The first anniversary celebrations at The Comic Project (TCP) were over on April 17, 2006. But celebrating the tradition of comics can never be. Once someone enquired about my first love and using the hint hacked into my email. How stupid of me. Many tried to guess who it could be. The girl I sat next to in the first standard or the ‘girl down the hill’ from my childhood home? Well, both of them had something in common (besides me, of course) – they read comics and shared them with me. And COMICS ladies and gentlemen is what I consider to be my first love (the flesh and blood variety might be a little more difficult to guess). The ‘girl down the hill’ had an impressive collection – don’t know where she’s now (probably a medico), or would’ve borrowed some from her to contribute to The Comic Project.
TCP’s doing a great job. All of us comic lovers will remain forever grateful for the effort. Keep going.
The first TCP post:
Sunday, April 17, 2005
Phantom – The Emperor’s Dream – World PremierePhantom – The Ghost Who Walks!!! It is something I grew up on, loved to read, hiding it between other books pretending to study, reading it while eating ignoring everything else, reading each comic from cover to cover..not missing a single thing. Over the last few years, I have seen the comic reading culture gradually being eaten away by the MTVs and the Cartoon Networks. Indrajal Comics disappeared as i grew up and I didn’t even realize it. I also stopped reading comics for a while, moving on to “novels”, technical books, fiction, non-fiction, pornographic stuff, you name it.
I thought about this some time last november, and here it is…the first release – aptly titled “The Emperor’s Dream”. I am calling this a “World Premiere” because as far as I know, no one has digitized this legend created by Lee Falk. The intention is to simply propogate this legend further, to those who loved it and miss it today, and to those who have no idea that such wonderful things existed a few years ago. I won’t be posting long paragraphs in the future and restricting myself to just posting the comic pages. But allow me this once.
This title is from 1983, the book is over 20 years old, so forgive the quality. I also have tried to keep the images/pages it similar to the actual book.
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The objective of this project is not to pirate or steal. I grew up on these comics: Phantom, Mandrake, Bahadur: and reading them was so much fun. These are no longer published in India, and even if they are, it is not in the form that I originally read it in. This blog has been set up specifically for this project, to give me some anonymity, although finding out who I am wont take much time 🙂
DEDICATED TO A generation of children growing up on Harry Potter, Cartoon Network and television in general AND Lee Falk for giving us these comics to read and cherish for so many years.
me 1st…was a bit surprised to see that ur post started with me…anyway, lemme come to the matter..as everyone, me too grew up with books including comics…and indrajaal comics are something I even fantasize owning…tho i preffer asterixnoadays, but phantom(we used to call him as ‘betal’) and mandrake were my hot fave..and they still are….even today, when i see the indrajal comics piling on the footpath of college street, I walk looking at them…and many times I hit a lamppost as a result…
Fantastic design!!!!!!!! And thanks for having me here. I don’t know what else to say man..except..the girl down the hill..find her…and get the bloody comicssssssssss!!@dwaipayan: next time you see it on the footpath, can you buy it for us? 😉
Just too good..the design is just too good man.
Hey Soumyadip, I love comics too! I would have loved to have worked on it academically.
@comic project!!!ok dude!!i’ll buy them…but most of these are in bengali…anyway, i’m ready to buy them…but sounyadip is gonna be the financier….r u listening, soum?
I too love the Ghost who Walks. Like Batman, he has no super powers, just “image” and some good juijitsu to defeat the bad guys. Funny, just the other day I found a picture of a shield with the Phantom’s picture on it! That shield is over a hundred years old. Please drop by my site and see the picture…http://www.yusefjournal.blogspot.com