They Sure Don't Make Comic Books Like They Used To

Animation and comics have gone truly global. Just look at Spider-Man 3's global box office sales as an example. Last month, the wall crawling superhero broke box office records in India, earning the most that any Hollywood movie has in that country to date. In South Korea and Hong Kong, the film superseded existing benchmarks for opening day revenues, while in Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Thailand, sales were the highest for any single day.

The fact that an idea stemming from a 1960s superhero thought up by two American writers holds such strong appeal cross-culturally is simply testimony to the extent to which vastly different cultures are increasingly intermingling with one another. Within this context, acknowledging that anime and manga have gained significant ground with comic book and animation aficionados far beyond the geographical confines of Japan lacks the element of surprise that it might have engendered some years ago.

"If you told parents ten years ago in America that their children would know characters named Yu Gi Oh! and Pokemon as well as they would Spider-Man, those parents would have thought you were crazy -- yet in America today an estimated 30% of major children's animated programming is now Japanese animation," states Sharad Devarajan, CEO of the New York headquartered Virgin Comics and Animation.

It is the recognition of this ease with which anime transcended its initial status as merely a cult phenomenon outside Japan that formed a fundamental impetus behind the founding of Devarajan's company about two years ago.

Positioning itself to redefine the comic book industry, Virgin Comics touts its mission as the creation of global comic properties that take their basis and inspiration from the east, particularly India, in a manner that resonates with both western and larger eastern audiences alike. It is the progeny of Sharad Devarajan and Suresh Seetharaman -- co-founders of another comic book company, Gotham Entertainment Group in 1997-- along with writer Deepak Chopra and acclaimed director Shekhar Kapur.

The Richard Branson backed company, which is the first original entertainment character group coming from India, has the advantages that novelty often confers upon the fortunate. It has recruited top celebrity talent, the press is interested (everyone from The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times to The Hollywood Reporter,) and it's successfully expanding into multiple platforms.

"In a world that is increasingly dominated by fantasy and epic tales like those of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, India has a rich vault of 1000 year old mythic content that is ripe to be tapped for global consumption. Our mission is to change the perception of India from an outsourcer to a source," Devarajan recently told FastCompany.com.

Apart from its focus on South Asian content, and the fact that it eschews super-heroes in favor of other genres, what sets Virgin apart from every other comic book company out there is a uniquely constructed multi-pronged business plan that consists of three lines-- Shakti, Voices and Director's Cut. The company uses a 360 degree model that aims to seamlessly blend its print publications with television, gaming and animation.

And there's more. In a quest to induct celebrity creatorship right from the word go, Virgin has successfully wooed big names like director, John Woo and actor, Nic Cage. Devarajan, who unabashedly self-identifies as a "comic addict," explains that fleshing out a printed property to encompass other creative arenas makes for a far more durable outcome in the long-term.

The Shakti line focuses solely on Asian oriented content -- repackaging Indian and other South Asian mythology to create publications that are digestible, not only for India's untapped 550 million strong youth market, but also for western and global audiences. The line is now being published in a dozen languages including French, German, Spanish, and Italian.

The company's aim is to continue expansion, and according to Ron Marz, a comic book writer of 17 years who recently signed on as editor at Virgin, it will do so successfully. "Marvel and DC print lots of superhero based comic books that are consumed in mass quantities in the United States. There is very little genre material. Superheroes really don't do that well in global markets," he explains. France for instance, which has the second largest comic book market in the world after Japan, has shown a pronounced distaste for superhero characters.

In keeping with its quest to appeal to global audiences, Virgin Comics has its feet planted firmly in multiple camps, with a 100 person studio based out of Bangalore, and its marketing, licensing, merchandising and editorial departments in New York. Its revenue is currently evenly distributed between India and the US, with European markets responsible for a large chunk as well.