Comic Con Express – Bengaluru - 2012

Another year and another Express Event from Comic Con India. Our Pre-show coverage of the event in the Garden City.

Comic Con India – New Delhi - 2011

Get to know, more about India's first ever Comic-Con, how does it rate among the rest.

Chennai Book Fair - 2011

We catch up with the Annual Chennai Book Fair, and see what it has to offer for Comic fans.

Lion Comics Jumbo Special - XIII Collector's Edition

An inside look into a collection, touted as the biggest Comic Book released in India

Showing posts with label Muthu Comics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Muthu Comics. Show all posts

Feb 22, 2009

Muthu Comics #311 – Buck Ryan | The Saint | Feb '09

Muthu #311 – Buck Ryan
Muthu 311 Buck Ryan Cover 
120 Pgs | INR 10 | B6 | B/W Laminated/Paperback

The entire world might have celebrated the New year 2009 in January, but for Tamil Comic fans, it had to happen only in the mid of February.  The reason, our beloved Prakash Publishers (PP), have launched their first comics edition of 2009, in the form of Muthu #311. 

Muthu #310, starring Martin Mystery, was released way back in Oct’08, and the last release from publishers, Lion #205, was in Nov’08.  So, it is the longest break once again for Tamil Comic fans, which by now I believe everyone would have got accustomed to.

I finally received my Muthu copy on 13/02, after numerous calls to Lion/Muthu Office enquiring about the edition, as some fans had claimed that they received their subscription copy weeks back. 

The reason behind this confusion, as I came to know of was that our publishers had received a sample set (of 20 copies) from their binders, and in “good spirit” they decided to courier them to select people first-up.

Obviously, I was not fortunate enough (or may be not in the elite club) to receive this initial dispatch, and had to wait a couple of weeks for receiving the same.

Muthu 311 Comics Time But it is definite, that our publishers would be refraining in future to send this batch release, as they would have surely got bugged by the enthusiastic readers’ repeated calls and queries on the availability of this comics issue :).

It’s a double bonanza, as it contains two classic stories from the 1960’s, with

  • Buck Ryan (christened in Tamil Comics as Detective Julian) starring Norungiya Naanal Marmam (நொறுங்கிய நாணல் மர்மம்); and
  • James Bond fame Roger moore starrer, Paavamai Oru Puli (பாவமாய் ஒரு புலி).

Here is the Editor’s own Comics-Time, where he puts-over his take on these classical stories.

Editor also silently describes the big debate which we had over the Martin Mystery stories continuity, with a hint that we may never see him again in Muthu.  We had earlier discussed in our last Muthu Comics review, about Editor Vijayan exhausting all the English editions of Martin Mystery so far in our comics.  So the great debate is answered, and I for one will be disappointed, as I felt Martin stories as a star attraction for Muthu Comics, which added all the more oomph factor for the otherwise most classic reprints, for which Muthu Comics has been now renowned for.

By now, everyone would have got their copies of Muthu 311, so let’s look at the storylines in detail for this Muthu extravaganza, on the way detailing the creators behind these series.


Bucky Ryan Story

Buck Ryan aka Detective Julian, needs no introductions for Tamil comic fans, as he has made a couple of appearances in Muthu Comics earlier.

In this issue Ryan explores mysteries surrounding a series of kidnapping cases targeting the elite and the rich. The act is done so swiftly that some of the kidnappings even happen when the police force are right at the crime scene.  Readers are left to wonder and ponder how this hideous crimes are committed without any traces.

But typical to Ryan’s style, he starts probing by piecing together the little evidences he gets around the crime scenes (for e.g., exploring a broken thistle) and figuring them out with other incidents happening around the city. 

Ryan exploringIt should be noted that, Ryan gets a massive assist from unlikely sources, like people coming into complain about their problems, which makes his job even more easy, as he finally nabs the mysterious mob boss at his own layer. (Actually, the suspense of who the mob boss was long revealed by an advertisement featured in Last Muthu Comics.  Maybe, Editor didn’t think of it back-then).

