RAJ COMICS SPOTLIGHT #1

Raj Comics, was started in 1986, right around the same time that Indrajal Comics was going out of business. While the Indrajal Comics line had dominated the market with reprints of western culture heroes like The Phantom and Mandrake The Magician, Raj comics had from the start decided to create original characters specifically designed for the Indian market. Despite this being a risky move, it paid off in the long run, as Raj is now the dominating publisher of comics in India.


Yet, the journey is not over quite yet. The original goal of the early writers and artists has yet to be achieved:

"When I created Nagraj in 1986, I was sure it would become a global comic superhero like Superman or Batman. That hasn't happened." - Sanjay Gupta


Making their most popular characters (Nagraj, Dhruva, and Doga) famous worldwide may be only a few steps away: the publisher has licensed the heroes to Bollywood producers for film adaptations. They might not get widespread release here in the west, but if a devoted cult following arises from DVD sales and rentals, Nagaj and Dhruva may yet become as familiar to the world as Superman and Batman. Stranger things have definitely happened in the entertainment industry: I can remember when a virtually unknown musician named Haim Saban used a bunch of stock footage and old costumes to create a show you probly have heard of: Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers.


If you guys happen to see collections of Raj Comics in your local comic store in a few years, just remember you heard of them here first.

A FEW OBSERVATIONS I'VE MADE WHILE LOOKING AT THESE COMICS:


There are no comics code regulations in India, so acts of shocking and extreme violence are common in Raj Comics.
Things like burned eyeballs:



...heads exploding:



...and cold blooded murder:



Use of religious imagery that might be considered blasphemous (and subsequently banned and/or protested) is also fairly common:



Copyright infringement and plagiarism apparently(?) are acceptable as well. These guys are the Fighter Toads. The only thing that makes them different than our own Ninja Turtles is that they don't eat pizza (and, I guess, the fact that they're not turtles or ninjas):



But don't get the wrong idea, Raj has plenty of original characters. On this page (in order) are:
1. Nagraj, who can generate deadly snakes from his body. His body can heal itself when he gets seriously injured.
2. Dhruva, a hero with no powers who uses martial arts and hi-tech weapons to fight criminals.
3. Shakti, who harnesses the power of the goddess Kali to seek vengeance for the oppressed.
4. Parmanu, his powers are derived from the suit he wears.
5. Doga, a vigilante who has a very large arsenal. He also understands the language of dogs.
6. Tiranga (literally: The Flag Of India), a patriotic hero like Captain America.



Of course, heroes need villains, and they have quite a motley crew of rogues that they face on a regular basis. I don't know all of their names, but just look at these guys; they all look pretty shady to me:



Unlike American comics, women have much larger roles. Very rarely do you see the cliché of the 'damsel in distress'. This female hero saves Nagraj:



This is Shakti rescuing survivors of an earthquake:



Finally, here's "Liza" (Lizard Woman) who almost always fights against male villains with stronger powers. And she always wins.


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I'll be the first to admit that some of these characters and stories aren't worth the time or trouble of importing to English speaking markets (Bhokal and Bheriya seem uninteresting to me anyway). But I can definitely see a market for the top three: Nagraj, Dhruva, and Doga. From all I've seen of them, they seriously have a potential here.
Good luck, Raj Comics.
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RAJ COMICS SPOTLIGHT #2

Bhokal is one of Raj Comics' mythological/historical characters. I guess if I had to stretch it a little and compare him to one of our U.S. characters, he'd have to fit somewhere into a category with Conan or Red Sonja.
But let there be no mistake; despite the time period he lives in, his stories are just as inexplicable as any of the modern characters that Raj Comics publishes.

The people were just trying to live their life. Then one day, it rained rocks, and a giant foot stomped on them all:



The people never despaired, however; because they knew that Samson Hercules Jackie Chan Bhokal would come to save them:



Bhokal tried to reason with it and come to a compromise, but it put it's foot down:



Bhokal used his magic headband to dig his way out of the dirt. Now, you might wonder what kind of giant it is he's fighting; it's not a giant at all, just an old dude with a really big foot:



Fortunately, Bhokal's headband does more than dig; it also projects a giant hand that grabs giant feet:



You might think that pounding on that foot would make it swell up. You'd be wrong. Not only does it shrink the malicious foot, it sets the guy up for some hardcore bondage:



Older men aren't Bhokal's type :



Later that day, giant bugs attack the city:



Bhokal tries to smack them with some trees:



It is not effective. The bugs eat the trees and continue with their assault:



When they begin to throw the trees back at Bhokal, he decides to use his sword:



He fights them valiantly. The onlookers remark that Bhokal "enjoys killing things!"


