Shradha Mohanty gives a lowdown on comics you can download: think e-comics, m-comics, live action movies, and much more!
In the 1960s, we had Amar Chitra Katha, Diamond Comics and Raj Comics. Then came satellite television, showcasing animated cartoon series, game consoles and the big dot com boom. The comic industry took a serious hit.
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Even so, this staggering `300 crore industry wasn’t about to wind up any time soon. It began scouting for digital opportunities. The quest has taken the industry places it perhaps never dreamt of.
Today, almost everybody has a personal computer, a smartphone and an affordable broadband connection, which makes it easy to get your laughs online. “Reading a comic on an iPad is a very exhilarating experience,” says Manish Gupta, CEO, Raj Comics.
The colours are vivid and you can carry your entire library with you. "The 10 inch display allows you to read one full comic page at once. You can also pinch and zoom to see specific panels in greater detail.” says Gupta.
What you need
To go digital, a comic company needs a sizeable amount of content. Next up are application developers well versed with various platforms like iOS, Android, Symbian, Windows Mobile, Windows and Web. The infrastructure needs vary and are based on whether the comic house has everything in-house. If not, they need to forge a partnership with technology firms and content aggregators.
For the last few years, Raj Comics has been working on creating a library of ‘motion comics’ which is basically animated comics episodes primarily meant for small screen devices. The challenge is to keep the costs much lower than those of traditional fully animated TV Episodes. “There will soon be a nationwide launch of these comics on the 3G platform, each being a 10 minute episode. The pricing and other details are currently being finalised with the operators,” says Gupta. Some of the plans in the pipeline for Raj Comics are upgrading online presence to make it user friendly and functional, mobile and PC Games and having comics based on some famous Bollywood properties as well.
Well known for Chacha Chadhury, Pinky, etc. Diamond comics has also decided to take the leap by converting all print comics into e-comics and m-comics. They have already loaded over 2000 e-comics on their website. “We hope the conversion process will be completed within next 3 or 4 months,” says Gulshan Rai, Managing Director, Diamond Comics.
They have already developed the DRM software for the application for all the mobile operators. They plan to promote their website in a big way after comics in all languages- English, Hindi, regional languages are uploaded on the website.
Diamond comics is also planning to launch a 24 hours kids channel in Hindi, English, Bengali and Malayalam. The entire channel will based on Indian culture, heritage, historical and political heroes, folk tales, fiction and nonfiction. They are also in the process of making a full length 3D animation feature film.
A relatively new player in the market - Vimanika comics, launched in 2008, creates stories based on characters related to the Indian mythology. A clear pointer of success: Their stall ran out of stock on the second day at India’s first comic convention (Comic Con India) held in New Delhi earlier this year.
“Zero Sum is like a middle agent for us. They have the format, the connections and the carriages. We are tied up with them for India and Malaysia,” says Karan Vir Arora, Founder, Vimanika Comics.
“Cloud 9 Comix enables downloading comics on iPad and iPhones through iTunes and very soon we will be coming up through Android applications,” says Arora. Director Chetan Desai of 3D animation film “Ramayana: The Epic” has teamed up with Vimanika comics team to convert its title—The Sixth into a live action movie.
| Raj Comics |
| Library — 3000 comics + 5000 books covering fiction and non-fiction Platforms — 900 digital comics known as Raj eComics, limited offering on Amazon Kindle, partnered with Panelfly and IndiaNIC for publishing on iTunes, available on Airtel and Vodafone Managed by — In-house development team. Revenue streams — comics on PCs, mobile comics, comics on iPads, iPhones and Kindle. Sales — First edition print run 80,000 - 1 ,00,000 copies/issue. Online averages at 10,000 eComics per month. Through Airtel it is 100,000 paid downloads/month. Prices? |
Other players
- Digital content supplier Liquid Comics has also enabled Sony PlayStation Portable to offer Indian comics.
- Bangalore based company JiniLabs which develops games, applications and products which enhance user experience on smartphones and tablets has partnered with Indian War Comics on iPads. Some comics available under the banner are Braveheart of Mumbai – 26/11, Yeh Dil Maange More, etc. The eBook application reader which will facilitate the comics is called Jinibooks.
- Some of the other comics available under Could 9 Comix through iPad applications are Durga Reawakened, The Rabhas Incident, Northern Song, Shaurya, etc.
Chacha Chaudhry Vs. Spiderman
How do Indian comics compare with foreign labels like Marvel and DC online? Arora says, “It’s like comparing a big company like Microsoft and some similar smaller company in the same space. The Indian comic industry in the digital space is just 1% of the market now. It will take a minimum of 5 years to grow.”
| Vimanika Comics |
| Platforms — iTunes, Nokia OS, Andriod. Service providers — Vodafone and Tata Docomo. Managed by — Indian distributor company Zero Sum and digital publishing house Cloud 9 Comix. Sales — 5000 - 6000 comics/month in India. 3000 – 4000 comics/month in UK and US. |
“Foreign comics sell well only in selective places in the metros or in malls. Indian comics have many more takers” adds Gulshan. “Mostly the demand already existed and we kind of had to just make the service available. On the marketing front we received a very hearty welcome from our existing fans. Although, investments are rather large and the returns are somewhat delayed,” explains Gupta.
Print Versus Digital
With printed comics there is a huge upfront investment and associated risk. The sales are largely on credit, says Gupta.
With online comics, you can start with low investments, collaborating with content aggregators in lieu of revenue share for their services.
Also, you save on paper, printing, binding and distribution costs, and pass on the benefits to the customer. This makes online comics better value for money.
Another advantage: a digital comic can offer you a short preview to let you decide whether you want to buy it.
“In fact, on further partnership with our digital associates, they might have to pay us. We are licensing our products with them so it is the other way round,” adds Arora of Vimanika comics.
“With time, the incremental cost of publishing a new online comic becomes lower. This offers opportunities to experiment with new concepts and genres. We have published many online-only issues and the response has been great,” says Gupta.
Online distribution can also be a great enabler for regional content. Raj Comics experimented with a few comics in Nepali, Bhojpuri and Bengali and the results were very encouraging. Online Content still has a long way to go but the adoption rate is very encouraging.
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