As a kid I read a lot of Amar Chitra Katha comics – one of India’s largest selling comic book series, with more than 90 million copies sold in 20 Indian languages. As a child the comics books that retell stories from the great Indian epics, mythology, history, folklore, and fables in a comic book format were a mainstay in the evenings for me & my friends. Parents willingly bought these comics for us and encouraged reading them. Along with those comics I also read a lot of Twinkle, Richie Rich, Archies and Superman, Batman and other DC & Marvel comics. Children’s books like Nancy Drew (sue me), Famous 5, Hardy Boys and I know I had one more series but I can’t remember the name right now. I know I’ve read 2 or 3 books of those as well.
Once we moved back to India, I read a lot more comics for the next 3 or 4 years because I didn’t have that community of friends living in the same building as I did when we settled down in Thrikkakara. Ofcourse I had friends but just 2 or 3 lived within walking distance and ofcourse I had my cousins but I only saw them during the holidays. And I got a lot of comics from my cousins too. Here in India I read a lot of, and I mean a lot to the point of addiction, Phantom & Mandrake comics. They were my favourites and I devoured the books for hours on end. Other than those there were a few others but I can’t for the life of me remember the names. Phantom, Mandrake and Archies were it for me. And ofcourse I loved Tintin & Asterix comics – I have both entire collections on my laptop in PDF format. The books are just ridiculously expensive to buy but I got the ebook versions for free download so who needs the book formats anymore?