Comics have been a lifelong obsession for me. My primary aim of buying a Kindle was to have my comics at my finger tips. Reading a comic on a laptop murders the experience and although I best enjoy it in the conventional paper form but the Kindle serves as an interesting second option.
Anyways, the other day, I was lured to the graphic novel section of Flipkart through one of their updates on Facebook. Browsing through them, I was really surprised when I noticed an Indian comic by the name of Ravanayan in the middle. I automatically sat up to take notice and the excitement was palpable! The reviews were pretty cool and the plot sounded awesome. Its a take on Ramayana but from the perspective of Ravana. I ordered it and got to lay my hands on them last Friday and it was ohh-so-amazing! The artwork and the story is simply mindblowing! I was really surprised by the mature content esp in the artwork that was on display. Immensely impressed, I ordered all the 7 issues and finished them up over the weekend. Created by Vivek Goel and Vijayendra Mohanty of Holy Cow comics, Ravanayan follows the story of Ramayana as a sub plot but it has all these incidents involving Ravana which (most) people (well...at least me) would be unfamiliar with. Needless to say, the kickass violent artwork keeps you hooked to the pages. I literally check the site everyday to see if the next issue is released or not!
I went back to the same section for more a few days back and was hit by another interesting comic by the name of Odayan. Set in feudalistic Kerala, this martial arts based action story features a vigilante/criminal named Odayan and his saga of crime, violence and blood...lots and lots of it. But sadly it was out of stock and I could not order it. I am dying to get my hands on it I swear!! I mean look at the kickass cover man!!
The recommendations on that page however, led me to Comic Jump..a magazine (kind of) compilation of 3 comics - a zombie thriller called The Rabhas Incident, a mythological adventure - Northern Song and a superhero story - Shaurya. I ordered Season 1 and finished 3 issues in one go. I swear its soo damn addictive! Every issue is a continuation of these 3 comics.
After our Chacha Chaudhary, Indrajaal, Naagraj, Super Commando Dhruv and the likes took the shelf from the Indian comic industry, this re-emergence looks promising and way more edgy in terms of plot, artwork and characters than we are used to..esp from Indian comics. The stories are slick, very well researched and the artwork is beautiful. Plus, we have soo much interesting stuff in our history to write about! Phew! exciting time ahead indeed...I am loving every moment of it! .
