Amar Chitra Katha
Amar Chitra Katha is a comic book series from India that sought to retell stories from Indian mythology, history, folklore, and culture in illustrated format.
The Early Years
The series was the brainchild of the renowned educationist and writer, Anant Pai. Pai, a former journalist with the Times of India was once appalled when students at a Quiz contest could answer questions related to Greek mythology easily but could not answer a simple question from the Ramayana, the Indian epic. This was in 1967, and Pai, already on the verge of striking out on his own in the publishing scene left his job and started Amar Chitra Katha the same year. He was helped by G.L Mirchandani of India Book House, when most other publishers from Allied Publishers to Jaico Publishing House had rejected the concept. India Book House became the de facto distributors of the series. This humble venture went on to become a publishing milestone for the Indian comicbook scene, selling over 86 million copies of 436 titles.
Initially, the Mirchandanis were wary of two things - copyright issues and offending Indian sensibilities and so the first ten issues of Amar Chitra Katha were based on popular fairy tales India Book House had the rights to, like Little Red Riding Hood and Jack and the Beanstalk. Meanwhile, Pai along with artist Ram Waeerkar worked on a comic that would be true to his vision of what Amar Chitra Katha was all about. Krishna was released in 1969 in English and Hindi, and was an instant bestseller. This was followed by other popular tales from Indian mythology such as Shakuntala, Hanuman, The Ramayana, and The Pandava Princes, among others. The lucid storytelling and the vivid artwork, inspired by the imagery of the nineteenth century artist Raja Ravi Verma proved immensely popular.
People
Writers like Kamala Chandrakant, Margie Sastry, Subba Rao and C.R Sharma joined the creative team of Amar Chitra Katha, with Pai taking on the role of editor and co-writer on most scripts. The notable illustrators, other than Waeerkar, were Dilip Kadam, Souren Roy, C.D Rane, Geoffrey Fowler and Pratap Mullick.
The Comics
The original printings of Amar Chitra were not in full colour - because of budgetary constraints, the panels were printed using yellow, blue and green. Subsequent issues, however, changed to full colour. All Amar Chitra Katha books stuck to a monthly (later fortnightly) 30-page format, with emphasis on lucid, entertaining storylines. The only attempt at a serialized story was the 42-issue rendition of The Mahabharata and the nine-volume Bhagawat Purana, based on the story of Krishna ( individual issues of both these stories had both been published before).
Occasionally there were "bumper" issues with 90 pages, most collecting stories of a similar type from individual issues( Example: Monkey Stories From The Hitopadesha, Tales of Birbal) and some being longer stories ( Example: Jesus Christ, The Story of Rama). As the mythological stories became more popular, the team began to publish stories based on Indian history, of men and women belonging to different regions and religions and also on stories based on Sanskrit as well as regional classics. The continuous popularity of the comics lead to reprints being issued frequently, which ensured that the back-issues remained in print throughout the seventies and the eighties. At the height of its popularity, in the mid-eighties, it had been translated into Bengali, Marathi, Assamese, Gujarati, Punjabi, Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, Sanskrit and Urdu and selling a million copies every fortnight. Some titles were also translated into French, Spanish, German, Swahili, Fijian, Bahasa, and Serbo-Croat.
Towards the mid-nineties, the original comics were reprinted in sleeker and more durable editions, with thick cardstock covers and better colour seperations. A revised numbering system was also introduced for these newer editions, increasing the number of titles to above 700. These editions are the ones still sold online and in bookstores to this day.
Cultural Significance
Amar Chitra Katha was launched at a time when Indian society was slowly moving away from the traditional joint family system, because of (among other things) socio-economic constraints and urbanization. In a joint family system, grandparents would regale the children of the household with tales from folklore and the epics, and the Amar Chitra Katha series served to fill the lacuna left by grandparents in the smaller nuclear families in urban areas. The choice of English as the primary language led it to reach the majority of children who studied in English medium schools.
Later, when the comic veered towards history, it proved very helpful to students. For most, Indian history, a jumble of names and dates, came alive as stories. The detailed research of architecture, costumes, regional flavours and facts ensured that the comics were widely accepted into the mainstream, both parents and teachers using them as educational aids. To an extent, these books, with their homogenized and unbiased character descriptions went a long way in promoting national integration and increasing inter-provincial awareness throughout the country.
It should be mentioned that the series steered clear of controversy, taming down content and violence and adhering to strict self-censorship. The stories might also be termed excessively Indocentric and idealistic, and hence might not be "history", per se.
An Incomplete List of Titles
Coming soon.