Saturday, July 14, 2007

Adventures Of TIMPA

After Lucky Luke let's  introduce with hamara desi hero.... a teenager-detective, TIMPA, created by J.P.Karewala & illustrated by Abhijit Chatterji. Those who read Indrajal Comics btween '88-'89 are already aware about his adventures used to publish as 'side story' with the regular heroes.
Timpa's comics were full of adventures & comic-relief at the same time. Where Timpa was generally busy in finding some clue or nab those thugs, his grandpa (OR fondly called as 'dadu') was responsible for all those comic-reliefs! :-))....one who read Timpa will definitely agree with me...actually, I read his comics mostly for presence of his 'dadu', who being a lazy n easily-get-scared old man, always with Timpa, be in under the daylight or in the very late night adventures ....
 In the VERY LAST STORY [T-36,ran in three parts;Indrajal Vol.26 No.31-33], he even accompanied Timpa to Mumbai (from Kolkata) to nab some international smugglers!
There were total 36 Timpa stroies, averagely 8-pages , though last few were 16 & 24 pagers.
Being a very late-entry in Indrajal-pinup categories, Timpa was an instant hit among us & we read these comics as eagerly as the Phantom/Mandrake etc...
Sadly, after sudden cancellation of IJC in '90 we lost this kid-hero. However,Phantom/Mandrake/Flash were regularly published in the various news-papers/books even after Indrajal stopped,but we do really miss Bahadur,Dara & Timpa comics as they all were buried with this series...

[Here's an early four-page Timpa comic(T- 4),published in Indrajal on 1988]

(courtesy TCP)

22 comments:

pattu said...

Hi,

Thanks for the Timpa Comic. I searched the net high and low for lucky luke comics. I found esnips has a scanned comic but it is Spanish :(

Thanks again.
pattu

Colonel Worobu said...

How about posting some Lucky Luke comics? Do you have any in English?

HojO said...

@pattu:glad to know u like Timpa comics.... this comic's really worth reading!
@worbu:yeah i've Luke comic... but condition's lil' old, so reluctant to post here....so why i'm looking for new comics & also want to collect those i've yet to read..
As u know, there r ONLY 25 english Luke out of 72 total Luke comics...But as a crazy fan of him (YES, as i collect IJC above 500 in 'paper form'& read on NET another ~100...now my xcitement evolves around 'Luke' more than Mandrake/phantom even!) I'm even ready 2 buy Luke in French....

Let's see!

Indrajal Comics Club said...

i think i have some full comics of timpa

Indrajal Comics Club said...

i think i have found them,

legacy of the gods
operation rescue

Banduki said...

I have been looking for the Timpa books everywhere. I even contacted the author :-)

I love these books and I have "Operation rescue". I would love to find a way to get/buy/ just see scans of the other Timpa comics. Someone help me out, please. chetchow@hotmail.com

HojO said...

Dear K2,
ru frm Kolkata?? If yes,then i can say, repeat copies r available @College Street.

BTWN, do ya read Indrajal Comics ?? at lst on net..i.e. @TCP specially ??
'cos Indrajal published 36 Timpa stories (as i mentioned in my post)....also i post ONE here 4 readers.
Do check them :-)

Banduki said...

Hey sAg,

Thanks for getting back to me. Sorry but I didnt check the blog for this long.

Yes, I do read Indrajal comics but somehow i never was the biggest fan of either Phantom or Mandrake. I liked Bahadur, Rip Kirby and such. Do you guys remember a magazine called Target?

I wish i were in Cal and could browse in the 2nd hand bookstores but sadly i live half a world away. Wish I could lay my hands on those books. If only i could get someone to grab them for me. Wonder when ebay/bazee in India will live up to its true potential for stuff like this. I wont mind paying a decent enough amount for the Timpa comic books.

MajorBonobo said...

Timpa is a blatant Tintin ripoff, but a very nice one at that.

dibyojyoti saha said...

http://www.esnips.com/web/bgorey-Comics/ three complete timpa comics

navelgazer said...

Thank you so much for this! I think Timpa's grandfather (the Captain Haddock to his Tintin?) is the real star of the comic. Would love to see more of this. Thank you again!

Shiv

HojO said...

@navelgazer: Hello,yes Grad-pa(dadu) IS indeed the main star,allthough he's there to create more mess in puzzle solving(ala Haddock) ;)) Most of the Indrajal fans were introduced with Timpa as back-up stories in Ijc but later I find out that Timpa indeed had a full-fledged book series ,published in '86 or so...there were 4 copies i guess before that publisher handed over the right to ToI.

Pema said...

Interesting about the '88-89' timeline cos that was my first major trip of my life, and it was to then Calcutta where I fell in love with the Victoria Memorial. To cut to the chase, it was the time when I bought my first Tintin comic - Flight 714....and I thought IT was a 'straight rip-off' a Timpa adventure !!!

HojO said...

@PEMA:It was rather contrary that,'TIMPA' was surely inspired from Tintin,while 'Grandpa' was from Haddock...if you read both TIMPA & TINTIN adventures and will find it by yourself! :)

Between,there was a short book-series on TIMPA from '86 before ToI bought the right(on '88) from it's publisher(Paras Pub.) and start that pn-up series with Indrajal Comics!:-)

Sacre Bleu said...

Actually I was just kidding, nostalgically patronizing Timpa.... n e way I'd love to know if I could acquire the Timpa adventures somehow, somewhere...so someone help me ..........get to me at pemaw12@gmail.com

Manjulika Pramod said...

Read a mention of Timpa and then yours was the first blog that gave me a good enough answer to let me know what or rather who it was.. thanx

HojO said...

@Manjulika: You are welcome.Yes,Timpa was quite popular among the Indrajal fans. Infact,before Indrajal,there was a separate series of Timpa in '86.

Unknown said...

Does anyone have Timpa's "Third Time Lucky" by any chance? I remember it was something about ISRO's rocket program. There had been two failures earlier due to sabotage by foreign powers, unbeknownst to ISRO. Thaks to Timpa, a third sabotage attempt is averted and the rocket launch is successful.

HojO said...

@Vijay:Was that published in book form(the earlier Timpa series) or published in Indrajal??
I can closely remember such a plot from Ijc but have to check the issue to confirm!

Unknown said...

Hey guys check these 3 comics out on the super blog for Indrajal Fans

http://bookscomics.blogspot.in/2009/02/129-adventures-of-timpa.html

Unknown said...

Wow, never knew there were short stories on Timpa. I just have the full books, Red Hooded Gang, Legacy of the Gods, Operation Rescue, The Runners of the Golden Horn. Any body has the scan copies of the short stories from Indrajal?

HojO said...

@Premjit : In fact those 36 short Timpa stories,ran mostly 8 pages except few longer,published in Indrajal pages made this teen-hero a hit!Like most I was also introduced with him and his funny dadu in Ijc pages and only much later got those 3 books and the newer one.
PS - While there are no separate Timpa files but you will get Indrajal scans in net which have Timpa inside. Search for Indrajals published in 1988 & 1989.