# Amar Chitra Katha

Amar Chitra Katha (ACK Comics) is an Indian comic book publisher, based in Mumbai, India. The company was founded in 1967 by Anant Pai. Most of its comics are based on religious legends and epics, historical figures and biographies, folktales and cultural stories.

## Creation and influence

The comic series was started by Anant Pai in an attempt to teach Indian children about their cultural heritage. He was shocked that Indian students could answer questions on Greek and Roman mythology, but were ignorant of their own history, mythology and folklore. It so happened that a quiz contest aired on Doordarshan in February 1967, in which participants could easily answer questions pertaining to Greek mythology, but were unable to reply to the question "In the Ramayana, who was Rama's mother?".
After quitting Indrajal Comics, Anant Pai started Amar Chitra Katha (ACK) by buying the rights for 10 American fairy tales such as Red Riding Hood, Snow White and Seven Dwarfs, Jack and the Beanstalk and Pinocchio. The first Indian comic done and released in ACK was Krishna (serial number #11).
The above story is the version reported by ACK itself. However, Outlook magazine presents a contradicting view, stating that the idea and proposal for Amar Chitra Katha was made by a Bangalore book salesman called G.K. Ananthram which led to the first Amar Chitra Katha comics being produced in 1965—in Kannada, not English. "The English ACK titles begin from number eleven because the first ten were in Kannada," clarifies Ananthram. To Ananthram's satisfaction, the 1965 Kannada ACK venture was a great commercial success which led to Mirchandani in the head office in Mumbai pursuing the Amar Chitra Katha idea in English diligently. "They brought in Anant Pai" says Ananthram. "And he built a wonderful team and a great brand." By the late 1970s, it was selling 5 million copies a year and had a peak circulation of about 700,000 a month. India Book House started to bring out at least one comic book a month by 1975, and sometimes as many as three. While Pai initially wrote the first few stories himself, he soon hired a core team of writers and editors, which included Subba Rao, Luis Fernandes and Kamala Chandrakant, who were responsible for the attempt at authenticity and balanced portrayal of history in comic books that became the hallmark of Amar Chitra Katha. Writers like Margie Sastry, Debrani Mitra and C.R Sharma also joined the creative team of Amar Chitra Katha, with Anant Pai taking on the role of editor and co-writer on most scripts. The notable illustrators were Ram Waeerkar, who illustrated the very first issue of Amar Chitra Katha, Krishna, Dilip Kadam, C. M. Vitankar, Sanjeev Waeerkar, Souren Roy, C.D Rane, Ashok Dongre, V.B. Halbe, Jeffrey Fowler, Pratap Mullick and Yusuf Lien aka Yusuf Bangalorewala.

## Criticism

American scholar Jeremy Stoll has noted that, "As the earliest indigenous comic books in India, the Amar Chitra Katha series set a strong precedent, one which has dictated comics content and style for decades since". On the other hand, he noted the series' promotion of "nationalism", and lamented that "as the most widely published and read Indian comics, books from this series are the ones that most scholars [of Indian comics] have focused upon, to the detriment of understanding the wider context of India's comics, storytelling, and visual cultures".
The stories have often been in the past criticised as distorted depictions of history. Another criticism is that comic books, by their very nature, do not reflect the richness and complexity of the oral tradition of Indian mythology in which multiple versions of a story can co-exist simultaneously.

## Films and television

The following films were produced by Amar Chitra Katha under ACK Animation Studios banner
| Year | Title | Director | Notes |
| 2010 | Amar Chitra Katha | Saptharishi Ghosh | Animated television series, aired on Cartoon Network India and later ZeeQ. |
| 2011 | Tripura – The Three Cities of Maya | Chetan Sharma | TV movie Co-produced with Animagic |
| 2012 | Sons of Ram | Kushal Ruia | Co-produced with Maya Digital Studios and Cartoon Network India. |
| 2012 | Shambu and the Man-eater | Santosh Palav, Kushal Ruia | Short animation film. |
| 2012 | Suppandi Suppandi! The Animated Series | Kushal Ruia | Animated television series, aired on Cartoon Network India. |