“I check the second phone every evening after 9.” Shah in Mumbai keeps one phone for work and family and another for 12 comic-related WhatsApp groups. Rudresh has three Facebook accounts - one for family, one for work and one for comics. You cannot live without these groups,” says the 38-yearold who has a collection of over 5,000 old Indian comics. “Within minutes, I received frantic calls from some members enquiring why I had quit the group. J Rudresh, a Delhi-based financial planner who is a member of the group, recently had to take a break from the group as it was distracting him from work. The WhatsApp group, Comic World, is one such platform that helps pannapictagraphists - collectors of artworks like comics - bond. This facilitated buying, selling and exchanging of rare, old editions.” His Facebook group - Old & New Comics & Magazine Collector & Seller - has over 9,000 members. “The business of vintage Indian comics has picked up in the last five years as social networks connected fans on a national and global level.
On the internet, their passion has found second wind.Īnsari, who has been selling comics since the late ’90s, started a Facebook group for such people in 2011. Comic lovers have rummaged through scrap dealers’ junkyards for two decades since then. Many lost their childhood comic collection either while relocating for work or higher studies, or to their parents who gave their treasure away to scrap dealers. “Back then, there was little else for kids to do for indoor entertainment than read stories of superheroes and mythological creatures,” says Kunal M Shah, 42, a Mumbai-based casting director who was nicknamed comic king by his school mates because of his collection. Stories told in sequential panels featuring pithy writing accompanied by snazzy illustrations caught children’s imagination. Indian comics were cheaper and readily available then, compared to their international counterparts like Marvel and DC Comics.
Most of them grew up in India in the ’70s and the ’80s. These comics establish a direct link between the collectors and their childhood. “A collector from the US bought the same issue for Rs 4 lakh later.” Each of the first 10 issues of Amar Chitra Katha is worth Rs 30,000-35,000, Ansari adds. Shahid Ansari, a Delhi-based bookseller, once sold an old Indrajal issue for Rs 1 lakh.
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