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Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

My Comics Experience

                                       Kovilapatti : It all started with our news paper man who is also agent for Rani comics . My dad fell a victim to his marketing tricks and hence Rani comics started to come to our house every month . This is how my comic reading [rather seeing] started . At that age , 5 + I couldn't read any story ,but somehow I was attracted to see the images in  the book . Years passed on , my dad got moved to Madurai because of his promotion This brought a halt to our regular purchase of Rani comics .My Brother will get a copy of Rani comics whenever he get a chance . It went on like this for some months .One day me ,my brother and my mom went to our relative function near Town Hall Road ,Madurai. While returning we went to to Periyar Bus stand to catch our 42 series bus . As we were waiting for our bus , my brother got some money from my mom , to buy comics . He returned with a book , which is not in normal size as of Rani Comics.It was the first lion comics that I saw in my life . In pocket size , it was just gorgeous . It was Tex Viller adventure பழி வாங்கும் பாவை

By this time my reading habit was much improved and I started to like it very much . My brother also started to like more than me and we started to buy lion comics from this incident regularly .

Introduction to Lion comics means automatic introduction to Muthu , Thigil ,Mini Lion ,Junior Lion etc and our comics collection started to grew .

1991, My father got transferred to Tirunelveli this time . Getting a new lion comics was very difficult in Tirunelveli at that time .With great difficult we found a shop which turned out to be our treasure .It is in south Bazaar .that shop not only sold new lion comics but also some of the old lion comics that haven't sold . There is one problem more comics means we need more money .with limited pocket money , it forced me to steal money from my mom purse.One fine day I was caught and got a good beat from my mom . It was really a golden days , searching for old comics by sitting on the back side of my brother bicycle and going to second hand book shop.In summer vacation we used to go almost daily which really made the shop keepers to yell at us . Also we used to hide comics in some other book shelves , if we don't have money to buy at that time .We will rush to our house, get some money some how, come back and buy it


                                                Archie was my favourite hero while for my brother it was spider .I used to argue with my brother saying Archie is the best ,while my brother counts for Spider .We used to write down comics name in a note book to track how many books we had . Most of times if you buy comics from second hand shop , either 2 or 3 front pages or back pages will be missing.

In that case , we couldn't find the name of book . We will be doing all kind of analysis to give a name to that book and also we check with the ad's published in old comics book to guess the name .Unforgivable days are those .


The joy of getting a comic book that you been searching for a long time is incomparable . When ever my brother buys a new comics book , i will sit by him patiently till he finishes up ..The pleasure of opening pinned book using a coin and going through "Hot line and coming up issue will always gives joy.

There is one particular shop in our area which looks like small Petty shop . But they used to have lot of old comics which they rented out for daily basics .

We have to deposit a amount of Rs 10 as a deposit amount . there I came across "யார் அந்த ஜூனியர் அர்ச்சி " which I was searching for long time .Desperate to had it , I gave Rs 10[huge amount at that time ] as deposit and gave a false address. and never returned that book . After this incident , I never used that way to go school .Really golden days are those .

1998 - All good things will come to end . Yes I lost all these[excluding some as they were kept in some other box] golden and rare collection while our family was shifting back to Madurai to pursue my Under Graduation in American College  . I kept all the comics in a box . It lost some how while coming to Madurai. Even though I am going to regret this incident for the rest of my life , the comics experience will always immense pleasure in my life .

Thanks folks for patiently going through this
I am planning to do posts on the comics that I liked most .
First one will be Tex Adventure .Will post that tomorrow -Aug 4

Adios Amigos

6 comments:

  1. ஹாய் அருண்,

    உங்களது பழைய காமிக்ஸ் நினைவுகளை ரசிக்கக்கூடியவாறு அளித்துள்ளீர்கள். மிகவும் ரசித்தேன்.

    "யார் அந்த ஜூனியர் அர்ச்சி " புத்தகத்தினை சுட்ட சம்பவம்தான் ஹைலைட் :)

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  2. Excellent Narration Arun.

    I Can relate with incidents happened to your life.

    Especially when we get books without the first 6/8 pages of the book and we need to track down the title. While it was easy for me to track down the Lion/mini/Thigil etc, it was not so easy for me to track down with Muthu/Mathi and other relatively lesser known comics.

    One fine example was the comics i bought from Arumugam paper mart in Ambattur. It was a Rip Kirby story with a story about the painted wall papers in a house. Some 5/6 years later, i got the book named roja maligai ragasiyam and it was a huge relief to know the title, at last.

    The lending library incident that you have mentioned is not the first incident among Comirades, i bet.

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  3. @ Vimalaharan : thanks for posting your comments Vimalaharan.

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  4. @viswa : Thanks Viswa for posting your comments

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  5. Hi good read...
    nice to know therz another serious comic book lover with my name.. wish u all the very best in ur comic journey.. hope we catch up somewhere.. b in touch my mail id is arunbengaluru@gmail.com
    arun prasad

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  6. sir i am paul want old lion thigil rani muthu comics if u have double means inf me he prie or i am in madurai so if u give xerox copy also k pls help my mail add is paul_f_j@rediffmail.com

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