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The delivery medium for comics is going digital. E-comics, mobile comics, animated stories, cartoon channels are upgrading the print version to electronic media. But that does not quite mean that print is dead. Not yet. We analyze the how-and-what of the comic industry in India.

When parents buy books for their children to make them start reading, more often than not, they pick up a picture book. This book may include humorous tales, funny snippets, witty fables, stories based around mythological and historical legends and so on. If you are that lucky child, welcome to the first comic of your life!

“One of the major reasons why parents prefer to buy these comics is to make the habit of reading interesting for children,” says Deepak Sehgal, of Central News Agency (CNA), a distributor of magazines and comics. According to S. N. Prabhakar of India Book House (IBH), another distributor, children continue reading comics till their mid-teen to late teen years. “Though there is no cap on age, the industry usually targets children between six and seventeen.”

What is a comic?
A comic is a graphical work in which pictures or images with short narratives and dialogues in callouts are used to tell a story. A cartoon is a much shorter version, while a comic tends to be longer. Cartoon comics tell longer stories than the normal cartoon strips. The narrative could be a tale, story or even a joke. The name comic comes from the Greek word kōmikos, meaning “of or pertaining to comedy”. Over the years, Indian comics have covered almost everything from wit and mythology to super heroes.

Comics can be broadly classified into four segments—single story, multiple story, graphical novel, and comic digest. Single story comics tell one story per book and usually revolve around a single character—the hero. A good example would be comics by Raj Comics around characters like Nagraj and Super Commando Dhruv.

Multiple story comics contain more than one story in the same book, each story around a different group of characters. You could look at them as a compilation of multiple stories. The price of multiple story comic is somewhat similar to single story comic.

Graphical novels are different in a way that these contain more text than conventional comics. They are also called comic magazines. These novels often contain mythological and historical stories put simply for children to understand. Moral stories developed around new characters are also served in these novels. Examples would be Krishna, Hanuman, etc. by Amar Chitra Katha.

Comic digests resemble multiple story comic books, but are a compilation of stories around the same set of characters, like an Archie’s Digest.

The comic market
The printed comic went through some tough times during 1997-2003. The general industry consensus is that it is recovering and that the market is stabilizing.

A publisher often develops more than one character/title across multiple content genres like action, fantasy, science fiction, modern magic and mythology.

Apart from English, comics are also published in other Indian languages like Hindi, Tamil (Muthu comics, Rani comics), Malyalam (Boban and Molly by Tom Cartoons) and so on.

Factors crucial for success of comics

• Value of money—content, graphics and printing

• Strong storyline and characters

• Indian environment in storyline

• Novelty in ideas

• Distribution and reach

Diamond Comics estimates the Indian comic industry to be around $300 million per year. The total publication of all types of comics in India comes to around 125 million copies per year including all regional languages.

Apart from periodical comics sold to buyers, there is also a business-to-business (B2B) market for customized comics. This includes comics that are given free with products for promotional activities. Or the medium of comics used as advertisement or promotional material, developed specifically around the product or service in question. Banks, manufacturing industries, FMCG producers, the confectionery industry and stationery brands use comics for their promotional activities.

According to Gulshan Rai of Diamond Comics, to compete in the Indian comic market, the price of comics needs to be reasonable and comparable to other players. This is why foreign players have to settle for much smaller sales numbers. For example, a Disney Comic containing 32 pages costs Rs 25. However, a comic from Indian publishers often have 70-90 pages for the same price.

Publication numbers
Deepak Sehgal of CNA says that on an average, a comic has the potential to sell 20,000-30,000 copies throughout India given a price of Rs 20-25.

At the highest end, established best sellers could do many times that number. Champak, a fortnightly from Delhi Press in six Indian languages and two versions in English (one with multimedia CD) claims a readership of 4,000,000. Balarama published by Malayala Manorama in Malyalam is a weekly magazine that claims a readership of 250,000 while Tom Cartoons claims sales of around 100,000 copies for their comic Boban and Molly
in Malyalam.

On an average, a comic has the potential to sell 20,000-30,000 copies throughout India given a price of Rs 20-25 - Deepak Sehgal Central News Agency

Archie distributes its comics through Variety Book Depot owned by Om Arora. Om Arora reveals that they import 10,000 copies each of 17 titles of comic digests. Archie has decided to publish its comic digests in Hindi and Malyalam too. Om Arora mentioned that there would be 12 titles and they would be importing 1,000 copies for each title in each language.

Amar Chitra Katha differs a bit from conventional comic models in India. Their publication focuses mainly on mythological and historical characters of India. On yearly basis, they claim a readership of around 4,000,000.

Going digital
Like with other things print, the electronic media has had a definite impact on the market for comics as well. Many Indian publishers of comics are looking to expand their domain in the electronic format.

Amar Chitra Katha signed a deal last February with Vodafone to provide comics on mobile phones. Four months earlier, they had started their services for the iPhone in the US. They have started telecasting Karadi Tales in October 2009. By December, Amar Chitra Katha plans to provide comics through Amazon’s Kindle One of their character, Suppandi, is debuting as a 3-D film, which will hit the Indian market in around the last quarter of 2010.

Gulshan Rai of Diamond Comics mentioned that they are collaborating with Media Guru Consultants to launch their cartoon channel in the second quarter of next year. They are also foraying into mobile comics, DTH, and IP TV.

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