Diamond Comics Ties Up With License India; ACK-Vodafone

Diamond Comics, the publisher of Indian comic characters Chacha Choudhary, Pinki and Sabu, has tied up with License India to bring them to electronic media. While they will launch the characters online and on mobiles, their bigger plan seems to be TV – following the animation series path treaded by other content firms. Diamond is in talks with several animation studios. “To start with, we are looking at releasing the TV series this summer, when the holiday season starts so that we can reach kids,” Anupama Bindra, Business Head, License India, told BollywoodHungama. The two firms will soon unveil clothes, toys, stationary and other merchandise.
Last week, ACK Media (Amar Chitra Katha) signed up with Vodafone Essar to launch mobile content. The partnership was to bring audio books, illustrated comics, ringtones and wallpapers of various comic book characters on cellphones, the official release said. Mobile games starring the accidental hero Shikari Shambhu and Bheema were also launched. Geodesic’s content business Chandamama had also signed an MoU with Toonz Animation India for producing a 70 minute, full-length animated feature film. Medianama reported on the MoU in the quarterly report on Geodesic here.

ack-vodafone-pic2 The Comeback Medium Following the trend in Japan and China, comic book publishers are using TV, net and mobile media to stage a comeback. Animations based on Indian cultural icons and comic book heros are now at their height of popularity and demand is surging, making it the perfect time for more companies to jump into the arena and rejig revenues.

According to Nasscom’s Animation and Gaming report, a total of 85 domestic animation movies have been announced in 2008 and 28 are in different stages of production. 15 animation movies are expected to be released over the next two years. You can download the key highlights of the report from here. What we wonder is how long this ride will last with the demand for such Indianised content restricted to the domestic market. You can catch up with a Chacha Chowdhury story here.

One Comment

Gaurav August 7, 2009

im surprised at the route being taken by Diamond and by ACK both. instead of taking steps to ensure growth for the brand they seem to be going after the weakest ancillary options. No harm in in chasing the opportunities but creating mobile games and online comics are hardly the ventures that will bring them sterling revenues.

creating the content and getting it to the audiences through traditional media (broadcast, home video, print) is where the real returns lay. Everything else is a lot of pursuit of hollow visibility.

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