Friday, February 03, 2006

Tintin in Tamil!!!

I'm sure many of you are surprised to see this topic!!!

Well, because of the popularity of the character created by Herge, there were many attempts all over the world, to translate/imitate/copy the character in the hope that they can also hit the jackpot. Tintin even appeared in a erotic comic book called "Tintin in Thailand". How is that!!!

Though most of the translations are legally done, that is, after obtaining the permission from the original copy right holders, many were done illegally. Those who do not want to get into legal hassles, do smart copying. That is, keep the original story line in-tact, but re-draw the whole art work. This is something similar to what T-Series recording company has done in the 80s/90s in the Hindi film music industry. If the print-run is small and non-profitable for the original copy right owner to take legal action, the copycats go scot-free.

I do not want to categorise this particular issue in to any of the above, I'll let you draw your own conclusions!!!

Let's move on. The issue under discussion is the fifth book in the Parvathi Chithira Kathaigal series, titled "Ankathan Kottai Athisayam", published in Apr 94 and "The Black Island" featuring Tintin. Take a look at the cover below:



This story featues Balae Baalu, a character created by Vaandumaama, a well known children story writer. I guess he created many more stories based on Balae Baalu. But I'm not sure whether the other stories featuring the same character were also based on Tintin stories. See the introduction for this story below:



Some minor changes were made in the story. For example, in the opening pages, Tintin was shot by someone from a stary aircraft. In the Tamil version, Baalu was shot by someone from a stray boat. Well, you can't expect a plane flying in the east coast of India right? It would sound too fictional and absurd, even to this day. See the pages from the Tintin issue and Tamil issue.






Also take a look at the next few pages from the Tamil issue and the corresponding Tintin issue.





And few pages from the middle of the issue.







And finally the last page from the Tamil issue and the equivalent Tintin page.





Thought the story continues for few more pages in English, the story was cut short in the Tamil version.

The idea of this post is not to ridicule the efforts of Vaandumaama, who wrote many stories for children in Tamil. I still enjoy reading his stories, text as well as comic stories. This is just to highlight that, something like this has happended in Tamil comics industry, that's all. Sort of a trivia!!!!

My sincere thanks to Mr RT Murugan, Chennai for the Parvathi issue. In fact, he is the one who informed me about the similarities between these two stories. My part in this particular blog post is very limited, scanning and posting. The original input is really from him.

Hope you have enjoyed this post.

Let me know what you feel about this post.

Regards,
Muthufan

9 comments:

Ganesh said...

thats gread find
I have read many stories of vandumama.
This was interesting, what about other stories he has written.

Rafiq Raja said...

An wonderful article. Thanks to Muruguan and Muthufan. I have had both of these editions, and never had an idea of co-relating both. That's what seperates an ardent comic fan like Murugan and myself :).

Vaandumama, for near a decade been the only forerunner on storytelling for children. I like his storylines in Poonthalir, and Ratnabala. All the titles which were released in Parvathi Chitra Kathai (a series which run for more than 20 titles), were the 3 page long run stories which were originally published in Poonthalir, a Tamil monthly. Poonthalir and Ratnabala used to amaze me at my childhood, they had a long run for near 10 years, and finally closed the shutters.

To Saleem, Gokulam is still in the market, though they have shifted to a English monthly children edition. Don't know about Kalki, i guess its now stopped.

As Sathish pointed out, Philip Corrigan stories were published by Megala Comics, it came for some 5 titles, and was withdrawn citing commercial reasons.

Ponni Comics, was the only comics available in Tamil, with local artists, mainly copied from our Muthu & Lions famous characters like Maayavi. Editor did mention about this copyright issues and the actions taken in one of the Hotlines i guess. Ponni had multiple relaunches, but never succeeded to make a long run. There were some other titles too like Raja Comics, which also met the same fate.

Rafiq Raja said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Unknown said...

Hi,

I was amazed to across this site and am delighted to find information on Tamil Comics. I used to read Poonthalir, Pappa Manjari, Vaandu Mama, Tintin etc as a child and i am searching for any info on the Pappa Manjari old versions. The content is very similar to what is available on Poonthalir (Poonthalir used to publish Kapish Stories). Do you have any info on Pappa Manjari?

Unknown said...

As a child I was impressed with a story in Kalki (i am not too sure)by Vaandumama titled `Pazhava Theevu'. I would love to read it again. Can anyone help ?

Anonymous said...

அடப்பாவி மக்கா.. எப்பிடி கொப்பி அடிச்சிருக்கானுகள்.. உருப்படுவானுகளா?

Hari Sathiyan said...

I too remember those childhood days where i used to save coins to buy paarvathi chithira kathai, poonthalir, rani comis, lion comics, muthu comics...

though lion n muthu r still circulating PCK is lost...

poonthalir is also a gr8 book..

this generation is missing tamil collections now! Though ambulimama is on circulation, PCK, poonthalir would have recieved much admiration.

கனவில் வாழ்பவன் said...

That was really shocking. How can someone really copy world renowned comics and localise it for the market??

I don’t think these kinds of plagiarisms are not possible in current environment. The editor will be taken by police and will have serious problem.

I wrote a post about (http://mrjcomics.blogspot.com/2009/07/tin-tin-brave-reporter.html)Tin Tin and there one of my reader gave me this link..

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_563DQEzTL2s/Sk9qvt6AL1I/AAAAAAAABMU/wfnhhyntU7A/s1600-h/SS0922005.jpg

It’s a scanning copy of Lion Comics editor S. Vijeyan’s editorial (Known as Hotline). So this kind of copies do existed even in Tamil Nadu. After all, that foreign guy was right about Indian market.

antony said...

But I want the real tintin book in Tamil.