Review of Shakti Comics #29 'Prince Orq'
Shakti Comics, after having been done with the ‘Death in the Himalayas’ saga with issues #20 - #28 (except for #21) are back to publishing their Indrajal series. This particular issue features the 48th Phantom Sunday Story titled ‘A Lesson for Prince Orq’ by Lee Falk and Wilson McCoy.
The Indrajal series, launched by Shakti with issue #21 of their Phantom Comics, is a legacy reprint venture that aims to give the readers, old and new alike, a taste of the classic stories as printed by Indrajal Comics back in the 1960s.
For those who came in late, Indrajal Comics was the first ever comic book series to publish the adventures of the Phantom in India. Published by the Times of India Group, Indrajal Comics #1 saw the debut of the Phantom in India in 1964. The iconic cover depicting the double rainbows and The Phantom with Hero and Devil is a very iconic image and puts it on par with the Gold Key #1 by George Wilson if not more in terms of value and recognition in India.
Indrajal Comics introduced millions of readers to the Phantom alongside many other characters. Thus the nostalgic value of the series remains unmatched. That is why almost all the recent publication efforts are compared to Indrajal and will continue to be. This is also why Indrajals in any language are still in demand and remain popular to even be sold as unofficial reprints.
The value of Indrajals in the comic book market in India thus remains very much of a steady incline. The back issues dating back to the earliest ones are scarce and remain very expensive. While scans or reprints exist, there haven't been any official reprints as such of the Indrajal Comics or the stories in them.
Shakti here does exactly that. They listened to this demand and have started reprinting the earliest Indrajals starting with #1 with #21. Three issues have been released so far with #29 reprinting #2 of Indrajal Comics with the title ‘Prince Orq’.
The cover by Avishek Biswas is really good. Featuring an action scene, we see the Phantom hitting a dynamic pose with two pirates ready to battle him. The colouring is quite dynamic and striking; however, the Phantom’s face seems to be a little bit unpleasant to look at. The original black and white line art version, as shared by ago on their socials a few months ago, looked a little better, with the art style resembling Joan Boix's work.
As previously mentioned, ‘A Lesson for Prince Orq’ or ‘Prince Orq’ was a Sunday story. In its original publication with Indrajal Comics, the story was edited with omission, extension, or alteration of the panels, which were also colourised locally. Shakti’s Orq, however, uses the original 1957 Sunday story with no alteration of the panels.
However, Shakti also recolours the story locally. The colours are by Santosh Adsul and Avishek Biswas, two familiar names that have worked with Shakti for a long time, are quite impressive and doesn’t carry over the flaws of the previous colouring work on #21 ‘The Phantom’s Belt’.
Wilson McCoy’s art shines with the (mostly) flat colouring and does look really great. However, some examples of shadows and highlights are still present in some pages or panels, which does ruin the experience a little bit.
Shakti’s unedited printing is mostly unedited, as they have taken the liberty of removing the title panel, the date identifiers, and the signatures from the panels. In the copy reviewed, the contrast of the colours seemed to have been a little high; however, it might be an issue with the printing. Thus, we were unable to confirm the exact reason for this at the moment.
The last few pages of the comic contain some phun information about the Phantom and the various monarchs that he had encountered over the years. It is a nice illustrated overview compiled by Shakti’s Biswadeep Purkayastha and Samrat Dhali. Also included is a character biodata of Dr. Axel and an overview of the different publications of the same Prince Orq story.
Overall, Shakti Comics #29 delivers in terms of its quality and production value. Aside from a few gripes, there aren't any other complaints to be made. It is a quality production with its presentation of the story and the extras. It does prove that Shakti is listening to their phans and has made changes for the better. Wishing them all the best and hoping that they come out with more quality productions like this.
