Ayyappan, also known as Dharmasastha, Manikantha and Manikandan, is the Hindu deity of truth and righteousness. According to Hindu theology, he is described as the son of Shiva and Mohini, thus representing a bridge between Shaivism and Vaishnavism.
Anant Pai, popularly known as Uncle Pai, was an Indian educationalist and a pioneer in Indian comics. He is most famous as the creator of two comic book series viz. Amar Chitra Katha, which retold traditional Indian folk tales, mythological stories, and biographies of historical characters; and Tinkle, a children's anthology.
Sant Tukaram Maharaj, also known as Tuka, Tukobaraya, Tukoba, was a Hindu, Marathi Saint of Varkari sampradaya" in Dehu village, Maharashtra in the 17th century. He was a bhakt of the god Vithoba of Pandharpur. He is best known for his devotional poetry called Abhanga, which are popular in Maharashtra, many of his poems deal with social reform.
Chitrakatha(lit: Picture Story) or Indian comics are comics or graphic novels originating from India published in a number of Indian languages.
Tinkle is an Indian weekly magazine for children in English, published from Mumbai. Originally owned by the India Book House, the Tinkle brand was acquired by ACK Media in 2007. The magazine contains comics, stories, puzzles, quizzes, contests and other features targeted at school children, although its readership includes many adults as well. It is published in English and syndicated in many Indian languages like Hindi, Bengali, and Malayalam.
India Book House Pvt. Limited (IBH) is an importer, distributor and publisher of books and magazines in India.
Chitra Ganesh is a visual artist based in Brooklyn. Her work across media includes charcoal drawings, digital collages, films, web projects, photographs, and wall murals. Ganesh draws from mythology, literature, and popular culture to reveal feminist and queer narratives from the past and to imagine new visions of the future.
Balarama is an Indian weekly comic magazine published by M. M. Publications, of Malayala Manorama Group from Kottayam, Kerala in Malayalam language. It is one of the most widely read children's magazines in India. Balarama celebrated its 50th year of publication in the year 2022.
Shikari Shambu is an Indian comics character created by Vasant Halbe and Luis Fernandes for the Tinkle magazine in 1983. Shikari Shambu is one of the characters of Tinkle.
Sanjay Gupta is an Indian comic book writer, editor, the studio head and Founder of Raj comics and is considered to be father of Indian Superheroes.
Veyi Padagalu is an epic Telugu novel written by Viswanatha Satyanarayana. It is a critically acclaimed work of 20th century Telugu literature and has been called "a novel of Tolstoyan scope". The novel has been translated into several other Indian languages. The "hoods" in the title refer to the hoods of the thousand-hooded serpent god who serves as the divine protector of the village where the story is set.
Ram Waeerkar was an Indian comics artist for the series Amar Chitra Katha, based on Indian mythology, history, and folklore. He illustrated the very first issue, 'Krishna' in 1969, and many others later. He was behind the art work for nearly 90 ACK titles. In the 1980s he was an illustrator for Tinkle, a magazine edited by Anant Pai. Here, he was the man behind the art of such iconic characters as Suppandi, Pyarelal, Nasruddin Hodja, Choru and Joru and many more. Suppandi's head was illustrated as flat as he was supposed to have no brains. Ram Waeerkar died in 2003, with comics on Chanakya and Vishwamitra as his last projects. His daughter Archana Amberkar has been an artist for Tinkle magazine ever since and his son Sanjiv Waeerkar too illustrated for Tinkle in the early 1990s.
C M. Vitankar was an illustrator who created several covers for the popular Indian comic book series Amar Chitra Katha, as well another lesser-known series Manoj Chitra Katha. He also worked in the Hindi film industry in Mumbai as a poster artist, according to Nandini Chandra, author of The Classic Popular: Amar Chitra Katha, 1967-2007. He did the artworks for different Amar Chitra Katha comics like 'Ganesha', 'Tales of Shiva', 'Arjuna', 'the Monkey and the Boy' and 'Karttikeya' edited and published by Anant Pai
Pratap Mullick was an Indian illustrator and comics artist. He was best known for illustrating Nagraj of Raj Comics which gained lot of popularity under him and was later handed to Anupam Sinha who made Nagraj an actual superhero. He worked for the Indian comic book series Amar Chitra Katha created by writer and editor Anant Pai. Mullick drew the first 50 issues of Nagraj from 1986 until 1995. He designed the comic-book character Supremo, who featured in a series published for two years in the 1980s.
Yusuf Lien also known as Yusuf Bangalorewala is an Indian book illustrator best known for his work on the Amar Chitra Katha comic book series, which deals with subjects from Indian myth, legend, and history. His dream-like sensual work on the titles Tansen and Mirabai is admired by many who believe he had one of the most distinctive styles among the Amar Chitra Katha artists. According to researcher John Stratton Hawley, the Amar Chitra Katha staff took a 'nonsectarian pride' that the exquisite depictions of Krishna in Mirabai were the work of a Muslim artist, who as his editor Anant Pai described it, would be in tears as he drew his frames for the comic book. Yusuf also painted the image of the child Krishna seen on the cover of the comic book of the same name.
Supremo is an Indian comic book character in the series The Adventures of Amitabh Bachchan, published in the 1980s. The series was based on the actor Amitabh Bachchan.
Arun Prasad is an historian specialised in the history of karnataka, a comics archivist and a pannapictagraphist. He is also a researcher, freelance writer and columnist on the heritage of Bangalore and presently the Project & Research Head of Discover Bengaluru, an organisation documenting the Bangalore city's heritage and history.
Mahabharata is a comic adaptation of the Indian epic poem Mahabharata. The 42-issue best-selling series by Amar Chitra Katha, Mumbai was illustrated by Dilip Kadam. The team of script writers included Kamala Chandrakant, TMP Nedungadi, Subba Rao, Yagya Sharma, Lopamudra, Mihir Lal Mitra, Sumona Roy, Mohan Swaminathan, Shubha Kandhekar and Margie Sastry.
Sondekoppa Srikanta Sastri was an Indian historian, Indologist, and polyglot. He authored around 12 books, over two hundred articles, several monographs and book reviews over four decades in English, Kannada, Telugu and Sanskrit. These include "Sources of Karnataka History", "Geopolitics of India & Greater India", "Bharatiya Samskruthi" and "Hoysala Vastushilpa". S. Srikanta Sastri was a polyglot well versed in fourteen languages spanning Greek, Latin, Pali, Prakrit, Sanskrit and German among others. He was Head of the Department of History & Indology at Maharaja College, University of Mysore between 1940 and 1960. He was conferred the Kannada Literary Academy award in 1970 and was subsequently honoured by Governor of Karnataka Mohanlal Sukhadia in 1973 during mythic society diamond jubilee function. A Festschrift was brought forth and presented to him during his felicitation function in 1973 titled "Srikanthika" with articles on History and Indology by distinguished scholars. His work on Indus Valley civilization and town planning at Harappa and Mohenjodaro were published in successive articles and drew considerable attention. His articles on The Aryan Invasion theory, the date of Adi Sankaracharya, Oswald Spengler's view on Indian culture, Jaina epistemology, Proto-Vedic religion of Indus Valley Civilization and evolution of the Gandabherunda insignia remain relevant today.
