The month-long vacation in the US is over, and we're back in Saigon, settling into a new apartment. I attended two conventions during the trip home, and visited a bunch of comic book stores, and brought back a bunch of comics to read over the course of the coming school year. But to start with, here's something I picked up on the trip out to the US, at a gift shop at the airport in Mumbai, India.
Title: Tinkle Double Digest
Issue: 143
Date: May, 2015
Publisher: ACK Media
Writer: Annie Besant, Chandni Shah, Madhumita Gupta, Sana Merchant, Rajani Thindiath, Priya Panicker, Tushar Abhichandani, Sharmistha Sinha, Indira Ananthakrishnan, Vivian Li, Sarthak Sinha, Ashwini Falnikar, Aparna Sundaresan Sayash Raaj, Shriya Ghate, Archana Amberkar, Luis Fernandes
Artist: Nikhil Salvi, Savio Mascarenhas, Archana Amberkar, Anupama Apte, Jitendra Patil, Prachi Killekar, Vineet Nair, Akshay Khadikar, Pramodini Desai, Sarthak Sinha, Abhijeet Kini, Ajitesh Bhattacharjee, Sahil Upalekar, Radhakrishnan Acharya, Ram Waeerkar
Colorist: Umesh Sarode, Akshay Khadilkar, Pragati M Agrawal, Lidwin Mascarhenhas
Letterer: Prasad Sawant, Pranay Bendre
Editor: Shriya Ghate
Tinkle is a long-running English-language kids comic/magazine published in India. I managed to pick up this issue at a shop at the airport in Mumbai during a layover.
The format is similar to an Archie Digest, and the short comic stories are intermixed with one or two-page puzzles and text features. There are some educational elements, especially on world cultures and geography, and some of the comic stories have a definite moral to them, in the style of Aesop's Fables, but for the most part the comics are humorous folktales and kid-friendly mystery stories that reminded me of Encyclopedia Brown.
Not all of the stories are credited, though as you can see above from the list of contributors who were named, a large cast of talent is involved in putting each of these digests together.
I found the stories to generally be simple but engaging. The recurring "Stupid Crocodile and the Monkey" was pretty silly fare, with the monkey endlessly outwitting the crocodile, who is, well, ill-equipped for a battle of wits.
Another recurring character is Tantri the Mantri, a scheming advisor to a young and naïve king whose plots to assassinate the king and take power for himself always backfire in ways that leave the king even more trusting of him. The two storied of Tantri are done by different creative teams.
Many of the stories are folk-tale variants, mostly Indian, but some from other cultures, including an Anansi story from Africa, and a Latvian tale about a man who outwits a pair of dragons.
A few of the stories took a more serious turn. "The Monkey King's Sacrifice" (uncredited) was genuinely tragic, and "The Yellow Bicycle (by Sharmistha Sinha, Pramodini Desai, and Umesh Sarode) was a solid kids detective story that read like an Indian version of the Hardy Boys.
I also enjoyed "Sweet Potato Island", a nonfiction piece about the cuisine of Taiwan by Sarthak Sinha based on an essay by student Vivian Li, which was done in a watercolor illustration style.
At 95 rupee (about $1.50 US), this gives you a pretty good amount of reading material for your money. The stories vary in quality, with some being fairly simple jokes, but there is a lot in here that I found to be enjoyable reading, all of it suitable for young readers.
Rating: 6/10
Issue: 143
Date: May, 2015
Publisher: ACK Media
Writer: Annie Besant, Chandni Shah, Madhumita Gupta, Sana Merchant, Rajani Thindiath, Priya Panicker, Tushar Abhichandani, Sharmistha Sinha, Indira Ananthakrishnan, Vivian Li, Sarthak Sinha, Ashwini Falnikar, Aparna Sundaresan Sayash Raaj, Shriya Ghate, Archana Amberkar, Luis Fernandes
Artist: Nikhil Salvi, Savio Mascarenhas, Archana Amberkar, Anupama Apte, Jitendra Patil, Prachi Killekar, Vineet Nair, Akshay Khadikar, Pramodini Desai, Sarthak Sinha, Abhijeet Kini, Ajitesh Bhattacharjee, Sahil Upalekar, Radhakrishnan Acharya, Ram Waeerkar
Colorist: Umesh Sarode, Akshay Khadilkar, Pragati M Agrawal, Lidwin Mascarhenhas
Letterer: Prasad Sawant, Pranay Bendre
Editor: Shriya Ghate
Tinkle is a long-running English-language kids comic/magazine published in India. I managed to pick up this issue at a shop at the airport in Mumbai during a layover.
The format is similar to an Archie Digest, and the short comic stories are intermixed with one or two-page puzzles and text features. There are some educational elements, especially on world cultures and geography, and some of the comic stories have a definite moral to them, in the style of Aesop's Fables, but for the most part the comics are humorous folktales and kid-friendly mystery stories that reminded me of Encyclopedia Brown.
Not all of the stories are credited, though as you can see above from the list of contributors who were named, a large cast of talent is involved in putting each of these digests together.
I found the stories to generally be simple but engaging. The recurring "Stupid Crocodile and the Monkey" was pretty silly fare, with the monkey endlessly outwitting the crocodile, who is, well, ill-equipped for a battle of wits.
Another recurring character is Tantri the Mantri, a scheming advisor to a young and naïve king whose plots to assassinate the king and take power for himself always backfire in ways that leave the king even more trusting of him. The two storied of Tantri are done by different creative teams.
Many of the stories are folk-tale variants, mostly Indian, but some from other cultures, including an Anansi story from Africa, and a Latvian tale about a man who outwits a pair of dragons.
A few of the stories took a more serious turn. "The Monkey King's Sacrifice" (uncredited) was genuinely tragic, and "The Yellow Bicycle (by Sharmistha Sinha, Pramodini Desai, and Umesh Sarode) was a solid kids detective story that read like an Indian version of the Hardy Boys.
I also enjoyed "Sweet Potato Island", a nonfiction piece about the cuisine of Taiwan by Sarthak Sinha based on an essay by student Vivian Li, which was done in a watercolor illustration style.
At 95 rupee (about $1.50 US), this gives you a pretty good amount of reading material for your money. The stories vary in quality, with some being fairly simple jokes, but there is a lot in here that I found to be enjoyable reading, all of it suitable for young readers.
Rating: 6/10