THE END
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RAJ COMICS SPOTLIGHT #3

Dracula is one of those characters you can never get away from. Hollywood digs him up every several years, writers use him for horror stories on a regular basis, and just about every comic company has their own version of the character.
Raj Comics is no exception. In this story, it's up to Nagraj and several other of the Raj Comics heroes to stop him from world domination. Will they succeed?

Nagraj stumbles into the situation when he rescues a child from a vampire woman:



But she seems to have an immunity to his magic snakes:



After a they exchange blows for a few pages, she decides to recruit herself some backup:



A VAMPIRE OCTOPUS!!!



The battle continues with no end in sight until one of Nagraj's friends shows up and blasts her with some kind of sunbeam ray.



Nagraj and the other hero split up (bad idea) to investigate in different areas of the city. It's not very long until Nagraj runs across another vampirized victim wreaking havoc:



He manages to get the guy under control somewhat swiftly:



Or does he?:



Despite how bleak things looked for Nagraj in that last panel, he soon turns the tables on the Solomon Grundy lookalike and continues to patrol the city. At about this time, he comes across a flying vampire wolf. Yeah, that's right a flying vampire wolf.



This battle, however, doesn't go quite as smoothly as the others. Before Nagraj can manage to kill the beast, it bites him:



Another one of the heroes (who, for some reason, looks like he might be a vampire himself) shows up to assist Nagraj. Talk about your bad timing. This encounter leads to another long fight sequence:



While the good guys are busy fighting each other, Dracula keeps himself busy by increasing the numbers of his legion of the undead. A legion that includes vampire wolves, vampire bats, and....



FLESH-EATING VAMPIRE MAGGOTS!!



Nagraj and Morbius the other guy still occupied, it's up to the white guy to face Dracula:



And it's not too hard to see why this guy isn't on Raj Comics' A-list:



Nagraj gets cured of his vampirism just in time for him and his partner to join in the battle with the main villain themselves:



Ol' Dracula doesn't seem too fond of three to one odds, so he raises himself up an army of zombies to help:



Now this guy is supposed to be reviving the fallen superhero that's lying there in a coma. Fortunately, he takes a break at just the right moment and checks in on the battle royale with his crystal ball (which is still a better source for current events than FoxNews):



Pretty soon, they arrive to join in:



At this point, even a hundred superheroes aren't going to make a difference:



Now backed by thousands of zombies, wolves, bats, maggots, octopuses, and any number of other vampirized creatures, Dracula is looking fairly unstoppable. That is until this old dude shows up on the scene....:



...and casts a spell that turns Dracula into a pile of dust:



WAIT, WHAT??!?
Y'know, I could complain, but I'll just stay contented knowing that I actually got to read a comic that had a vampire octopus in it. You just don't see those everyday.
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A short review of a different Nagraj comic HERE
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RAJ COMICS SPOTLIGHT #4

This time around, we're going to have a look at Raj Comics' most popular female hero, Shakti. Imbued with the powers of the goddess Kali, she primarily fights against demons and spirits that plague the common folks.
Sometimes she has a bad day, but when you think about it, doesn't everybody?


Some nice, wholesome teenagers are out cruising through town..



..when out of nowhere comes a steamroller possessed by poltergeists! Don't worry, kids, Shakti will save you!



GREAT JOB, SHAKTI! you stopped the evil steamroller. Don't forget about the runaway car that's still rolling...



OOPS! Well, these things happen, I guess. I'm sure he'll be alright.



This guy I really can sympathize with. When I promised my ex-girlfriend that I would quit drinking, I had bottles of booze chasing me too. And she didn't believe me. Never fear, folks, Shakti will save him.




OUCH! Well, that didn't turn out quite right. But they say that the third time is the charm, right?



YES! That's what I'm trying to tell you guys about! Shakti shows up right in the nick of time to save that lady from being attacked by propane tanks. Now just watch how awesome it is when she destroys those demonic cylinders....




DAMN THE LUCK! Oh well, not everybody knows that flammable and inflammable are synonyms. Luckily this incident happened at the hospital.




And off she goes, always making the world a better place along the way!
Be sure to pick up the next issue when Shakti saves two children from kidnappers and burns down their whole neighborhood. That oughta teach those pedophile creeps a lesson.


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