Ryan gets help from Unlikely sources

Censorship by our Artists

In between we get to see some sweet moments, like our local artists handwork on enforcing the censorship, without compromising the panels (which has become a de-facto standard for our Lion-Muthu editions), Julia’s Indian Saree Act (proud to see a reference to Indian females, even though Julia’s feeling that the cloth is too small for a Saree, might have been proven wrong, if the story was written at the present modern era pioneered by Indian actresses on silver screen).

Jula's Indian ActRyan packs a surprise of his own by playing as a dead body to enter the mob’s secret place.  I should say I was surprised with this turning point, credits goes to artist-writer duo.

By the way, did anyone notice a probable reason why our editor decided to name Buck Ryan as Detective Julian? I believe he might have wanted it to rhyme closely with his assistant named Jula.

Julians Dead ActAlso, the reasons may be that he would have wanted to avoid naming him with his original name, as Buck Ryan was already introduced by erstwhile Rani Comics to Tamil comics fans, as Raayan (ராயன்), closely rhyming with his real name. 

But, long time Tamil Comic fans would have noticed that the Artwork is pretty different between these instalments of Buck Ryan stories, which has valid reasons, for which we will explore more on this classic comics hero’s origins.


Buck Ryan (c) ebay.com Buck Ryan was original created as a fictional young private investigator, to be featured as a comic strip for UK’s Daily Mirror Newspaper.  The creator of the series was writer Don Freeman and artist Jack Monk.

Don Freeman (real name, John Henry Gordon Freeman) (1903-1972), was the youngest of three children's to his parents, all of whom surprisingly had an inept interest towards writing stories right from their childhood.   Freeman was the first among them to get his creations published for other audience, by joining Daily Mirror, at the early age of 15, initially as an Office-boy.  But he was known to have contributed to the children's page of the newspaper as early as 1922. 

Don Freeman (c) eagle-timesHe became assistant to Bertram. J. Lamb, who as "Uncle Dick" was the editor of the Mirror’s children’s pages, and he provided story lines to many of the titular characters featured in these pages. Shortly before, Lamb’s death in 1938, he took over as "Uncle Dick”, and continued to use the pseudonym for many of his creations, even though he also started attaching his name to few of them here and there.  Freeman had an unique knack of writing scripts, which unlike other writers, were not just limited to series of text.  In fact, his technique heavily relied on “rough” out the story, sketching it in “pencil” with his visualizations.  This proved a great help to artists, who were able to grasp his works to their style, with his visual plots.

Jack Monk (b.1901) on the other hand started his career as an artist initially with UK’s Daily Express, creating a couple of comic strips for them.  He eventually joined Daily Mirror, where he forged a long successful partnership with Don Freeman.  Both of them initially worked together in adapting Edgar Wallace’s Terror Keep cult-classic, into comic-strip form.  Eventhough, highly appreciated, the series couldn’t continue long, as it ended up with copyright disagreements.  This is when the creators duo, planned to create a comic-strip series of their own, and the result was Buck Ryan, a brown-curly haired, young British investigator fighting crimes, and bringing the wrongs to justice.

The Daily Mirror The series ran in Daily Mirror from March 22, 1937 to July 1962, a tremendous run of 25 long years.  Now that highlights why Ryan is shown with different art-styles, as there is a strong possibility that Monk wouldn’t have been the artist for all those lengthy years when the script ran.  It could also be from the fact that 25 glorious years would have given Monk a lengthy hand to try and improve on his artwork over.  But it should be noted that Buck Ryan was indeed a British classic comic strip, to be rated among the great fictional comic detectives of his time.

buckryan09 (c) bookpalace.co.ukFreeman continued to script more comic series like Jane, Belinda Blue Eyes (both of which are often rated for adults for explicit content), and Garth (whom Indrajal & Rani Comics are more familiar with).  Monk also moved on to Fleetway and D.C.Thomson, in the process creating more comic series like ‘Commander Cockle’, ‘Inspector Jelicoe’, etc.

By far, Buck Ryan continues to add glory to these two great creators from British Golden Age of Comics.  No wonder our Editor S.Vijayan finds a place for this comic series time and again in his line-up.

This particular story of Muthu Comics, was collected in a Comic Book format in Australia, by a Comics titled “World Famous Comics”.  Here is a cover of that Original, which was #9 in that series.


