient Hindu sages and presents them through allegory in narrative and the interspersion of the philosophical and the devotional. The characters of Rama, Sita, Lakshmana , Bharata , Hanuman and Ravana (the villain of the piece) are all fundamental to the cultural consciousness of India.

The Virgin Comics incarnation, again written by Deepak Chopra and Shekhar Kapur , will take place in a partly science fiction setting, while “upholding the age-old philosophy and morality of the tale”. In an age of desolation and darkness when the world is dying from the curse that men inflicted upon themselves, a great epic shall take place once again. The armies of Ravan, the master of the half living race of Asuras, march across the world invading one land after another and poisoning the earth with his vile mechanoids. Hope remains in Ayodhya, the last vestige of the race of humans, a gleaming city that boasts the finest of warriors – Kshatriyas. But even Ayodhya has been infected by the evil that spreads across the world like a contagion, and the prime victim is Rama, the first born of the Maharaj or chief councilor of Ayodhya.

By treachery Rama is exiled from his land, but in the course of his travels he finds out the true meaning to his existence: he has to become the scourge of the Asuras and the protector of the daughter of earth. Thus begins Rama's journey across the kingdoms, lands and continents, the quest to retrieve the soul of the planet and cleansing of the world of a malevolent darkness that threatens to engulf it.

DEVI:

Devi is the Sanskrit word for Goddess, and comes in many aspects, often visualised in three forms as Saraswati , Lakshmi and Kali . She is synonymous with Shakti , the female aspect of divinity, and is conceptualized in the Shakta tradition as the driving force without which the male aspect, which represents consciousness or discrimination, is impotent. She is the mother of all living things. Her right hand holds joy and pain and her left hand holds life and death. She is a goddess of fertility, rain, health and nature, and holds the entire universe in her womb. She is also a goddess of the entire cycle of life including death .

Her main scripture is the Devi Mahatmyam , (also known as Chandi Path or the Durga Saptashati), in which an allegorical rendering of the binding force of Maya and ego is represented through devotional stories about the Divine Mother slaying demons who afflict the world, and its from these that the comic series derives its inspiration.

The plot of the comic states that in the second century of mankind's arrival on earth, the Gods of light took up arms against one of their own, Bala, a fallen dark God, who had rejected the old ways of the pantheon and sought to impose his dominion over mankind. Feeding off the forced worship of men Bala grew too powerful for the pantheon to combat alone. So the pure Gods each sacrificed a part of themselves to create a powerful entity. She is Devi. A fierce feminine warrior, stronger than the Gods themselves, she is reincarnated into the body of a human woman each time a great threat faces the Pantheon. She is the champion of the heavens, and the protector of man.

Having defeated Bala in her virgin incarnation so many centuries ago, a modern-day Devi must be reborn to combat the Dark Lord who has returned and grown more powerful than ever. He now controls the festering city of Sitapur – a metropolis of slums and perverted technology built on the ruins of the ancient city of Candaka. It is in these ruins that the greatest power is believed to be hidden – a vessel containing the energy released by the timeless prayers of man to the Gods of Light. It is called The Source, and if Bala is able to access it, complete control over the heavens and earth will be his. It is up to Devi to protect the source, and thus the Gods and all of mankind. Now in the city of Sitapur, where the mythic and modern collide, Devi is hunting Bala's demon race and being hunted by a scorned breed of assassins employed by Bala.

SNAKE WOMAN:

Snake Woman is the re-invention of India's ancient Snake ( Naga ) legends, in which the soul of the serpent reptile is reborn in the form of a sexy and unsuspecting heroine, increasingly possessed by her reptilian instincts and driven to avenge a centuries old wrong.

Snake Woman is the story of Jessica Peterson, a young introspective mid-western girl who has moved to Los Angeles where she works as a waitress in a downtown LA dive-bar. Naturally quiet and reserved, Jessica's slow immersion into the bigger city life is accelerated all of a sudden when one night a yuppie bar patron she mistakenly trusts accosts her. When he tries to take advantage of her walking her home from the bar, Jessica is not only able to fight him off, she actually turns predator and rather gruesomely kills him. Overwhelmed with emotion, Jessica feels a strange one mixed in – arousal. Why did killing him feel so damn good? Torn between her human brain (ethics, morals, intellect) and her reptilian one (instincts, senses, and survival patterns), Jessica has to uncover this new part of herself.

SADU:

In Hinduism , sadhu is a common term for an ascetic or practitioner of yoga ( yogi ) who has given up pursuit of the first three Hindu goals of life: kama (pleasure), artha (wealth and power) and even dharma (duty). The sadhu is solely dedicated to achieving moksha (liberation) through meditation and contemplation of God . Although the term Sadhu has its roots in Hinduism it is also used for followers of other religions, if they live a Sadhu life. The most famous Sadhu was probably the Buddha and there are Sadhus in Sikhism as well.

With the Virgin Comics incarnation, w ritten by Gotham Chopra , and with art and cover by Jeevan Kang , the Sadhu takes on more of a dramatic aspect. James Jensen, a down on his luck Englishman, is recruited into her majesty Queen Victoria's army and posted with his family in India in the summer of 1858, he begins a journey that will take him from being a simple soldier to a spiritual warrior. But faced with tragedy and his own impending execution at the hands of his evil commanding officer, James flees his military unit only to find himself lost deep in the jungle and at the mercy of a seeming band of Indian killers. But when their leader, Dadathakur, orders a reprieve and eventually allows James to join them on their attacks of the local Indian landowners that side with the British, James embarks on a dark path of violence in an effort to avenge the atrocities committed to his family. But soon he discovers it's not the answer and is drawn to the gentle nature and sublime wisdom of Dada. James adopts the ways of the Sadhu, a coded way of life that not only teaches an obscure form of martial arts but also illuminates the true nature of reality and at last teaches James the one eternal truth: the path we choose is who we are.

SEVEN BROTHERS:

This Garth Ennis and John Woo penned concept differs from other Virgin Comics as it initially appears not to be influenced directly by Indian mythology. Six hundred years ago, a mighty treasure fleet set out to sail the oceans of the world. They reached every continent, discovered every land long before history's great explorers stole the credit for their feats. Now, in modern day Los Angeles, seven men with nothing in common but their destinies are drawn together in the service of a mysterious young woman. An ancient prophecy must be fulfilled. Something terrible is reaching out across the centuries. There's a world to be saved... and the only hope for us all is a motley crew of so-called brothers and a power too terrifying to be used.