SUPER SIKH PUTS VILLAINS IN ‘DEEP’ TROUBLE
The first comic book featuring “Super Sikh” was recently released in the U.S. following a successful Kickstarter campaign that drew more than 350 supporters, pledging about $22,500—more than four times what the creators were seeking.
Super Sikh was created by Supreet Singh Manchanda, a Silicon Valley executive and the chairman of Sikhnet; Bay Area comic book writer Eileen Alden; and illustrator Amit Tayal.
As they state on their website, the creators wanted their action hero, Deep Singh, to “be a natural modern Sikh person who uses great internal power of intuition, training, physical and mental strength—not a person who is granted supernatural powers or a mutant transformation. We wanted a real world character, so that you might see a bit of yourself reflected in him.”
They also wanted him to uphold Sikh values while living in the modern world. “Deep works hard and he always strives to do the right thing and never gives up—even when he’s in a tight spot and it looks like there’s no way out,” they say.
The villains in the comic books are a “crazy Taliban crew who are tired of Deep Singh ruining their power-hungry plans to destroy women’s education.”
Manchanda hopes Super Sikh will be a role model for Sikh kids. “Sikh kids see comic book heroes like Iron Man, Spiderman, Guardians of the Galaxy, and even Eggsy from ‘Kingsman’ and watch these characters deal with complex modern problems and ethics,” he said. “So we think our comics are a great way to show how a modern Sikh superhero with traditional Sikh values can be just as relatable, and the story can be just as exciting and entertaining.”
Compiled and partly written by Indian humorist MELVIN DURAI, author of the novel Bala Takes the Plunge.
[Comments? Contributions? We would love to hear from you about Chai Time. If you have contributions, please email us at melvin@melvindurai.com. We welcome jokes, quotes, online clips and more.]
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