Tinkle

Tinkle

Editor	Rajani Thindiath
Categories	Comic
Frequency	Monthly
First issue	1980
Company	Tinkle
Country	India
Language	English, Hindi, Malayalam, Assamese
Website	tinkleonline.com

Tinkle is an Indian monthly magazine, published mainly in India.^[1] Originally owned by the India Book House, the Tinkle brand was acquired by ACK Media in 2007.^[2] The magazine contains comics, stories, puzzles, quizzes, contests and other features targeted at school children, although its readership includes many adults as well. It is published in English and syndicated in many Indian languages like Malayalam, Assamese etc.

Anant Pai, the founding editor of the magazine, is known to his readers as Uncle Pai. He has also launched the popular Amar Chitra Katha series.

The first issue was launched in April 1980. Total 617 issues have been printed so far. The magazine carries comic stories and regular columns of interest to school children. Tinkle enjoys great popularity, and has been an integral part of growing up in India in the last two decades. Characters like Suppandi and Shikari Shambu that appeared first in the pages of the magazine have nationwide recognition. Readers send more than 200 letters with stories and other features to be considered for printing in the magazine. The wholesome combination of educational and entertainment that defines Tinkle has many celebrity fans in India, including the former Prime Minister of India, Atal Bihari Vajpayee. There is an official website for Tinkle, which contains puzzles and games.

Popular comics

Apart from one-off stories, Tinkle also has regular characters that appear in stand-alone fashion. Some of these characters are:

Currently on Tinkle

• Butter Fingers: A clumsy boy named Amar who is fondly called "Butter fingers" by his parents, friends and teachers. He is chided for his sloppiness and laziness, but is a happy-go-lucky character who also has a presence of mind and manages to save the day despite messing up trivial stuff.
• Janoo and Wooly Woo: The good and smart witch Janoo lives in the forest of Jadu (translates to magic in Hindi) along with her sidekick Wooly Woo the timid dragon, goes on her adventures to save the world from Wikido the wicked witch.
• Kalia the Crow: A friendly crow living in a forest known as 'Big Baan', Kalia is the saviour of each and every small animal in the forest. With his sharp beak, sharp brains and his friends Babloo the bear and Danti the Elephant, his enemies Chamataka the wily jackal and Doob-Doob the stupid crocodile are always outwitted of their plans to catch the rabbits Keechu and Meechu, the deer Shonar and other small animals.
• Pyarelal: A kind villager who lives in Hastipur with his wife Lajo. He's ready to help or find solutions to any problem.
• Mopes and Purr: A detective duo who are always on the run, solving cases.
• Super Weirdos: A girl name Aisha who is always trying to find her super powers. While she searches for her powers, she stumbles on other kids of her age who have amazing but weird powers.

Evergreen Stars

• Suppandi: Probably one of the most famous character of the comic. Amuses everyone with his stupidity.
• Shikari Shambu: The faint hearted well renowned hunter, ends up being lauded for everything he did not achieve. Well, wild animals keep running into self made traps as he lies unconscious before them.
• Tantri the Mantri: A evil sinister mantri (minister) called Tantri tries to dethrone the king, Raja Hooja by his clever plans. The naive king who loves laddus trusts his minister more than anything in the world. The plot revolves around failure attempts of the minister as all his plans invariably backfire.

Former Franchise

• Kapish: A clever, helpful monkey who lives in the jungle of Kadu along with his friends, Baboocha the bear, Bundila the elephant, Pintu the fawn, Motu the rabbit and Panja the eagle. His arch-enemies are Sigal the jackal, Peelu the tiger, Kesha the lion and Dopaya the hunter. Kapish has supernatural powers, which help him to extend and shrink his tail at will. This ability and his quick thinking help him save his friends from Peelu, Sigal and some hunters along with Dopaya. In some instances, he has also saved humans from being harmed, especially Ila, Dopaya's niece. This series is similar to Kalia the Crow.
• Ramu and Shamu: Ramu and Shamu are two innocent identical twins having their ups and their downs as they experiment and play. Viju, a boy of their age is their constant companion.
• Little Raji: Raji is a young girl who uses her cleverness to solve various problems.
• The Dumbbells: The dumbbells Nattoo, Dattoo and Motu are friends who live a simple adventurous life. Their arch enemy is Damodar, who always tries to get them into trouble.
• Raghu: A school-boy who finds it tough to please others.
• Anwar: A cute young boy of four who acts funny.
• Nasruddin Hodja: A witty man (who sometimes acts dumb) who outwits many crooks, especially Ahmed.
• Chhotu and Lambu: As the names suggest, Lambu is tall while Chottu is short; Chottu uses his witty brain to help them and others.
• Chaman Charlie: A man wearing a dhoti and an overcoat, looking just like Charlie Chaplin. This chap is very clumsy and witty, and at times courageous.
• Zim Zim and Gotala: Zim Zim is the friendly demon. His main enemy is the sorcerer Gotala, who wants to capture Zim Zim in order to know the secrets of the demons, but fails everytime due to Zim Zim's cleverness.
• Inky and Venky: This is about two friends, Inky and Venky, who often run into traps and fumble and mumble all the way until finally they escape by sheer luck.

• Vicky: An Alsatian dog who gets others and himself into trouble. His owners, Chumki and Bobo–two sisters have a tough time managing him.
• Ajay: He is a teenager with a detective mind. He helps the police in solving many cases, especially those that involve Jhatku the rogue.
• Uncle Anu: He appears in "Anu Club"–a science series, and is a nuclear scientist with young friends like Bharat, Vijay, Anand, Deepa, Chitra and Amar. He makes them find science interesting using experiments and tricks.

• Little Janoo: This series is a prequel franchise of the series Janoo and Wooly Woo featuring Janoo and Wooly Woo's adventures when they were young.
• Little Shambu: This series is a prequel franchise of the popular Tinkle series Shikari Shambu featuring Shikari Shambu's adventures when he was a kid.
• Junior Tantri: This series is a prequel franchise of the series Tantri the Mantri featuring Tantri and Raja Hooja's life as schoolboys when they were studying in a Gurukal. This series revovles around Tantri's every attempt to get rid of Hooja so that he can resume his school life peacefully without following Hooja like a tail, everytime.

Adaptions

Rather than being just comic book characters, some of the characters from Tinkle have been made into cartoons, movies and books.

• Suppandi Suppandi!!: a cartoon series featuring the popular tinkle toon, Suppandi, features his acts of folly, making you laugh till the end of each episode. This show currently airs on Cartoon Network and Pogo, often having reruns in the same channels.

• Shambu and the Man Eater: In November 2011, a short animated film featuring the popular tinkle toon, Shikari Shambu, was released just before the premeire of the animated film of the popular Amar Chitra Katha series, The Sons of Ram. This movie features Shambu's adventures with a man eating tiger.

• The Butterfingers Series: A series of two books (as of lately) features the clumsy acts of the popular tinkle charater, Amar Kishen aka Butterfingers, written by Khyrunnisa.A . The series of two books, revovles around Butterfingers and his friends, Eric, Kiran and Minu and their funny, comical high school life.

References

External links

• Tinkle Official Website and Subscription Details
• Tinkle celebrates - Kids cheered as the 500th issue of Tinkle comics was released in a special edition—The Hindu