Indrajal Comics Key issues and some lesser known facts!

This is a Maxipost


Hey hey hey barbarians! This post is dedicated to would be and wannabe collectors! "Blast from the past" is a popular phrase in urban dictionary when something returns after an absence,mostly used with a satirical undertone.
Over a few years yours truly have been observing a pattern in the Indian comic scene,Collectors have mushroomed up with commercial interests in Indrajal comics and making it the holy grail of Indian comics.This is not at all that bad but always have conflict of interest.
Internet has somehow helped these commercial collectors to spread their wings and milking Indrajal comics which is the fad off late ,hence it's more important to as they say "getting the basics right"!
Indrajal's fan are aware of these facts however new collector's might not be aware and may get duped in this sudden surge of commercial activity!
Comics in general  give a lot of importance to first prints/First issue and First appearances,trending with the same here are a few pointers on the same for people who are kick-starting their collection or looking to expand their existing ones.
A definitive guide to First appearances and prints in the IJC Universe!

Note: This post is not going to blurt out the same things about IJC's history which might have been beaten to death in wiki and general blogs.
this post has no intention of being a commercial exploit but only academic in nature.

Of Super - Heroes and Lesser Mortals!

In the beginning there was The Phantom,IJC gave him a self styled title since this character was widely subscribed through a monthly magazine called  "The illustrated weekly of India" and quite popular with the readers.

IJC #1 and Phantom's self styled title is "The Phantom's belt" in 1964.Which also means that IJC #1 is not the first appearance of Phantom in India! Reprinted from the Sunday strip #37 originally printed in the Sunday strips in US.

IJC #47 is the first appearance of Julie Walker the Girl Phantom, reprinted from King Comics #20.King Comics introduced Julie Walker to be spun off into another line of comics however this project got shelved.

IJC #46 is the first appearance of Mandrake the magician in India and IJC both.This is a reprint from King Comics Mandrake #3.

IJC #50 "The Secrets Of the Phantom" this is a bumper issue having 5 stories which covers Phantom's Origin and other important stories in Phantom's timeline.



IJC #72 "The Tournament of Death" is the second appearance of Flash Gordon however it's the first full self titled issue of Flash Gordon in India.

IJC #75 "The Disturber" is the first Lee Falk story of mandrake in India.I guess it can be considered as a minor key.
 

IJC #267 "The Red Brick House" First appearance and Origin of Bahadur.

IJC #277 "The First Phantom" All mysteries of Phantom from his strange suite to his friendship with Bandar tribe it all haapens here.




IJC #284 "The White Ghost's Den" First appearance Bela



IJC #377 "The Monster Boys" First appearance of Buz Sawyer in India



IJC #379 "The Sting of Venom" First appearance of Lt.Drake in India.



IJC #383 "The Devils Domain" First appearance of Mike Nomad in India,Only 7 comics were printed



IJC #399 "The Wax Trap" First appearance of Rip Kirby,Desmond and Honey in India



IJC #420 "The Feindish Mission" First appearance of Garth




IJC Vol21 #14 "The Fury of the Sea Goddess" First appearance of Bruce Lee in comic format in India,In all only 4 comics were printed with Bruce Lee as the protagonist.




Other Key Issues

True Indian War stories -

IJC #197 To each his own



IJC #199 The Bridge Busters



IJC #202 The Tank Battle at Sukha Nallah



IJC #201 Treasure from No Man's Land



IJC #206 Operation JIG-3



True Indian Independence struggle stories-
IJC #212 On the sands of time



IJC #219 Kunhali Marakkar



IJC #223 Komagata Maru



IJC #247 The Indian Robinhood Sultana



Indian History and Folklore stories-

IJC #209 Ramcharit Manas Part 1



IJC #228 Ramcharit Manas Part 2


IJC #215 The City of Goddess
IJC #221 The King of Kausambhi
IJC #242 Bahubali (Being made into a major Movie with the same title)
IJC #261 The Ten Days
IJC #272 Mahabharata Part 1


IJC #278 Mahabharata Part 2



IJC #368 Bharat Bahubali

My 2 cents on Rarity of books/comics:
How do we come to a conclusion that a particular book is "Rare"? Internationallly there has been a few accepted parameters to claim rarity of a book.
A. The print run of a particular edition/Issue
B. The Condition in which the book has been found in usually like a good bad ugly on a 10 pointer.
C. The Year in which the book was printed.

There are organizations whose sole purpose is to grade books and do some research and catalogue them which is basically a matrix saying an X book was printed in the Year xxxx with a print run of Y numbers and this co. has only found Z no. of books in this condition.
So there is a possibility that only Z/2 no of copies would have existed from the year xxxx out of Y in "this" condition. (stats of extrapolation)
Although the bottom line is "One man's junk is another man's gold" but you still have some data to back up.
Nevertheless few other factors will also be that reprints can not out price originals which is a thumb rule but also subjective in nature.
Sadly all these parameters have been thrown out the window in the Indian context and rarity has been hijacked to "Word of Mouth" observations!



Unverified:
A certain hard bound Indrajal ,a set of 12 Comics has come into your truly's possession at this time information is scant whether it's a genuine book or not! Readers please share if you have any info on the same!
The look and feel seems genuine, perhaps an experiment  for selected markets?

Epilogue:
Supply and Demand drives a market, Indian comics is in it's nascent stage of being called an investment vehicle!

Note : Many covers displayed are from free sources and hence have not been watermarked. Some Characters have been omitted from being considered based on popularity derived from independent sources.

The making of Bahadur - Tidbits from the Indrajal Universe

Hey hey hey Barbarians,
there are points in the timeline of every publication which becomes a defining moment for them, etching their contribution forever.
Issue #267 in Indrajal comics timeline was also such a defining moment in which the character of 'Bahadur' was introduced to the readers.

