Maula Jutt and aliens: Kachee Goliyan launch their first comic book

The creators plan to print a comic book every month for free.

KARACHI: The New Year kicked off with the launch of “The Fallen Warrior”, the comic book by Kachee Goliyan.

The two main characters of the Kachee Goliyan, were inspired from its creators, 21-year-old Ramish Safa and Nofal Khan, who study at the Institute of Business Management (IoBM). JC and Sufi, who are passionate about Doodh Pati and Nihari, get themselves in bizarre situations and find solutions to them.

In the book, the renowned Punjabi hero, Maula Jutt, is resurrected to fight off an alien invasion. Safa explained that the sole purpose of their apolitical cartoons was to entertain the young and give them something to laugh about.

“We wanted the masses to be able to relate to the characters,” he said. “We grew up reading comics which were not related to our society, hence we introduced local characters.” Safa said that he like Japanese comics more because they were more realistic than the American ones.

Safa explained how the 45-minute drive, to and fro, between home and university contributed to the creation of the comics. “We would be laughing and cracking random jokes all the way.”

He said that they chose the name Kachee Goliyan because they wanted others to know that they were serious about what they were doing.

Both Safa and Nofal claim that they are the first ones in Pakistan to launch their comics online, last year in June with their Facebook page.  Now the page has over 16,000 fans a new comic strip is uploaded every day on their page. The cartoons are drawn by Safa,while Khan manages their marketing.

At the book launch at PeaceNiche T2F, their friends and acquaintances were full of praise for both. One of their friends, Danial Shah, said that his most favourite cartoon was of Meera who said that she was 16 years old all her life and her tombstone said so as well. “It really cracked me up,” he said. “The best thing about Kachee Golian is that the language is simple.” Faryal Mohiuddin, a fellow student at IoBM, said that she read the comics every day on Facebook. “They [Khan and Safa] are funnier in person,” she said as she held on to her copy of the comic book.

The two youngsters want to be able to print a comic book every month for free. “We want the comic culture to spread in the country with Kachee Goliyan,” said Safa. “We want entrepreneurs to join in and help make people laugh.”

Published in The Express Tribune, January 2^nd,  2012.