The recent 118 and odd page of Muthu & Lion Comics standard, prompts that Buck Ryan’s typical 60 to 70 page adventures aren’t enough to fill up the pages.  So, we have an un-announced surprise appearance in form of James Bond fame Roger Moore, in another adventure of his.

charteris (c) rossall.co.uk Charteris-LastHero (c) mysteryfile.comWe had earlier described the origins related to The Saint series, created by Leslie Charteris, which was christened as Roger Moore, by Mr.Vijayan in Muthu Comics.  For the new-comers, here is a link where I have detailed the complete history of Saint Series in Comics form, while we reviewed Muthu #307, which also featured Saint as Roger Moore, in one of its stories. 

Have a read, before you proceed further with this new instalment of Saint in Muthu Comics, as it contains a write-up about why our Editor decided to name him as Roger Moore.

Saint Story

Paavamaai Oru Puli (பாவமாய் ஒரு புலி, another wonderful title by our Editor), which is the 2nd story of Muthu #311, details another Saint adventure, where he tries to decode a mysterious death of his rich friend Laila. 

During a party hosted at her palace, Laila decides to entertain her guests by playing as a Ring Master, along with her ageing Tiger pet, a sombre animal to say least. 

But, in a sudden rage, the pet tiger kills her, during the show.  Saint’s later probe reveals that the unexpected rage was actually caused by a chemically filled air-gun shot, brewing the suspicion surrounding her death.

The immediate heirs as per Laila’s will, are interrogated and the blame-game, and twists (for which Saint series are known for), unfolds in the following pages. 

Overall, it’s another classic suspense thriller, which will make every Muthu Comics fan proud.

Laila is attacked by her PetThere were some sweet moments in-between, like:

- Saint confronts the seemingly arrogant cousin of Laila, by giving her a witty reply, for her derogatory talk.

- Laila’s statement during her death-bed, to not kill her pet, as she believes it was forced to that rage, highlighting her good nature.

- Saint swiftly finds the evidence of Air-Gun by exploring the Armoury cum Firing Range located at the palace, all the while talking to a murder suspect.

Saint's Witty ResponseThese speaks volume on the effort of writer-artist duo, who were able to capture the essence and style of the hit Saint TV Series, upon which the comics were later inspired in the second innings.

Saint is supposed to be a cunning Thief as per his original characterization. But, since Roger Moore played his role, it seems they decided to wipe of that origin and present him in equals to a private investigator.  That’s how all his later adventures are portrayed as.

Saint explores Armoury

But, did anyone notice that the Roger Moore aka Saint series featured in the different titles of Prakash Publishers namely Muthu Comics, Lion Comics, and Thigil Comics, all had different styles of drawing.  Even the last Muthu series where Saint was featured, had a different art-style, about which I had expressed my reservations

But, surprisingly this Muthu Comics Saint title’s artwork is quite standardized, but it still doesn’t look like one drawn by Santiago Martín Salvador, who was the main artist of Saint Series in Sweden (and has previous experience of working on James Bond Comics itself, which explains his James Bond style artwork for Saint series too). 

Obviously, there could have been a host of artists for the series, seeing its long run during its second innings.  Hopefully, Editor would pick only from these pool of work, where the artwork is creditable, while selecting future Saint titles for Muthu Comics.


Muthu 311 c2 MuthuComics144VinvelikKollaiyar Overall, Muthu’s current issue is a Classic Collector’s item to behold, for all Tamil Comic fans.  And Editor does leave us with a block-buster announcement that the forthcoming Comics Classics will feature the original size of Steel Claws Superhero act published decades back. 

As promising it may look like, I would have hoped him to have chosen a classic Steel Claw story, rather than a cheap imitation of Superhero genre by Steel Claw, which marked the demise of this wonderful British Comic-Strip. 

But, for the sheer reason that Editor is trying to re-introduce the A4 Size in Comics Classics (he tried it once last time for another Steel Claw adventure, but had cited poor sales as a reason for not continuing the same), let’s welcome the issue.  Here is the cover of the original Muthu edition of the same title. If you can read Tamil, then don’t miss out from checking out Comics Doctor’s full-blown preview for the Steel Claw issue, here.

