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There is a footprint of Raj Comics in the childhood of every Indian millennial. In the summer holidays spanning 3 months from April to June, when there was no channel on the TV other than Doordarshan, Raj Comics saved a lot of the then kids, now adults, from Boredom.
No one can deny the importance which Raj Comics had in the childhoods of the pre video games generation. There were a few kids and young guns who were too crazy for the Indian Super Heroes of Raj Comics like Nagaraj, Super Commando Dhruva, Doga, Parmanu etc.
I remember few kids collecting every comic possible of each individual super hero and forming a raj comics’ collection, which in turn would form a giant library of Raj comics.
They would hook ropes like rows of chairs in a classroom on a wall in their house or outside their house and hang their comics on them. This was a genius marketing strategy to tempt other kids who would visit to look at the comics. The proprietor kid would then lend the books to the customer kid for a small amount- 1 rupee or even lesser for 24 hours.
The customer kid had to return the comics within 24 hours otherwise he would pay a small penalty fee.
But, the purpose of this post is to motivate you by making you meet a few people who either dropped out of IITs or failed to get into IITs. Even then, due to their vision, hard work and determination they made it large in this unfair world.
So, Raj Comics World even created kids entrepreneurs back in the days when there was no start up boom in India.
The Super Heroes who led Raj Comics
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The main characters of Raj Comics who went immensely famous and are still popular are –
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Nagraj
Nagraj is the first recognized super hero of Raj Comics who made the imagination of snakes coming out of the wrists and residing in the body as mere molecules totally famous.
Kids actually believed that a snakeman who breathes poison and beats the pulp out of the enemies of mankind really exists.
If you want to really know more about the character of Nagraj then start with his first comic ‘Nagraj’. I promise you won’t ever regret reading it.
Super Commando Dhruva
The guy who was born in a Circus and lost his parents to the whims of a villain Zubisko is another Super Hero who is as popular as Nagraj
Sometimes, kids rated him above Nagraj as he was the only super hero without any Super Powers
His initial comics had mystery, thrill, and a lot of display of courage. His comics portrayed use of courage, few circus skills and brain to defeat villains with supernatural powers.
Doga
A super hero who doesn’t solve the problem but terminates it from the was the tagline of Doga
Doga is the vigilante of Mumbai and would often come out in the nights like the Batman. His character was inspired by the loyalty and ferocity of dogs as his alma mater was found as an orphan among dogs in a garbage dump. Doga took to underworld and adopted the methodology of taking law in his hands to uproot the crime from the Mumbai city.
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Bankelal
The comedian of Raj Comics. His comics were & still are a treat to the mind. The anecdotes described in his comics were too hilarious and kids love the humor which his comics provide.
He is basically a disloyal minister of a king who wants to sit on the throne. In every comic, he hatches a conspiracy to kill the king but instead he ends up saving the king which results in king’s affection towards him grow more.
Other Super heroes of Raj comics who proved their mantle in the 90s were
- 1. Parmanu
- 2. Inspector Steel
- 3. Gamraj
- 4. Tiranga
- 5. Shakti
- 6. Bhokal
What Happened to the Popularity?
Raj Comics in India were as popular in late eighties and nineties as is Instagram today. They were founded in 1986. However, with the advent of Playstation video games, the interest in Raj comics or I would say in the comics altogether started fading.
Also, the stories of the characters which were written in their initial days were much better than the stories which started getting published later.
There were times when the writers and editors of Raj Comics would announce a multi starrer comics in advance and the entire customer base would eagerly wait for the comic to get published, but even the multi starrer comics now find it difficult to stop the abating popularity of Raj Comics.
With time, they improved the quality of the pages and improved the graphics too. They made the graphics to flow with the new era which I personally feel were a little over improved.
Therefore, increasing costs of the comics with predictable stories affected the popularity of Raj Comics.
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Why not films on them like Marvel or DC?
Raj Comics’ super heroes were very popular once. They even reside in the minds of the millennial who have grown up now. There is a need for the Indian film industry to make films on these characters like Hollywood does on Marvels and DC superheroes.
There is a need to glorify the indigenous super heroes like Nagraj, Super Commando Dhruva and Doga so that the current and upcoming Facebook generation meets them.
At this moment, the producers and directors want to stick to the content which the Indian masses like and digressing to a content like Raj Comics may hurt their success graph.
Few bold writers and producers are needed to adapt and make films on these superheroes. Till then, we can only keep hope.
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Our Super Heroes are very original
You might say that a couple of our Raj Comics superheroes are inspired by Marvels and DC comics. Saying that these characters are copied would be unfair and injustice to a thing which kept kids engaged in their homes, saving them from the scorching heat of Indian summer.
Like, Dhruva’s background is little inspired by the Batman’s background; there was one character Inspector steel who was inspired from Robocop.
We must keep Comics alive on this planet
The 2018 people are very much into Facebook and Instagram.
They hardly read authentic content and accept the monitions and lectures hitting their attention span as true. Most of them say that the period of tangible comics and books is gone but there are readers who have kept and will keep books and comics alive in this world.
To them everything is cyclic ,what is gone will come back and I hope that the interest in Raj Comics will come back like it was in the late eighties and nineties, and the super heroes will again become the figures who next generation kids will look up to for goodwill and entertainment.
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