Friends recently i got an opportunity to put my hands over very early issues of The Illustrated Weekly Of India spanning from 1948 onwards.It was really a pleasure to go through these vintage issues.
Illustrated Weekly of India was started in 1880 named as "Times Of India Weekly Edition",later renamed as 'The Illustrated Weekly of India' in 1923 and continued weekly publication till 1993.
Now most important aspect of it is that it was the first Indian magazine to publish Phantom strips,earlier i was under impression that Phantom strips started publishing somewhere in 1940,but its not correct as i found Phantom strips in its 1957 issues,not before.Phantom strips continued in it till 1987 after which they were discontinued.
IWI used to publish only Phantom Sundays and those the current one only,before now i never saw any other strip other than illustrated by Sy Barry in IWI but in its issues of 1957 i found MCcoy strips too.Also these strips were used to be published in color(occasionally in B/W too) but later converted to full-fledged Black & White in 80's.
More on IWI will be continued in this very post but first let me present the comics for today post which are contributed by Ajay Misra,who possesses such a passionate enthusiasm for scanning and sharing comics that his passion is being carried to his next generation too.His kids Divish(son) & Parishi(daughter) helps in sharing his load by scanning comics and mailing the files to bloggers like me.This unmatched passionate attitude of Ajay and his family certainly deserves a open hearted appreciation.
As i also mentioned earlier that we use to fight but use to make it over soon without any unrecoverable damage.People try to take advantage of such indifferences by inciting and making fun and mockery of the situation without first having a look on themselves.
Anyway here is the first part of The Phantom's Adored Gem,for which all credit and thanks goes to Ajay only.
Download Comic
In the last post it was asked to identify a personality which was correctly identified by Venkit,Grouchy and Bharat.The personality was Vijay Mallya,the liquor barren,who was recently in news for bringing the personal belongings of Mahatma Gandhi back to India by bidding in a private Auction for it.
Have a look on a old picture of him published in IWI.
Here is a feature of IWI,can you tell who is the illustrator of the pictures in it..!
Witness few vintage ads from the IWI 1948-57 issues..
Have you ever seen a Indian Prime Minister borrowing a lighter/match stick to lit his cigarette....no!! Ok,watch here.
Have a look over these Phantom strip featuring MCcoy's work.The page size of Weekly is large than my A4 size scanner glass hence please bear with me for any of cropped images.
Please go through with few cover pages of IWI.
Noticed the price of 1957 issue!!.yeah,correct,its 75 new paisa.Now tell what can be the price of this 1949 issue....
Can't guess!!Ok,notice down the price yourself.
How much it is....12 Anna's,Isn't it! 12 Anna means how much rupees?
One more comic strip use to follow in IWI which is worth mentioning here.It was short stories illustrated by Kavadi.Have a look on a couple of them.
Kavadi was another talented artist who didn't got his cake of glory.He use to draw the pictures which were associated with crime stories published in 'Satyakatha','Manohar Kahaniyan' etc.
His painted pictures were quite effective,have a look at one such of his drawing.
While browsing through these issues it was pleasant surprise for me to know that Abid Surti's another famous character "Azad" also use to appear in IW.Want to see it..?Here are few of them.
Can you identify the personalities in the picture given below!!They were/are very famous political personalties.Identifying four persons in the picture excluding the leftmost woman will be enough as the woman standing left most was not that much renowned and well known than the rest four.
Enjoy few more nostalgic and vintage ads from IW.
Can anyone identify these famous Bollywood personalities.
Finally enjoy the concluding part of Phantom's Adored Gem contributed by Ajay only.More on IW,Dharmyug and Abid Surti's work in next posts.Please keep visiting along with your inputs.
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