By far and large there were no colloquial or if i may say so an Indian hero before him in circulation. Bahadur rose quickly among readers and achieved a cult status.
Bahadur also connected a chord with Indians because of other social realities before us , It was a time of struggle between old ethos and new realities spilling the underbelly of discontent.
Bahadur represented a picture of a young Indian who was angry,discontented and wanted vengeance.Whether he gets engulfed in his own fire or he becomes the spark of change is what the book is all about.Released in 1976 just after the phenomenal success of 'Sholay' on the silver screen written by Abid surti and drawn by B.Govind. Both were hugely successful in depicting visuals akin to cinematic angles with a good pace in the story.
The story revolves around a village which is on the cross hairs of the dangerous dacoit gangs of Chambal*,and in the village lies the red bricks house of Bahadur,whose father was an aide of the dacoit gangs.However he gets killed by Inspector Vishal during a raid,left behind with young vengeance seeking Bahadur and his old mother.
In respective raids on the village the Red Bricks house never gets targeted as being identified by the gangs as an old ally.

This is also a reason why the villagers do not trust Bahadur. The indifference of the villagers combined with the constant reminder of losing his father makes him a bitter man.
Bahadur decides on killing inspector Vishal who is posted in another station of a different village,but fate had it's own plans Inspector Vishal seeks out Bahadur after getting a tip-off from the villagers.

He lands in Bahadur's house bound by the Indian ritual of "thou shall not kill thy guest" Bahadur is forced to listen to him.
Inspector Vishal bursts the bubble of Bahadur's father beings a la' robin-hood and takes him to seek the truth for himself.

Bahadur realizes his bitter ways and vows to amend the wrongs by forming a citizen security force but gets ignored due to the trust deficit between him and the villagers.
Meanwhile Shamsher singh raids the village and Bahadur's mother gets hit by Sahmasher singh's bullet and she confesses to the truth of Bahadur's father before dying,Bahadur vows to eradicate dacoits and their ilk.

A desperate encounter follows between Bahadur and Shamsher Singh's goons in which he outwits them and becomes a hero in the eyes of the villagers.He refrains from killing Shamsher Singh and hands them over to Inspector Vishal,Inspector Vishal helps Bahadur in getting the bounty of Shamsher Singh's capture with which Bahadur forms the Famous 'Citizens Security Force'and the rest as they say is History!

Hojo's Secret - Tidbits from Indrajal Universe

Indrajal's spell lasted for a good 27 years on the Indian comic lovers.
The most unique thing about it is, Indians relate Comics to Indrajal!
During a short visit to my co-brother's place suddenly Indrajal came up in a mundane conversation and I was surprised to learn that
my co-brother had a lot of info on tidbits from Indrajal !
As I surf the net I realized there are actually thousands of blogs dedicated to the only phenomenon that happened to the Indian Comic industry.
However I hardly see any posts to the happenings or the defining moments in the Indrajal Universe.

Let your's truly elaborate,Well Phans(Phantom fans) know that the 21st Phantom is "Kit Walker"  but in which issues did these defining moments takes place in Indrajal universe around the popular characters?

These tiny "Tid-bits" will be regularly updated as a post in this line called "Tidbits from Indrajal Universe".

Let's start with a Tidbit for this post!

"Hojo" is an interesting character in Indrajal Universe.
Asian, fat, has strength to down even Lothar, is a 10th degree black belt,
knows 14 languages and can speak 10 more, Yet he works as a cook for Mandrake!

What's the catch for this extremely jovial learned guy to work as a cook?
The mystery gets solved in Indrajal's Issue 298 - The Master Criminal

It starts one fine day in Xanadu(the super fortified) residence of Mandrake,when Zed the col. of Inter-intelligence arrives at his residence for breakfast.
Zed 's innocent question crops up a lot of questions when he observes that the ever smiling master chef Hojo's breakfast was excellent however why such a learned person like him works as
a cook for Mandrake.

Mandrake explains that it was Hojo's wish and someone's recommendation (he couldn't remember who) however the pact was that mandrake will not ask questions on Hojo's personal life!
Things take an ugly turn when Mandrake and Lothar is summoned the very next day that Inter-intelligence(Interpol in Indrajal Universe) has been raided by 8(a criminal gang).
"8" was successful in planting a bomb which fortunately didn't go off and hence the mystery! The chief(a robot face to a human voice - no one knows who's the chief!) wants an explanation!

Meanwhile Zed comes out with a theory that only 4 people where privy about inter-intelligence (zed,mandrake and Lothar) and Hojo who went on a holiday just after their breakfast the day before and since they themselves r out of suspicion only Hojo remains.
Mandrake and Lother then sets out on a cat and mouse chase after Hojo,

leading them back to Inter-Intell's HQ

here in a 1 to 1 chat Hojo reveals hi true identity.
Behind the Robotic face and the robotic voice of the chief at inter-Intel sits Hojo! Who works as a cook at Mandrake's house to avoid any suspicion.

Guess who recommends Hojo as a cook at Mandrake's residence none other but Zed!

will be back with more soon!

The coming of Indrajal - Nomad,Buzz,Rip Kirbey &Bruce Lee Covers

 To be honest Rip Kirbey,Nomad,Buzz and Bruce lee were never in my list of favorites i felt their artwork was below average especially Bruce lee ,so never actually collected them but now since IDW has been publishing a re-run of Rip Kirbey and Modesty Blaize im considering them.

The problem with the IDW series are that they are 2 expensive!

 

The coming of Indrajal - Flash Gordon Covers

 Incidentally Flash Gordon was very famous amongst us,they were a great bargaining chip amongst our comic exchanges and usually fetched 1:2 :)

 They were also my first whiff with science fiction fantasy!