The Hindu Business Line : Comic act

John Woo, Dave Stewart, Nicholas Cage, Shekar Kapur and Guy Ritchie are the resource persons who intend to reverse the funnel in the character entertainment industry. Their audiences are spread across the world: from Beijing to Boston to Bangalore. And their artists are sitting in the country's IT capital, Bangalore.

Virgin Comics and Animation (VCA), launched about a month ago, has many big names behind it. VCA has the financial backing of British tycoon Sir Richard Branson and novelist Deepak Chopra, surely a formula the company is betting on to top the charts. Interestingly, VCA is a three-way partnership between Virgin, Intent Media (started by Deepak Chopra) and Gotham Entertainment, South Asia's largest publisher of comic magazines.

Says Shekar Kapur, one of the founders of VCA, "The time has come for India to do a reverse cultural colonisation. Our mythic characters are potential goldmines." VCA's foray into the global character entertainment industry will use a three-pronged approach: The Shakti line would lead the brood. Devi, the first of the Shakti characters, taps into the primal myth and the universal qualities of the feminine archetype, says Sharad Devarajan, CEO, VCA.

Other characters in the series are Sadhu, Snake Woman and Ramayana 3392 AD. Fired by Indian mythological characters and shaped by Indian pop culture, these powerful characters would be part of the new wave of content being created in the country, according to Devarajan.

VCA's first line of comics - Devi, Snake Woman and The Sadhu - have already hit the bookstands in the US and will be soon be seen in Indian kids' hands. Devi, the debut title, is among the top 150 titles launched in the US in July. In fact, Devarajan proudly announces that the comic book has just been reprinted three times in the US and would soon be printed in all major international languages (French, Spanish, Russian, Japanese and Italian). Buoyed by its success, VCA is already working on reinventing Panchatantra to suit the modern world and is planning to rope in filmmaker Ashok Banker for this.

Devi

The next series in the pipeline is Director's Cut, where VCA would work with and make movies with famous directors such as Shekar Kapur and John Woo who created successes such as Mission Impossible and Face-Off.

Virgin Voices, the third line, would be creating characters with top-notch novelists, musicians, singers such as Salman Rushdie, Nicholas Cage and Deepak Chopra. "Our talent pool could emerge from India, China, Japan or any other country in the world," says Devarajan. In fact, he calls VCA the first seamless, borderless, nationless entertainment company in the world.

Talking about India's contribution to the $50-billion character entertainment industry, Devarajan says work from here is mainly assembly line-type and the country's contribution has never been very well-defined. Though India creates about $1.5 billion worth of animation work, it carries no label. "VCA is working towards changing that. In fact, we will lead the transition of India as an outsourcer to a source of innovation and dynamic creations and creators."

Though illustrators for VCA comic books and films would be from around the world, Indians would be given a hearing and they would be designated as more than just technicians. "These artists would be pivotal in the creation process." So, is there talent in the country to deliver to the global challenge? "We are training and teaching them to rise to the challenge," he says. VCA currently has 75 artists working on two focus areas: creation of original stories and collaborating with creative talent from all over the world.

He calls VCA an incubating lab for other media. Starting with publishing (comic books), the company plans to move onto other platforms like movies, toys, video games and merchandise to reach out to kids across the world. "The potential out there is huge," he says, referring to Pokemon products that have notched up sales of about $30 billion so far, which is more than the GDP of many countries.

With more than 550 million kids under the age of 20 in India alone, the market for character entertainment is just waiting to be tapped. And that's why Devi and her team members will soon be seen speaking many Indian languages. "Our comic books in India would be priced at Rs 15, far lower than $3 in the US," says Devarajan, pulling out another trick from the bag, which may not be the last one yet.

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