Chandamama is a renowned Indian comics magazine that is published on a monthly basis. The comics magazine caters solely to children and is popular for its artwork and illustrations. The first issue of Chandamama was published in July, 1947, by B.Nagi Reddy, the founder editor of the comics magazine. He was also a producer in the south Indian film industry. It was initially published in Tamil and Telugu, but other languages were also introduced later. Chandamama was refurbished in November 2008 and has enhanced the quality of content, artwork and presentation, in order to compete with other contemporary Indian comics. It is now available in more regional Indian languages than earlier. The comic book still consists of various mythological tales, like Vikram-Betal, which were popular from the beginning.

Chandamama published stories from various historical and modern Indian texts, as well as from other countries. The main themes included epics, mythology, fables and folklore that appealed and excited the children. Chandamama provided edutainment in from of illustrated stories. But most popular series in the comics magazine were the stories of King Vikramaditya and Betal, adapted from ancient Sanskrit work titled Baital Pachisi. Chandamama also released a series of mythological and magical stories through several years.

Origin and Administration of Chandamama
Chandamama was first published in July, 1947 by the founder editor B.Nagi Reddy, who was also a producer of South Indian films. He was supported by his associate, Chakrapani, who was the driving force and chief visionary of the Indian comics magazine. B Viswanatha Reddy is the publisher of the magazine at present and Prashant Mulekaris is the current editor of Chandamama. In the year 1999, the publishing house was made a public limited company and Morgan Stanley acquired a sizable stake in the organisation. In the year 2007, Chandamama was acquired by Geodesic Information Systems, which is a technology based company.

Publication History of Chandamama
In July 1947, Chandamama was published in Tamil and Telugu. In July 1949, the Kannada version was launched and it was published in Hindi in August 1949. Chandamama was soon published in other regional languages like Marathi and Malayalam in April 1952; Gujarati in 1954; Oriya and Sindhi in 1956; Bengali in August 1972, Punjabi in 1975, Assamese in 1976 and Sinhala in 1978. Moreover it also started publishing in English from 1955 and in Sanskrit from April 1984. In 2004, Santali language was added to the list of regional languages. The Sinhala, Sindhi and Punjabi editions were published for a short period only. Due to labour disputes, Chandamama was compelled to end publication in the year 1998. But in 1999, the comics magazine was re-launched. It is still being published and is available in 12 Indian regional languages and also in English.

Creators of Chandamama
Some of the prime illustrators of Chandamama comics magazine include Sankar, Vapa, Chitra and Shakthi Dass. These creators have been associated with the magazine for several decades and have defined the appearance and design of Chandamama comics magazine. The illustrations were mainly line drawings which were influenced by Indian, oriental, Middle eastern and European artistic styles and traditions. Every single page of Chandamama consists of artworks that were created by these eminent artists.

Development of Chandamama
After the acquisition by Geodesic Information Systems, Chandamama declared that most of the content will be digitized and would be available on the web and digital libraries. Moreover, Chandamama has also launched Multimedia CDs. In late 2007, Chandamama launched its official website to reach more readers and provide further information regarding the publications that are not available on the printed versions.

In July 2008, the magazine also launched online portal in Telugu, Tamil and Hindi, other than English. Chandamama had also made a deal with Worldspace, a satellite radio service provider, with the objective of improving the Indian story telling tradition live through satellite radio.