Comic Books lovers (like myself) must be having some fond memories of a rare comic series which got originated from the amalgamation of the World of Comics and Hindi Cinema in the 80s (probably mid-eighties). Those were the years when Amitabh Bachchan was the one and only ruler of the box office and following his huge fan base an innovative comic series was introduced featuring Amitabh as the life saving Super-Hero SUPREMO, which continued for 2 complete years.
For young friends who are not aware of this comic series, it was called “The Adventures of Amitabh Bachchan” (“Kissey Amitabh Ke” in Hindi) which had a new issue released every month both in Hindi & English with titles such as “The Lost City”, “The Imposter”, “The Hijack”, “The Lost Idol”, “The Kidnap” and more.
The series had Amitabh Bachchan featuring as a famous Super Star who used to become the Super Hero SUPERMO whenever there was a serious crime reported or in the time of a crisis in the city. Along with the usual body hugging suit similar to other Heroes, he wore big glasses to hide his real identity and had two friendly boys, Vijay and Anthony (named on Amitabh’s famous filmy characters) who shared the secret of his hidden identity with him. Inspired from the hugely famous film “Coolie”, the Super Hero also had a Falcon as his dear friend, called Shaheen, who always informed Amitabh about the time to become SUPREMO.
The project was planned and released with Amitabh Bachchan’s approval and its each issue had a personally signed letter from him too greeting the kids on its first page. The whole idea was conceived by Pammi Bakshi, then the editor of Movie magazine who also got the famous director-poet-writer-lyricist Gulzar on the board as its Script Consultant. The books were published by India Book House Pvt. Ltd. (IBH) and its Art Department was headed by Pratap Mullick who was an illustrator for the Amar Chitra Katha books at that time.
But the comic series had another filmy connection as they got the name of SUPREMO actually from a set of Amitabh-Randhir Kapoor film called PUKAR in Goa. Now during that shooting whenever Amitabh came on the set, the whole crowd watching the shoot used to become standstill and seeing this, Randhir always said, “Supremo has arrived”. Pammi Bakshi heard the name, liked it and got it cleared from Amitabh who okayed it happily. And that’s how the Super Hero was named SUPREMO.
Such was the impact of this series that Manoj Comics also started its own version of books focusing on Amitabh Bachchan and the trend was reportedly followed in the South too taking two lead actors as their heroes. However, the comics got discontinued by its publishing house after 2 years for some unknown reasons which really disappointed many kids & fans in those exciting years. Unfortunately I also misplaced my personal collection of these issues but recently felt overjoyed again when I found the scans of few of them uploaded on the net by some like-minded friends.
Anyhow, this rare comic series based on a Super Star is certainly a clear proof of the fact that in those gone years not only the readers (both children & adults) but also the creators were so passionate about films that they loved to try new means of satisfying their own inner urge without even thinking about any big returns.
And today probably the excitement is still there with both the sides but the heavy commercialization of everything has made us so blind or scared that we are not willing to try such innovative projects unless someone ensures us of a sure shot profit in it without any risk.
But never-mind, the new age gift of the worldwide web, once again enables us to re-live our passion with these rare comic books in a different manner in the form of JPEG or PDF files saved on our hard drives. So thankfully all is not lost yet!
Cheers!
Tags :
Amitabh Bachchan Superhero SUPREMO Comic Series in the 80s, Comics on Hind Film Actors, Rare Bollywood Facts, Bollywood Trivia, Did You Know about Hindi Films, Unknown Facts about Amitabh Bachchan
