IndiaPost.com - Virgin Comics launches Panchatantra tales

India Post News Service

NEW YORK: Virgin Comics announced the launch of "Panchatantra: The Tall Tales of Vishnu Sharma," a new comic book series inspired by India's ancient Panchatantra fables.

"With Panchatantra: The Tall Tales of Vishnu Sharma, we continue our mission of looking to India as a source of innovative creativity with a vault of stories that should be brought to the world," commented Sharad Devarajan, CEO & Co-Founder of Virgin Comics and Virgin Animation.

"The young Indian creators behind this series stand at the forefront of redefining a new golden age in Indian storytelling and shifting the country from being an outsourcer to being the source." In Virgin's new monthly magazine, a nefarious multinational conglomerate is deliberately silencing the mythologies of yesterday.

In an effort to stop the erasing of old fables, the characters from the Panchatantra myths emerge from their story-world into modern India to recruit the living descendent of the man who originally created them, a teenage Mumbai native, named Vishnu Sharma.

In young Vishnu, they find a teenager consumed with ipods, cell phones, video games and modern entertainment - not exactly the champion of ancient stories they were hoping for. For the ancient story world is at war with the modern fables of "boy wizards" and "anime monsters," that are leading the efforts to exterminate these old stories and the characters that populate them.

Can the classic characters of old, including the Lion, Bull, Monkey and Jackal, convince Vishnu to take on the mission of insuring their very survival? Can this modern Mumbai teenager find a way to make these old stories relevant to the modern world again? "Tall Tales, as much as anything we have created at Virgin Comics, speaks to the innovative emergence of our creators.

This is a story that is directly relevant to them and the rapidly changing and globalizing times in which they live, a true allegory for what old cultures are facing while mass media prospers," commented Gotham Chopra, Virgin Comics Chief Creative Officer.

The comic book series is being written by leading Indian fantasy and comic book writer, Samit Basu (Devi, The Gameworld Trilogy) and illustrated by rising comic book star, Ashish Padlekar (Dave Stewart's Walk-In). "Tall Tales has been a fabulous project to work on because of the collective madness it's spawned, both in its pages and among the team producing it.

Taste its fuzzy, furry frenzy once and we guarantee you'll come back for more," Basu commented on the series. The series was launched throughout comic book stores in North America Jan 16 priced at US$2.99 and is also available online as a digital comic at www.virgincomics.com Virgin Comics was founded by Sir Richard Branson and his Virgin Group, alongside author Deepak Chopra, filmmaker Shekhar Kapur and entrepreneurs Sharad Devarajan, Gotham Chopra and Suresh Seetharaman.

Virgin is developing new stories with acclaimed filmmakers, actors, celebrities and musicians including John Woo, Guy Ritchie, Terry Gilliam, Dave Stewart, Ed Burns, Nicolas Cage, Priyanka Chopra, Duran Duran, Sachin Tendulkar and others. Feature films based on Virgin Comics' characters are also in the works, including an animated feature The Secrets of the Seven Sounds and theatrical live action feature films based on The Sadhu, Gamekeeper and Virulents.

The Company is also working with Sony Online Entertainment to develop a new online video game based on their hit comic series, Ramayan 3392 AD. Virgin Comics has also formed strategic partnerships with NBC-Universal to create new science fiction properties for graphic novels and television.