Indrajal Comics is a popular Indian comics magazine that was first published in March 1964 by Bennet, Coleman and Company, the publisher of The Times of India. Indrajal Comics mainly published popular foreign characters, translated in Hindi and other regional languages. The entire set of initial 32 issues featured The Phantom series, named Vetaal in Hindi, created by Lee Falk. Later the title shifted between various characters under King Features Syndicate, like Alex Raymond`s Flash Gordon, Allen Saunders` Mike Nomad, Kerry Drake, and Steve Dowling`s Garth, Lee Falk`s Mandrake, Roy Crane`s Buz Sawyer and others. But in 1976, Indrajal Comics published their first Indian character Bahadur, a popular comic book hero. The character was created by Aabid Surti.
Characters like The Phantom, Mandrake and Flash Gordon were also much popular as they were depicted as super powered heroes with unique talents and advanced tools and equipments. The remaining characters in the comics magazine were related to detective and crime stories. There were also some funny characters that were featured as comic strips. The most famous characters include Chimpoo, Henry, Capree, Timpa. It also featured Ripley`s Believe It or Not, Ancient World History etc.
History of Indrajal Comics
Indrajal Comics was initially launched as a monthly comics issue. The first 10 issues dedicated around 16 pages to The Phantom series and most of the stories were edited to fit the format. Moreover 12 pages contained various information related to general knowledge and other fun facts. The next 19 issues consisted of 20-24 pages. From their 29th issue, the comics magazine finalised on the 32 page format. From January 1st, 1967, the magazine was published fortnightly, from the 35th issue. The character of Mandrake was first featured in issue 46. In November 1981, Indrajal Comics started publishing on a weekly basis from issue 385. But in August 1989, the popular Indian comics magazine again went back to the fortnightly publishing schedule, with a total of 36 pages. The design of the front cover was also changed and the distinctive Indrajal Comics banner was introduced.
The artwork of the covers for the initial 50 issues was done by B.Govind, which were highly regarded by Indian comics readers. The phantom series was amongst the most popular series in Indrajal Comics magazine. Several changes were made so that the concept could fit into the Indian context. A total of 803 Indrajal Comics were published, and almost half of them contained the Phantom series. Indrajal Comics was also published in many Indian regional languages, other than Hindi and English. The first language to be introduced in January, 1966 was Bengali. Later more languages were introduced like Marathi, Malayali, Gujarati, Kannada and Tamil. The first Kannada Phantom was published on 1 May 1980.
Decline of Indrajal Comics
On August 1989, Indrajal Comics went back to the fortnightly schedule of publishing with fortnightly schedule. In the following year, the publishers decided to cancel publication of the series. The final issue, numbered 805, was published on April 1990. The comics magazine shut down in their 27th year of production.