24 November 2007

Sahasi Arjun - Kannada Comics

I was fascinated by Sahasi Arjun when it appeared on a Kannada Weekly Taranga. Artwork is ok-ok. But the story line is what impressed me.

This comic was created by T.G. Shetty and was printed from 1st Sept 1991 to 31 Jan 1993. Only two stories were printed by Taranga.

According to this comics, all the mythological stories (Ramayan, Mahabharat etc) are true and they were actually super humans. Earth had a huge earthquake+flood. They left earth and settled in a very distant solar system called Apoorva. Here their race grows to occupy multiple planets in their solar system.

There is a war going on in the Apoorva Solar System and the good guys are loosing. The princess of the good guys sends a robot, Wamba-2c, to earth to recover a Vajra. Wamba-2c is accompanied by Oshira's (a yogi) spirit. The Vajra (diamond) belonged to their leader Indra, which they had to leave behind when they left earth. This Vajra had enormous power which can help them to win against the bad guys. Wamba-2c lands on earth and meets Arjun. Wamba-2c, Oshira's sprit and Arjun hunt for the Vajra.

I had never heard of T.G. Shetty before or after. I don't know who this cartoonist is, how many comics of Sahasi Arjun did he create or if he created any other comics.

I was very dissapointed when the comics suddenly ended. I don't know why. Probably the idea that all the gods and mythological characters were highly advanced humans rather than gods itself was not acceptable. Or maybe T.G. Shetty ran out of ideas.

I had saved most of the comics pages out of Taranga. Here is the first clip out of it:


My mother bound all the pages into a book. I lost the book in my mother's collection of compiled books all these years. I recovered it a few months back and read it again.

I'm still impressed by it!

27 comments:

FlameWolf said...

Hi, I am a blogger and I am also an Arjun fan. I had read 4 stories of Arjun (The Hunt For Vajra , Karatoga's Cube, Visit to Apoorva and Arjun's Resurrection). I read them in Malayalam, and unfortunately, I lost the prints. I've tried every way to get a copy of all stories - in vain. Actually, it was a search for the terms "Arjun" and "Wamba" in google that took me to your blog...
Thank you friend, for revitalising my memories...

Jayakara Kini said...

Good to know there are fans of this comics. I didn't know there were four stories as Taranga printed only two.

FlameWolf said...

Actually, there were six, of which two I forgot to mention.

manumaan@rediffmail.com said...

Hi
I am also a huge fan of these comics..quite advanced for their time.is there anyway you can scan and upload these comics.if you are in mangalore i can help u.

Jayakara Kini said...

Scanning these comics is on my agenda for a long time now. Scanner and time, mostly time, is a major hurdle. Sorry, I'm nowhere near Mangalore now...

Jayakara Kini said...

I finally found some references to T.G. Shetty. But not about Arjun Comics :(.

T.G. Setty has published few more books in the Golden Heritage Series published by Chunmun Childrens Books publisher. There are four books: Tales of Ganesha, Tales of Shiva, Tales of Hanuman and Tales of Krishna. According to http://www.infibeam.com/Books/search?author=Shetty%20Tg these books are out of stock.

FlameWolf said...

So, I was wondering if you got time to scan the pages?

divakar said...

Hi, Even i'm a Big fan of Sahashi Arjun comics.I have collected 3 stories from Taranga. There are very few pages from Vajra episode. Other two are complete. I'll try to upload these soon & post a link here.

Amogh said...

sir, there was another comic strip which was published in Taranga, i'm not able to remember the name of the comic.
the had a main protagonist called "aditya" i guess.. he was shown as huge muscular guy dressed in purple and was an archer or something..
i was trying to google about that which led me to your blog.
can u tell me anything at all about that comic series..
any help would me most welcome, u can mail to me at amoghn2011@gmail.com

Jayakara Kini said...

Hi Amogh,

Sorry, I don't remember the character you are describing :(

divakar said...

Check this link for one of the story http://anupam-agrawal.blogspot.in/2011/07/tumtum-comics-magazine-english.html

FlameWolf said...

@divakar: Thanks for the link man...I think it is story #4...1st one Vajra, 2nd Cube, 3rd the one with the evil monk, and 4th the trip to Apurva.

divakar said...

Hi Everyone,

I had mailed Mr T G Shetty about Arjun comics. He told me that this June he is starting Arjun series again in Kannada Childrens Magazine "Tunturu".

Jayakara Kini said...

@divakar: This is good news! I'll check out Tunturu! I wonder how you got in touch with TG Shetty!

divakar said...

@Jayakara: Last week I saw a kannada article by Mr Shetty. Soon I mailed Taranga for T G Shetty's email id. They were very prompt in replying with his email id. This is how i got all the info.

Unknown said...

Hi this brings back such nice memories of my childhood. Barely 10 years old in 1991, Sahasi Arjun had such a mesmerizing effect on me that I used to collect all the episodes every week off Taranga magazine. Taranga published only two episodes and then stopped with the death of Arjun and after that did not know what happened. wish some one can scan and upload all the six episodes online .....plzzzz

Anonymous said...

I still remember, there were nearly 20 episodes and at the end, Arjun dies...

Can anyone please upload the images of those episodes?

FlameWolf said...

I too want to read the stories once again ... maybe I should contact Taranga for the author's e-mail ID and ask him personally where I can find them.

t.g.shetty said...

Hi,Everyone. I am TG. Thanks for all those nice comments. And special thanks to Jayakara Kini for the mention in his blog.
I have been writing and illustrating Tunturu, a childrens' fortnightly magazine in Kannada, for Manipal Media since 2001. I have started serializing Arjun in the Magazine since May 2014. Presently the second story (about the revenge of sage Ashwatthama) is running.
I created Arjun in 1987. First published in Mahanagar (Marathi) as a daily comics. It next appeared in Poompatta (Malayalam) sometime between 1988-1990, then in Taranga(Kannada)in 1991. Later it also had a run in Tamil(Dinamalar) and Telugu(Eenadu).
I lost count how many stories I did. Most of them were published in Poompatta. However I have since lost most of the originals. Someone kindly inform me if Poompatta is still existing. My ID is tgshetty@hotmail.com
Thanks again.

Jayakara Kini said...

Wow! Its great to see your comment on this blog! Its almost eight years since I made the original post!!!

Thanx a lot for commenting here and providing the background of this comics. I did not know that Arjun was created in 1987! Its sad to know that the originals are no longer available :(


Meghana said...

Really nice.

divakar said...

Some more people talking about Arjun..

https://m.reddit.com/r/india/comments/1h9dr1/anyone_else_read_this_as_a_kid_been_trying_to/

Anonymous said...

TG Sir,
can you please upload those 20 episodes of Arjun.
Even I tried for (1991 to 1993 published)taranga magazines. I couldnt find any of this.

can you please tell me in which magazine have you started serializing Arjun.

Regards,
Chethan SK

Jayakara Kini said...

Arjun is now published in 'Tunturu' magazine.
Tunturu is available on Magzter.com as well. I have taken an annual subscription. You can read online or by using their app on your phone.

Anonymous said...

Hi All,

Has anyone got all the kannada series of Sahasi Arjun yet? If so, please share the link/site here. I lost my 3 series of it from Taranga and would like to know what happened to Arjun after the 3rd series where he dies.

TG Shetty sir,

Its an honor to see your comment in this blog. Hope to find more of Arjun in Tunturu.

Anonymous said...

https://oldpoompatta.blogspot.com/2021/09/poompatta-arjun-comics-s1e1.html

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