Saturday, February 16, 2008

The NEXT BEST thing to a LIVE Thriller....

....remember this famous caption of Indrajal Comics in the late '80s??(though it was applicable rightly from the beginning!!!isn't it friends??

Being an ardent Indrajal fan,I've cherished every bit of these 'long lost' gems.Thus,it's NOT only the original 'comic-pages' but those ads/other stuffs do matter a lot! In short,each & every "Indrajal Pages" are priceless gems for us! :)

From the last few days,I was just curious how many "Indrajal-pages" were published in TOTAL(incld.those Covers/Ads/Features etc besides the original comics ) in those 803 issues!
So I'd looked in this matter more seriously & matter of fact,after bit research I delighted to learn the exact 'figure'.

Now,while the first 28 issues(Ijc No.1 -No.28) were contained 28 pages each.Then Indrajals were published in conventional & most familiar 32-page format (except few 'bumper' issues in between,like No.49,272,278 etc) which ran for more than 23 years(Ijc No.29 -No.788/Vol.26 No.32) and it covers 757 issues(out of total 803).Then on August 1989,i.e. just before 8-9 months of cancellation their series,ToI briefly converted Indrajal Comics in a 36-pager(Vol.26 No.33/No.789 - V27 No.8/No.805) & this includes last 17 issues!

So,numerically the TOTAL 'Indrajal Pages' = 25,800+(covering total 803 issues) .

Personally,I don't prefer to collect books/comics just for the sake of collection(i.e. not intend to read actually).That's the reason why I'd rejected most of the times those B-graded Buz/Garth/Nomad/Corrigan etc with crappy Charlton/King-Phantom/King-Mandrake/King-Flash which covers ~200 Indrajals!Well,I'd collected some of these but never liked!
Anyway,things have been changed quite a lot in the last few months & nowadays I'm looking for any Indrajals which are missing(irrespective of titles/heroes) from my collection(physical) or even those I've as cover-less,i.e. missing those 4-page front/back covers!
I would like to check those 'other' stuffs like various ads & Henry(aka Gunodhar)/Chimpoo/Babua etc cartoons & of course Timpa's adventure series or that funny Magician Pasha & that Agent003(comic-Bond). Then,there are many various informative-yet-mind blowing Features like Riplies or Capries(contains 'amazing & unique infos' on animals from various parts of the world with funny displays in each of it's 45 episodes) or World's tale(valuable infos on 'Jurassic periods'....art-work was also and many more which are no less important/nostalgic for us...
Now coming to an another topic,do our Indrajals Lovers have noticed that the headers of 'Indrajal Comics' were changed for as much as four times!
Here's some display of covers in which headers were changed with times.After the glorious introduction in 1964,the first change was happened in 1967 .




Then in 1983, Indrajal converted in typical Vol.No. category from the individual No.s so also header converted in a pretty larger size! The last change was happened in 1989 when Ijc briefly returned in a fortnightly schedule from it's 7-year-long weekly pattern!


Finally,the price! I still remember,even that price-tag(it was at the bottom side of cover,earlier in a box & later in a circular or simply in an open-format) itself make me nostalgic,since I'd re-started my 'Ijc-hunt' few years back! In the glorious ~27-year-run,Indrajal-fans experienced a pretty cheap price(compare to 'other' comic-publications) which started with 0.6/- (in 1964) & finished at 6.0/- (in 1990) per copy!wow.. even those ordinary Diamond Comics were relatively higher rated!! :)


Cheers!!!

5 comments:

adibud34 said...

Nice post, Sagnik. BTW - that S21 strip you had posted earlier isn't working - the file is corrupted or something. Do you have any Garth comics? Some of the Garth comics were quite sexy ones! ;)

Alienali said...

Thanks for the comics. I am a huge fan of inderjals. Its sad that most of the other heros were sidelined by IJC but they are interseting reads anyway. Please post comics of other heros as well, if you have them.
Thanks again.

comic.crazy said...

Sagnik, nice informative post about Indrajal Comics!

CC

HojO said...

@Ad34: I didn't post any S021(either of P/M)...so,check the strip#!

@Alienali:Thanks for showing interest!! It's sad that MOST of so-called Ijc-fans r interested ONLY in major characters n ONLY those pages....i.e. they even don give much importance to those 'other' stuffs like 'Riply/Henry or Capry/Chimpoo'etc..then last but not the least...various ADS which are true essence of ol'd era of Indrajals!!!

You may get back those P/M/B stories,but NOT those stuffs!

You r welcome...keep coming! :-)

HojO said...

#CC:
Welcome! Yes,in the last week,suddenly this idea arised in MY crazy mind(about counting WHOLE pages of Indajals) n I did a research accordingly!! ;o)

As I told to Alien,most readers r NOT interested in 'other' stuffs in Ijcs,but those r NO less important ....In afct, those r pretty close to my heart...I love 'EACH n EVERY' Indrajal-pages!!:-))

Nice to learn you like my article!

Cheers...