AMAR CHITRA KATHALU

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Amar Chitra Katha (ACK, "Immortal Captivating (or Picture) Stories") is one of India's largest selling comic book series, with more than 100 million copies sold in 20 Indian languages. Founded in 1967, the imprint has more than 400 titles that retell stories from the great Indian epics, mythology, history, folklore, and fables in a comic book format. It was created by Anant Pai, and published by India Book House. In 2007, the imprint and all its titles were acquired by a new venture called ACK Media. On 17 September 2008, a new website by ACK-media was launched.

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?".

The above is an oft-told story of how ACK was founded beginning with 'Uncle Pai', in Mumbai in 1967. However, Outlook Magazine has this article about the genesis of this popular comic series: 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 Anathram'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."

Writers like Kamala Chandrakant, Margie Sastry, Subba Rao, Debrani Mitra and C.R Sharma 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.

In 2007, the publisher created a new online store that offers all the titles with shipping worldwide. The titles are divided in following categories

1) Mythology (e.g. Sati and Shiva, Nachiketa, Savitri, Tirupati)
2) The Epics (e.g. The Ramayana, Bhishma, Gandhari, Uloopi, Karna, Ravana)
3) Literary Classics (e.g. Vasavadatta, Kannagi, Nagananda, Shakuntala)
4) Fables & Folktales (e.g. Panchatantra, Jataka Tales, Avvaiyar, Lilan Chanesar)
5) Humour & wit (e.g. Birbal, Tenali Raman,Vidyut Chora)
6) Biographies (e.g. Rana Pratap, Narsinh Mehta, Raja Raja Chola, Lachit Borphukan)
7) 3 in 1 Titles (e.g.The Mughal Court, Valiant Sikhs, Great Indian Emperor)
8) 5 in 1 Titles (e.g.Brave Rajputs, The Kuru Clan, Great Rulers of India)
9) Special Issues (e.g.Saptarshi, Param Vir Chakra)