Muthu #312 PreviewTalking about Comics Classics, the back-cover highlights the last Comics Classics edition published in October last year, Comics Classics #23.  Mr. Vijayan is known for pre-producing the covers for many future issues, even before the issue is translated or in-production.  So that may be the reason for this late advertisement.

As per the norm, we get to see the forthcoming Muthu Comics advertisement, which features one of my favourite childhood classics magician Mandrake (Lee Falk’s another master-works).  Fans of erstwhile Indrajal Comics would remember that this story was featured in there issues back then, including Tamil.  But it’s one classic you would want to read again.

Also, Editor lines up Reporter Johny (Johny Hazard) and Wing Commander George’s series as the probable issues following Mandrake adventure.  Let’s see how long does it take for us to see those issues in the coming months.

1984_6

The last time we discussed Prakash Publishers Lion Comics edition, we had the man himself making his presence felt at Comicology.  Would that happen again, or was that just a flash in the pan?  Let’s wait and see.

Also, did anyone notice that there are no advertisements about the XIII Jumbo Special with this month Muthu instalment.  That clearly foretells that the release of the special issue will be prolonged further, possibly because Editor had complained about not achieving the targeted advance booking mark yet, on his previous issues.  May be it is indicative enough for all those who haven’t booked their copy to do so.

Before we close the review, here is the original cover which was the inspiration of Muthu Comics #311 Cover. This time around it is from the Semic’s James Bond Series released in 1984. More about it here.

I will meet you all again with another comics review over here at Comicology.  Adios Amigos !!

Oct 29, 2008

Muthu Comics #310 - Martin Mystery | Oct '08

Muthu #310 – Martin Mystery
Muthu 310 - Martin Mystery Cover  
100 Pgs | INR 10 | B6 | B/W Laminated/Paperback

Muthu Comics makes its comeback after 3 months, with the edition of Martin Mystery (christened in Tamil as Marma Manidhan Martin-மர்ம மனிதன் மார்ட்டின்) starring, Ponnil Oru Pinam (பொன்னில் ஒரு பிணம்), 'Golden Carcass'. This time the delay is for all the valid reasons.

The compulsory power shedding for residential and commercial establishments, by the state governing body, has hit the Towns and Villages to the worst, which has resulted in delay (this time around).

Coupled with torrential rains, Prakash Publishers have indeed waged war to get this edition on our hands, and they should be commended for that incredible work.

Editor's Comics Time is testament to the fact that this was a comic which was planned before Diwali, as there is no mention about the biggest Indian festival.  Obviously, editor would have reserved his greeting for the Lion Comics, which could have been planned as Diwali release.

Prakash Publishers should be commended for their new-found commitment to get monthly releases for the Tamil Comics Fans, who are now left with only one choice to pick from, with the other publishers doing a No-Show.

But, the delay in the Martin Mystery extravaganza, is sure to have pushed Lion Comics instalment to the end of next month.  Coming back to the Martin Mystery feature, I should say that, Martin, off late has become one of the promising characters among those which were introduced by Muthu/Lion in the last decade. He himself makes a comeback in Muthu Comics, after nearly 2 years.  Since, this is the first time we are covering a Martin story on Comicology, here is a brief about this comics franchise.


Castelli
Alfredo Castelli

Martin Mystery (or Martin Mystère) is an Italian Comic Series, which was created by writer Alfredo Castelli and artist Giancarlo Alessandrini.  It was first published in the famous Italian Comics Magazine, Sergio Bonelli Editore, in 1982.  Publishers Sergio is a legendary Comics publishing company from Italy, which has some of the famous Comic characters introduced by Lion/Muthu Comics Editor S.Vijayan, including Diabolik, Tex Willer and Nick Raider (christened as Detective Robin in Muthu Comics).

Alessandrini
Giancarlo Alessandrini

Have a look at their Official Website to see their vast list of Comics characters

Castelli originally conceived the concept of a New York based explorer in 1978, named Allan Quatermain (named after another famous fictional adventurer), in the weekly magazine Supergulp.  It was the lead character of the magazine from 1978 to 1981, before it closed shops.  Castelli then suggested this idea to Bonelli, which subsequently was approved, and renamed as Martin Mystery thereafter.  Castelli roped in Alessandrini, with whom he worked earlier in the Italian edition of Cosmopolitan, to design the character and draw the stories. In April of 1982, Martin Mysterty (or Mystère) was born, and Alessandrini went on to produce all the covers and many of the specials.

