Editing a story for our Anti-Caste SF book, I have just been alerted to the fact that the colloquial expression for a "sunshower"--in languages ranging from the southern tip of India all the way to Korea and Japan--is "a wedding of foxes/jackals".
My mind is a little blown!
In the Philippines, it's a wedding of Tikbalangs!
There's a cool-looking academic paper about how this might have been transmitted, but it's in Korean
Supernatural love stories from Mizoram (featuring the bride-gobbling Phungpuinu), country tales from Tamil Nadu (featuring a naughty & dirty section), and ghostlore from all over the country (featuring 300+ demonic entities). Pick up some folklore today!
APPUPEN is one of India's most prolific graphic novelists. His work ranges from hallucinogenic fantasy to dystopian cyberpunk nightmare to biting political satire. Check out his first graphic novel MOONWARD, which we brought out in 2009: https://www.blaft.com/collections/new-arrivals/products/moonward
We met Larchtongue at their Indie Comix Fest tables in Mumbai and Bengaluru and we love their work! These zines explore serious topics like queer marriage, the compulsion to create art even though you're broke, and the politics of privilege--but it's all expressed through wiggly lightning-vine lettering and shimmery cackling demons
A favourite at Indie Comix Fests: PORTALPETTAI by Avakkai & Chukka is a portrait of a diverse South Indian community and its resilience in the face of an alien life force intrusion. In the sequel TROUBLE IN PORTALPETTAI, the gang goes to visit the Geargleplex! And in SAMUDRA RANI & THE MAA-LEES, a group of gardener robots are marooned on a distant asteroid, centuries in the future...
Now in our webstore -- A collection of books by other great Indian independent publishers and comics artists. Find titles from @bakarmax_ , @WorldOfHalahala, and @studioekonte. We'll be adding more indie comics and zines soon!
Ghosts, Monsters, and Demons of India -- an illustrated guide to the folkloric fiends of the subcontinent. Yakshis, yetis, yatudhanas, yamadutas, and much more!
We have a new section of our webstore for comics published by other Indian independents -- including the redoutable Bakarmax, a crew that started out doing webcomics about literal turds with magic powers, and has graduated to making smart, satirical graphic novels about the Maoist insurgency in India's Red Corridor and the Kashmir conflict.
Earlier this month we took a trip to Ahmedabad, where we met with veteran pulp authors H.N. Golibar, Bansidhar Shukla, and Ekta Doshi, all of whom will be featured in our Gujarati Pulp Fiction anthology, scheduled for December.
In 1976, a colleague told him that a weekly magazine could never survive without selling space for advertisements. Golibar took it as a challenge--he stopped running ads and kept Chakram Chandan completely ad-free for another 45 years. (Remember: not monthly, but weekly!!!)