Amar Chitra Katha
Parent company Amar Chitra Katha Pvt. Ltd. | | |
Status | Active | |
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Founded | 1967 | |
Founder | Anant Pai | |
Country of origin | India | |
Headquarters location | Mumbai, Maharashtra, India | |
Key people | Preeti Vyas (President & CEO) Reena I Puri (Editor-in-Chief) | |
Publication types | ||
Fiction genres |
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Official website | www |
Amar Chitra Katha (ACK Comics) is an
Creation and influence
The comic series was started by Anant Pai in an attempt to teach Indian children about their cultural heritage. He was shocked that Indian students could answer questions on Greek and Roman mythology, but were ignorant of their own history, mythology and folklore. It so happened that a quiz contest aired on Doordarshan in February 1967, in which participants could easily answer questions pertaining to Greek mythology, but were unable to reply to the question "In the Ramayana, who was Rama's mother?".[1][2]
After quitting
The above is an oft-told story of how ACK was founded beginning with 'Uncle Pai', in Mumbai in 1967. However, Outlook magazine has this article about the genesis of this popular comic series: The idea and proposal for Amar Chitra Katha was made by a Bangalore book salesman called G.K. Ananthram which led to the first Amar Chitra Katha comics being produced in 1965—in Kannada, not English. "The English ACK titles begin from number eleven because the first ten were in Kannada," clarifies Ananthram. To Ananthram's satisfaction, the 1965 Kannada ACK venture was a great commercial success which led to Mirchandani in the head office in Mumbai pursuing the Amar Chitra Katha idea in English diligently. "They brought in Anant Pai" says Ananthram. "And he built a wonderful team and a great brand."[4] By the late 1970s, it was selling 5 million copies a year and had a peak circulation of about 700,000 a month. India Book House started to bring out at least one comic book a month by 1975, and sometimes as many as three. While Pai initially wrote the first few stories himself, he soon hired a core team of writers and editors, which included
Criticism
American scholar Jeremy Stoll has noted that, "As the earliest indigenous comic books in India, the Amar Chitra Katha series set a strong precedent, one which has dictated comics content and style for decades since". On the other hand, he noted the series' promotion of "nationalism", and lamented that "as the most widely published and read Indian comics, books from this series are the ones that most scholars [of Indian comics] have focused upon, to the detriment of understanding the wider context of India's comics, storytelling, and visual cultures".[7]
The stories have often been in the past criticised as distorted depictions of history.[8] Another criticism is that comic books, by their very nature, do not reflect the richness and complexity of the oral tradition of Indian mythology in which multiple versions of a story can co-exist simultaneously.[9]
Response
The producers and writers did not initially respond to the criticisms. Later, they argued that a historical story ought to be presented without any factual distortion. They also pointed out that they had published innumerable issues focusing on personal community, and that these depictions were every bit as flattering and respectful as issues on other personalities. The Muslim personalities thus eulogized in Amar Chitra Katha include
The editors are now paying due effort in understanding different versions of the mythological stories and accommodating them into regional versions too. The new editions have been released featuring regional folktales and local heroes reflecting regional diversity of the country. The editors have tried to pay close attention to the changing sensitivities of the people and trying to accommodate the diversity of story telling by giving equal importance to regional versions.[11]
The portrayals of light-browns, dark-brown skinned heroes like Ram, Krishna are among the most prominent titles covered in Amar Chitra Katha. Also, dark skinned servants and subservient women have been swapped for a more neutral skin tone and women who are active influencers in the stories like Ahilyabai Holkar.[10]
Films and television
The following films were produced by Amar Chitra Katha under ACK Animation Studios banner
Year | Title | Director | Notes |
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2010 | Amar Chitra Katha | Saptharishi Ghosh | Animated television series, aired on Cartoon Network India and later ZeeQ .
|
2011 | Tripura – The Three Cities of Maya | Chetan Sharma | TV movie Co-produced with Animagic |
2012 | Sons of Ram | Kushal Ruia | Co-produced with Maya Digital Studios and Cartoon Network India .
|
2012 | Shambu and the Man-eater | Santosh Palav, Kushal Ruia | Short animation film. |
2012 | Suppandi Suppandi! The Animated Series | Kushal Ruia | Animated television series, aired on Cartoon Network India. |
See also
- List of Amar Chitra Katha comics for a comprehensive listing of all titles released to date.
References
- ^ Now, Amar Chitra Katha gets even younger Vijay Singh, TNN, The Times of India, 16 October 2009.
- ISBN 81-208-1453-3. Chapt. 4, p. 76-86.
- ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 1 October 2021.
- ^ A Pandit Had A Dream ... Outlook India Magazine, 21 March 2011. Retrieved 17 September 2011
- ISBN 978-0-8248-2471-6. Retrieved 17 April 2012.
- ^ For a short biography of Anant Pai, Kamala Chandrakant, Subba Rao, Margie Sastry, Ram Waeerkar, Pratap Mulick, see Norbert Barth, "India Book House and Amar Chitra Katha (1970–2002)", Wuerzburg 2008, p.47-59.
- ^ Jeremy Stoll, "A Creator's History of the Comics Medium in India", International Journal of Comic Art 15(1), 1–28 (1, 3).
- ISBN 978-81-208-1453-0.
- ISBN 978-0-85728-790-8.
- ^ a b Benegal, Gautam (10 June 2007). "The undying world of Amar Chitra Katha". DNA. Retrieved 16 January 2019.
- ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 16 January 2019.
Further reading
- Love revives Indian comics After a break of 4 years, Amar Chitra Katha launches a new title on Mother Teresa: Little Acts of Love, on 26 August 2010, to celebrate the Mother's 100th birth anniversary.