The original character Allan Quatermain, on which Castelli initially developed the concept, is much famous, as he was the lead character in King Solomon's Mines novel.  Many writers adopted this character to their works, quite famously Alan Moore adopted it in his The League of Extraordinary Gentleman, which was later filmed in 2003, with Sean Connery reprising the role.

MartinComing back to our hero, Martin Mystery is said to be the forerunner in Italian Comics, which revolutionized the usage of modern and complex themes, over the traditional adventures type.  Martin is a man of many professions, ranging from Historian, Archaeologist, Anthropologist, Adventurer, Writer, TV producer and collector of Rare objects.

With this kind of passion, the author has a wide array of stories and plot, in which he could wove Martin around. 

Thus, you get to see Martin adventuring his way into some of the famous legends, like who really built Stonehenge (Muthu #304), the identity of the Santa Clause, the man behind the Iron Mask, and also has met King Arthur.  These wide array of adventures combined with a gripping storyline, is what makes Martin Mystery stand out from the other regular comic characters.  Armed with a Unique Ray Gun, he is partnered in his adventures by his confident Java, who himself is a strange Neanderthal man from a hidden kingdom in Mongolian mountains.


Muthu 310 Comics Time I remember those initial days, when Mr.Vijayan introduced the character with back-to-back titles, in Muthu #292:Amaanushya Alaivarisai (அமானுஷ்ய அலைவரிசை) and Muthu #293: Sarithirathai Saagadippom (சரித்திரத்தை சாகடிப்போம்) in 2003. The backlash he received from the regular fans of Cowboy storylines, prompted him to shelve his ideas for nearly 3 years, before he brought back the series again in 2006, with Muthu #303: Pezhayil Oru Vaal (பேழையில் ஒரு வாள்) and #304: Kaalathirkoru Baalam (காலத்திற்கொரு பாலம்).

He literally pleaded with readers in his Editorials to try and observe the new trend, and switch over from the traditional and most liked Cowboy stories. That showed the confidence he bestowed upon the series, and I am thankful for him to have shown the doors to a completely new genre.

There are over 300 monthly titles of Martin Mystery which is available with the original publisher, so Vijayan has tapped onto a market which he could very well print for eons to come.  But, as "Muthufan" Dhayalan pointed out in his comment, it is very clear that Vijayan has so far printed and advertised only the English Versions released by Dark Horse Comics, in 1998-99, serialized as 1 to 6.  You could see a comparison of that at the end of this post.

For the others who still despise the character, my sincere advise is to read the instalments again, and you will see how advanced the thinking of the creator is, who was able to imagine Sci-Fi fantasies even during the early 80's.  Cartoon Network used to feature an animated series of Martin Mystery, which is loosely based on Martin Mystery Comics, Eventhough Martin is depicted in that as a Teenager.

This Martin Mystery extravaganza, is themed around the real-life mystery surrounding the construction Sagrada Família and its architect Antoni Gaudi.  For the starters, the construction of this Catholic Church was started in 1882 and it is still unfinished.  The story starts with Martin's villa which is being refurnished.  Disturbed by his probing interventions to work, his companion Diana devises a plan to keep him occupied with a false note.  But, little does she know that her false note really turns out to be related to a mystery surrounding Sagrada Familia, which takes Martin to Barcelona to explore and find the facts about the incidents surrounding it. 

What we see next is a whirlwind tour back and forth from the past to present, where the plot takes it root from the pre-Christianity era, and the other religions and beliefs, and even touches the Chemical Explorations, which were termed as Black-Magic then.   The creator's unique knack of basing his storyline and plot with the real history interlaced, is evident throughout the story.  Overall, the readers are in for a big treat, and is surely another Martin Mystery classic.

