GOTHAM

One of the better things to have happened here in the past year has been the arrival of Gotham Comics – a US-based company that licenses DC and Marvel comics for republication. First it served India, this year it has started operations in Singapore.

The stories are usually reprints of material that is more than a year old, so we won't get Joss Whedon's X-Men any time soon. Most of the newsstand Gotham issues here are targeted at a younger audience - sticking with the JLA, Avengers and the two main publishers' other top-tier heroes. But they also publish slightly edgier stuff in special editions, which are sold at bookstores.

The company doesn't have open books, but I imagine Gotham has fairly sound prospects. All of the characters are well known - from movies, cartoons and other merchandising – and the products are cheap enough to be affordable for most middle-class kids.

Since I picked up my first comic about a month ago, I've been buying an issue or two every time I pass a display stand. Thankfully the prices are next to nothing – starting at S$2.90 (US$1.69/Euro1.39) and running up to S$10 for a digest.

If you walk down any street in Asia, you'll likely see a number of kids in Spider-man t-shirts who have never read a Spidey comic. That's the target market and it's a pretty big one.

I also considered that Gotham would be spared from the problems that Marvel and DC have with dealing with 'the talent.' Though it appears that is about to change... Gotham is launching its first independently developed comic – an Indian version of Spider-man:


India's Spider-man

SPIDER-MAN INDIA – SPIDER-MAN EXTENDS FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD TO STREETS OF BOMBAY!Bangalore, India (June, 2004)— Marvel Enterprises, Inc. & Gotham Entertainment Group –Indian publishing licensee of Marvel Comics and the leading publisher of international comic magazines in South Asia – announces the launch of Spider-Man India.
Spider-Man India interweaves the local customs, culture and mystery of modern India, with an eye to making Spider-Man’s mythology more relevant to this particular audience. Readers of this series will not see the familiar Peter Parker of Queens under the classic Spider-Man mask, but rather a new hero – a young, Indian boy named Pavitr Prabhakar. As Spider-Man, Pavitr leaps around rickshaws and scooters in Indian streets, while swinging from monuments such as the Gateway of India and the Taj Mahal.
Mumbai’s (Bombay’s) first web-swinging Super Hero will be joined by a reinterpretation of the classic Spider-Man villain, the Green Goblin -- reinvented as a Rakshasa, an Indian mythological demon.

So far the company hasn't announced any plans to launch a Singaporean version of the hero. Though I am hopeful, and I would happily volunteer my services as a script writer (yes, as a fan, I would do it pro bono):

Peter Par, a young Peranakan junior college student who lives with his aunt and uncle in Bedok, is bitten by a genetically altered spider while on a school trip to the island's bio-technology park...