Oct 11, 2020 22:00:00

An Indian publisher that translates world manga with just four people

In the Lion-Muthu Comics publishers in India, in a 4-person team that has passed the comics in English, Italian, French, is the Tamil language, which are about 74 million people in southern India

Tamil language has been translated into. The publisher is in the town of Shivakashi in southern India. Shivakashi is not a literary town, but with the help of the typographic industry, it has become the center of Indian manga publishing.

How a Tiny Indian Publisher Brings a World of Comics to Tamil Readers --Atlas Obscura
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/tamil-comic-books-india

The publisher was founded in the 1970s by M. Sound Lapindian, who worked for about 60 years at a company that prints the children's magazine Chandamama, which is published in 13 languages. Sound La Pandian founded Muthu Comics, the predecessor of Lion-Muthu Comics, in 1972, noting that 'most of the popular manga abroad are not translated into Tamil'. We have embarked on a Tamil translation business.

In the 1970s, Indian manga was generally only one frame or one or two pages. Muthu Comics translated and published ' The Steel Claw, ' which became popular in the United Kingdom as the first manga, and became the first Indian publisher to publish a manga book. The following is also a manga translated into Tamil by the company, which is a translation of the Italian manga 'Notturno New yorkese'.

In the 1980s, Mr. Vijayan, the son of Mr. Sound Lapindian and the president at the time of writing the article, took over the operation of Muthu Comics. Just in the 1980s, the manga boom was rushing to India, and Muthu Comics succeeded in riding that wave. In addition, Mr. Vijayan went to book fairs held overseas and had exchanges to connect with major publishers in France and Italy.

In the 1990s, India's economy was liberalized, and many stores in India began selling American comics such as '

Superman ' and ' Batman .' However, these manga were still in their original text and were expensive, and they were mainly distributed only to English-speaking customers in urban areas. By translating these manga into Tamil and making the pictures black and white to keep them affordable, Mr. Vijayan pioneered a new market.

In 2010, Muthu Comics changed its name to Lion-Muthu Comics. The company has four people in charge of Italian, French, Mr. Vijayan himself, and Tamil. Two people are in charge of translating Italian and French comics into English, and Mr. Vijayan and Tamil are in charge of translating English into Tamil. The Tamil language staff mainly translates the general flow of manga into Tamil language, and Mr. Vijayan adjusts the context in detail for the reader.

The Lion-Muthu Comics catalog is full of children's titles, cowboy-themed manga and detective series that are popular with readers. The company translates and publishes about 55 manga a year, and each manga has about 1500 prints. The company keeps prices low to compete with online bookstores, and the price of manga is about 80 rupees (about 115 yen) per book in monochrome, and full-color manga is said to be 4 to 5 times more expensive.

Although manga is still seen as a children's book in India, Mr. Vijayan said he was happy to enjoy the manga he read with the local people, saying, 'The readership of our manga readers. Is a very small community and cannot be made any smaller. '