A Marvellous Disney World

Comics has always been a part of everybody's lives. Be it the silly antics of Mickey Mouse and Donald Ducks or the really funny fights of Tom and Jerry. There would have been atleast 8 out of 10 people who would have heard about the likes of Spiderman, Superman etc etc. I have been no different. I have been reading comics right from the time I could probably read I guess. Starting from the Amar Chitra Kathas and graduating to the Marvel and DC world. I would even spend hours watching cartoons of the likes of Scrooge McDuck and Talespin.

For those who have no clue about the desi versions of comics, there are dozens of them ranging from Chacha Chowdhary ( The guy whose brain works faster than a computer ) and many more super hero comics. To be more precise there are comics in India under the title Raj comics that present the super heroes of India. Nagaraj ( similar to spiderman, but as the name goes he has everything to do with snakes rather than spiders ), Super commando Dhruv ( the Indian comic book version of James Bond, with the high flying gadgetry ), Doga ( I really do not think that there is an eq uivalent in the western world to him...he is more like the Dog guy who is all chummy with all kinds of dogs..sounds weird but so is the series ), Parmanu ( very much the same as Captain Atom from DC comics ) are some of the Indian heroes to name a few. Comics in India took a real big leap when the series Pavitr Prabhakar was launched by Gotham Entertainment in collaboration with Marvel. It was the Indian version of Peter Parker aka Spiderman. There were many parallels in the comic book series right from the names to the powers of the the hero. The effort to make him look typically desi made the publishers dress him up in a dhoti as well, which came out pretty well. Sadly there were not many issues printed and as far as I have known the project has been shelved ( I could be wrong here).

Wondering why I am talking so much about comics??

Thats because of the hype generated by Disney having taken over Marvel Entertainment Inc. for a cool 4 billion dollars. The flip side of it would be to see heroes like the Hulk, Spiderman, Ironman, Fantastic Four etc with characters like, Tarzan, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, Aladdin etc, under the same banner. I am guessing that Marvel entertainment would be a separate division under the Disney banner. Other wise it would be really lame to see mashups like Iron Duck, Spider Mouse or the Fantastic Four comprising of Mickey, Donald, Goofy and Minnie. Does sound very lame when you actually come to think of it.

On an ending note, I would particularly like to mention about The 99. Published and distributed by Tashkeel comics which is of Kuwaiti origins, from 2006. The entire series is based on the 99 different names of Allah. Who ever said that comics was child's play. Neither creating them is easy nor keeping track of them is easy. Going now to read the first version of The 99.

P.S- I have not mentioned a word about the DC universe which holds characters like Superman, Batman and the Justice League. I would rather not start about my favourite characters else the post will become never ending. Hats off to people like Stan Lee ( Spiderman, Hulk, etc ) Bob Kane ( Batman ) Jerry Seigel and Joe Shuster ( Superman ) for having created such comic book legends.

I guess this much of comic gyaan should do for the time being!!!!!!!!!!!!