Two of the glimpses from the storyline, where I could relate myself, are:

1. When Martin goes over rearranging his collections, and Diana jokes around with Java on his interest and passion towards those artefacts.  This is what happens at my home, whenever I try to rearrange my Comics/Graphic Novels collection.  My home people are the one who take the role of Java and Diana in real-life.  But then, I don't blame them; Different People, Different Perceptions.

2. When Diana, in order to get rid of Martin's interventions in renovation work, gets down to create a false document on his computer, which she intends to make it written by Martin in 1987.  She achieves it by changing the system date to 14 years back, which makes Martin to fall in the trap, when he verifies the authenticity of the write-up.  In our real life, Many of times people related to Muthu 310 - Buck Ryan - Norungiya Naanal MarmamComputers, adopt this strategy to make their documents relate to a past date, including myself.  But the punch is at the end of the Martin issue, when he reveals to Diana that he was aware of her supposed work all-along, in typical Martin style.

Editor Vijayan, had mentioned that the Story has to be read twice for understanding the plot, but I traditionally have a practice of reading through panels twice for observing the dialogues and relating it to the art panels, so I was able to understand the plot first-up.  But, even then, I couldn't stop myself from reading the story again, which is one of the mysterious plots I have read in a Comics format for a very long time.

Enjoy the cover scans, Editors Comics-Time, and a preview of the next Muthu Comics edition, which also features a comeback hero Detective Julian.  Also as a bonus, are the XIII Teaser Advertisement, with the back-cover featuring the Garfield like Mr. Meow (Original: Mowser - The Priceless Puss).

Lion Comics's XIII Teaser Mowser (Mr. மியாவ்) (BackCover)
Muthu 310 next2 Muthu 310 c2


Here is the Back-list of all Muthu Comics and Lion Comics which featured the Martin Mystery series. I have also provided the respective original cover scans and details. Courtesy twafc.com, where they are still available for back-order.

Muthu #292 - Sep'03
அமானுஷ்ய அலைவரிசை

Muthu 292 c1
Muthu #293 - Oct '03
சரித்திரத்தை சாகடிப்போம்

Muthu 293 c1
Muthu #303 - Apr '06
பேழையில் ஒரு வாள்

Muthu 303 c1
Muthu #304 - Jul '06
காலத்திற்கொரு பாலம்

Muthu 304 c1_v2
Original: Dark Horse
Martin Mystery # 4 of 6

ndmartin4
Original: Dark Horse
Martin Mystery # 1 of 6

ndmartin1
Original: Dark Horse
Martin Mystery # 2 of 6

ndmartin2
Original: Dark Horse
Martin Mystery # 3 of 6

ndmartin3
Lion #195 - Jolly Special
May '06
- பழி வாங்கும் "ரா"

Lion 195 - RAA
Original: Dark Horse
Martin Mystery # 5 of 6

ndmartin5
Muthu #310 - Oct '08
பொன்னில் ஒரு பிணம்

Muthu 310 c1
Original: Dark Horse
Martin Mystery # 6 of 6

martin6

As you could see Editor Vijayan has maintained an order in the series, except the Muthu's first Martin issue, which was originally #4 of the series.  All of these Lion/Muthu Editions are still available with Prakash Publishers, as listed in their backorder list. So grab them before they run out of stock.


One another hallmark of Prakash Publishers, is that the amount of cover art rework they do on the comics they release, even though they had a freehand in choosing the original ones. The cover-arts are improved with better coloring and even some minute modifications, like  the removal of controversial Swastika symbol in Muthu #303, and lately the addition of the Golden Carcass in Muthu #310 (which almost made me to construe this as the new title out from the English series, when I was first searching for the Original cover scan to accompany this blog post.  Thanks to Muthufan and his prying eyes, for pointing me to the website again).

The other website mentioned by Muthufan (bvzm.org), is the Official website of Martin Mystery's creator, Alfredo Castelli.  but predominantly in his native language.

Muthufan pointed out in his comment that there is only one more English edition pending to be released by Prakash Publishers.  But, as you would have seen from the list that even that has been released as part of Lion #195 Jolly Special, as Pazhi Vaangum Raa, which was then overshadowed by the other prolific stars, so no wonder it was missed out.  Also the popularity of Martin Mystery prompted Editor to ignore him on the cover-arts, thus we were missed out from seeing the reworked cover-art from #5 of the original series.

