T-Series and Pratilipi join hands to adapt movies into comic series

11 October 2023

National

In a groundbreaking collaboration, Pratilipi, India’s leading digital storytelling platform that publishes stories in 12 Indian languages and has over 23 million monthly active readers, has partnered with T-Series, India’s leading film and music production company, to bring forth unique movie to comic book adaptations.

Bhushan Kumar’s Yaariyan 2, the sequel to the Indian Hindi-language romantic comedy-drama film Yaariyan (2014), is scheduled to release on 20 October 2023. This sequel has been brought to life in a comics format by Pratilipi Comics.

The Yaariyan 2 comics is the story of three cousins—Shikhar, Ladli, and Bajrang—who reunite in Mumbai to chase their dreams and explore life’s adventures. The comic series will depict the bubbly versions of the power packed star cast featuring Diyva Khosla Kumar, Yash Dasgupta, Meezaan Jafri, Warina Hussain, Pearl V. Puri, and Priya P Varrier. It will feature a total of 10 episodes, published across both print and digital formats, in both Hindi and English, and available for reading on the Pratilipi Comics app free of cost.

Commenting on this collaboration, one of the crew members said, “The comic series is truly amazing! Witnessing Yaariyan 2 come to life in the form of comics evoked a sense of nostalgia. It is a visual delight to see what the Pratilipi Comics team has created. Both the storytelling and artwork are exceptionally beautiful. We are confident that all comic lovers will enjoy the series.”

Rajeev Tamhankar, Head of Pratilipi Comics, too expressed his enthusiasm about the partnership, “Comic book being adapted to feature films and television dramas are very common – from Marvel Comics to DC, and even Archies, the world has read and seen them all. But launching the Yaariyan 2 comics has been an exhilarating roller coaster ride for us because of how unique it is. This is our first movie-comics partnership and is a glimpse of how content will travel across mediums from comics to movies to novels, and back. We are extremely excited to unveil this slice-of-life series.”

Comic writer Akash Pathak who worked on the adaptation added, “As a writer, it was both interesting and challenging to work on this project. The movie explores the relationship between three cousins, their fun-filled yet emotional journey, and I have endeavored to capture those feelings in these small chapters of comics.”

Krupali Borkhatariya, the artist behind the graphics of the comic series said, “In this project, I ventured into the exciting world of experimenting with renowned faces, which presented its own unique set of challenges. I’ve employed a variety of digital art techniques to breathe life into this comic.”

With this distinctive movie-to-comic book adaptation, Pratilipi Comics continues its mission to innovate and revolutionize digital storytelling and expand their horizons by entering into multiple and meaningful partnerships. This collaboration marks a remarkable achievement for the comic book industry. Pratilipi Comics is shaping the future of digital storytelling by broadening its horizons.

With a diverse range of genres, including Superheroes, Action, and Detective stories, Pratilipi Comics boasts over 1000+ comic series and approximately 250 monthly episodes and their dedication to captivating readers with immersive and engaging narratives remains unparalleled.

About Pratilipi

Pratilipi is the largest Indian language storytelling platform. Its eponymous product is home to over 950,000 writers in 12 Indian languages as well as over 30 million monthly active readers. The Pratilipi app is available on both Android and iOS devices and can be accessed to both read and publish stories across twelve different Indian languages (Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali, English, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Punjabi, Urdu, and Odia).

In 2020, Pratilipi acquired Mumbai-based IVM Podcasts to enter the fast-growing podcast market. In 2021, they took over The Write Order, one of the largest self-publishing platforms in the country, to expand their repository of original stories. And in 2022, Pratilipi entered the traditional book publishing market with the acquisition of Westland Publications, which was previously owned by Amazon.

Pratilipi’s range of products include Pratilipi FM which has an inventory of over 10,000 audio books, podcasts, and podcasts, along with 300,000 monthly active listeners. Pratilipi Comics too is an integral part of the business which is the largest online comic product in five Indian languages with thousands of digital comics and over 500,000 monthly active readers.