Now that Editor Vijayan has wiped-off the English Series from his tray, let's see whether he will tap onto the original Italian versions.  The series is promising enough for him to take up that job. But that depends on the plans he has over Lion/Muthu Comics for the future. Let's stay Optimistic, even though the absence of Martin future story advertisements over the years is a worrying factor.

Jul 18, 2008

Muthu Comics #309 - Nick Raider | Jul '08

Prakash Publishers | Price: INR 10 | Pages: 100 | B/W | Size: B6 | Tamil | Laminated/HardCover 

Muthu 309 c1

Muthu #309: Sithiramum Kolluthadi
(சித்திரமும் கொல்லுதடி)

[The Picture that Kills]

Muthu #309 featuring Nick Raider, aka., Detective Robin (as he is christened in Tamil Comics), titled "Sithiram Kolluthadi" (சித்திரமும் கொல்லுதடி) has closely followed the Lion release this month, which is an encouraging sign from the Prakash Publishers.

Nick Raider Stories are known for their plot-work, coupled with eye-catching artwork.  This issue doesn't disappoint us on that account.  Mr. Vijayan should be credited for choosing the title for the stories, which he weaves around the main plot of the storyline.

The story revolves around the murder of a Prom-Queen, and the mysteries surrounding it.   Nick and his partner gets down in finding the real killer, on the way interrogating different persons involved with the life of the deceased, and their link to the incident.  With the help of the Physically challenged kid next door, and his extraordinary skill in drawing the future, Nick successfully nabs the culprit.  As usual, the killer at the end turns out to be an unexpected person, as it is common on the Nick Raider / Detective Robin stories.

The exchanges of Nick and his ever-angry chief sums up the humour part to the storyline.

In Comics Time Editor acknowledges that the last edition of Muthu #308, indeed carried the Old Cover Art of Johny Nero, despite the issue featuring the John Steel exploits.  Remember that you read about it first on Comicology. :)

The next Muthu Edition will see the back of Martin Mystery.  I always liked the science and magic mixed story plots of his, something unique among the other stars.  A Visual treat to one's imagination.  That makes "Ponnil Oru Pinam", an eagerly awaited edition.

Back Cover carries the Teaser to XIII Special, which should take the accolades for the longest thought project ever made by Prakash Publishers. 

Hopefully that should be out by the end of this year.

Editor's ComicsTime
Muthu 309 Comics Time

Muthu's Next Issue Lion's XIII Special Teaser

Apr 5, 2008

Muthu Comics #308 - John Steel | Apr '08

Prakash Publishers | Price: INR 10 | Pages: 108 | B/W | Size: B6 | Tamil | Laminated/HardCover

Prakash Publishers shook me out of my own imposed hibernation, and surprised me (and I believe everyone) with the next release of Muthu Comics #308, featuring John Steel in a mystery filled two stories titled "Kathai Sollum Kolaigal" (கதை சொல்லும் கொலைகள்) and "Karuppu Vattam" (கருப்பு வட்டம்).  It's been a long time I read two quality detective comics, and what more when you get classics from 1960's.  The Cover Art seems to have been shooed away from a Johny Nero story, I wonder aren't there any Original Cover arts for John Steel, which could have been more suitable for a first issue devoted completely to him?  But, the cover art is real stunning, so the oddity is acceptable.

Muthu #308 Cover
Muthu 308 c1
Comics Time (Editors Column)
Muthu 308 Comics Time 

This edition marks a come back for Muthu, with the last issue (#307) releasing way back in September last year.  Editor easily didn't even mention about the delay this time, as it seem to have become a tradition with the publication, and he seems to take pride in continuing the saga.  This time around, there are announcements for more than 5 detective stories in the line-up this year, but I am not hopeful enough for Mr. Vijayan keeping up the promise.

I am trying not to post any spoilers for this detective stories, so you could enjoy reading them at your leisure.  As always, here are the Comics-Time, and some Teasers for the forthcoming Muthu Comics issues.

Muthu 308 c2 Muthu Coming Soon-1Muthu Coming Soon-2

 

Labels Cloud