An Overwhelming night with Opeth

I have always obsessed with finer details when I have to go for the concert and made elaborate plans for entire thing. The idea of missing a concert due to any number of circumstances gives me a cold feet. While I came to know that Opeth are playing at O2 academy on this very Friday, It occurred to me that I may be able to attend this. On wandering a little online, it was clear that I would be able to get tickets on the gate or I can still book on-line. There is something about a rock concert which makes you plan it and there is some kind of preparation which gets you into the right mood for metal concert. I was little indecisive on this one since I have to return back to my city late at about Sunday midnight and as always there are safety concern regarding roaming at night in London. And to be frank I had zero preparation to attend a gig by The Opeth. Anyway, my confused mind decided "what the heck", lets do it.

So I quickly made it to the venue, which was not hard to spot and purchased a ticket quickly by cash. Reaching to O2 academy was not really much of an effort and nothing interesting happened until I purchased the ticket. There were few people queuing at the gate, others were just hanging around the venue casually. So, I thought lets go somewhere to eat or take a stroll. I was very happy until this moment, and that is when everything went wrong. I was thinking of keeping my ticket from back pocket of jeans to somewhere in front jacket, but I couldn't locate the ticket, my heart almost stopped beating at this point. I was going like "no way dude, you cannot loose it", its one of the times when you remember god, no matter how rational you are, times like these make you loose your shit. I was extremely angry on myself and then I started looking for ticket around. Couple of guys were selling tickets around those area, now I do not want to allege anyone of anything, but it seems to me that its possible that one of these guys nicked it from my back pocket, as it was quite easily visible. I tried searching and I talked to the people at ticket counter, but there was nothing which could be done at this moment. This is where my engineering senses started kicking in and telling me to get a good bargain and save the money, you have already paid 20£ why again? So while I stood up in the line, I was looking for those guys who sell ticket and luckily(don't want to use this word at this moment) I found a bargain for 15£, which is not bad, but I lost my tickets so I was still  a fucking loss.

Anyway, I decided to join the line, but bloody hell, line was so long, it was about a mile or so. Finally when I was standing in the line, the cops were frisking an african male for something and everyone was looking at it. Now line kept moving, until I reached about 100 meters from the venue, it started getting chilly and I put my hoodie on. For some reason, I was asked to stepped out of the line by the cops for frisking, which made me panicky all of sudden. Clearly, it was racial profiling and the cop said that they were looking for guy in grey jacket, which is funny since no one wears a grey jacket to a rock concert besides me, of course. And he tried to act funny and crap, but it was my fault to put on hoodie in London and wear a grey jacket. I tried explaining him that I am not from here and its hard for me to bear this kind of cold. This event almost ruined the night for me as it kept haunting me entire time. I was repeatedly replaying the entire event in my mind to figure out what all did I do wrong here? and it was hard for me to keep a cool head about it.
Anyway, I made inside the gig venue, there were two levels in O2 academy, I was in standing circle and there was some kind of seating arrangement at upper level. To be frank, who the fuck sits on a chair in a metal concert? I mean if people were buying tickets for such arrangement at metal gig, they should rather sit home and watch corrs or something. Anyway, venue was great, inspite of being enclosed, I didn't have any concerns for sound to be frank, I know they would have done their homework properly unlike India. The stage was well lit and there were these banners and drum kits, which were covered by some kind of cloth. I was not sure why the stage has such strange arrangement since it looked like some kind of obstacle course.
So by 8 pm, the stage went dark and this was the time when you know the band will appear on stage.  So I heard that familiar sound, ah the sounds from a live snare and distortion of metal guitar, great feeling of metal nostalgia. I have been hungry for live metal music for more than a year now. It punches a big hole through my heart that I have missed Cradle of filth, Lamb of God, BIG Four, motorhead and Gojira, all of them were at pretty much reachable, but life played a cruel trick with me. I wont say that this band( which appeared on stage next) was particularly a bad band, but it was not the kind of band, I would have spent my energy on, call me what you want, but I was here to see Opeth. I have enough gig experience to know when not to do rituals and save energy, but today this dry patch of metal in my life was taking its toll and my body was automatically responding to every beat and every riff. The band that performed next was called Pain of Salvation from Sweden.  Initially my mind wanted to believe that this be Opeth because I don't want to wait. But they played a pretty tight set of songs. The lead singer was also playing mix of lead and rhythm with some acoustic guitar thrown in. The drummer was pretty tight. Vocalist said couple of time "they did not fuck up on stage, so they wont do it this time as well". It was pretty interesting to watch them as I read about them, there are around for a long time now but they are not so popular.  However they put up some ass kicking guitar solos and then a good drumming solo for very small period of time. I guess this crowd was bit of a mixed crowd so they would have made few fans here.
After they leave, the sound engineers and other people started uncovering opeth posters and the wall now have a big art form their latest album heritage, you can read about the artwork and album here. And these guys were testing drum kits and putting in plectrums in mic stands and some guys were testing the guitar processing unit. It took them about 10-15 minutes to finish it off. And the stage went dark again, and I was having this chilly feeling which you get due to too much excitement.  This time the crowd seem to be getting a little denser, the italian chick standing ahead of me seemed to be little lost in all this. So Opeth made an entry in dark with their opening number form new album called as "The Ghost orchard" frankly speaking I didn't recognize that song since I have not heard their new album at all. But the sound of a progressive metal band is so distinct that you immediately attach yourself with it. And crowd was getting into the metal zone: headbanging, smell of weed, air guitar, devils horns, screaming and howling was complementing the great music which was playing. Mikael Akerfeldt, the lead vocalist was wearing a red Tshirt, after first song, he introduced the band and shared usual pleasantries with the crowd. Next song they played was "I feel the dark". This song is one of the most amazing song I have heard, Micheal Akerfelt's vocals are amazing on this song. The song is very typical example of varying time signatures used by opeth. The song ends with an amazing echoing voice.
So now Mikael starts talking about "how he want to see some singing with next song and want to see some breasts", lol. And then he says that can't help it he is a dirty old man and don't worry you all will get there, gosh I love this man's sense of humour.  He said next song is from album "still life", which made me little happy since I knew the next song will be "Face of Melinda" and I know this song a little better than previous ones. I must admit, they rendered live pretty tightly, given the nature of music achieving such level of accuracy is work of art. New guitarist Fredrik akerson is pretty amazing, his guitar solos on all three songs were spot on. My hands went up in air and showed my respect with devil horns and my head banged throughout entire song
The next song blew away my mind completely, this time they played "porcelain heart". The guitaring was fucking insane and then the song finished with a epic drum solo followed by another crazy face melting guitar and drum combinations with double bass and blast beats thrown on and off. The crowd was roaring and whistling and clapping simultaneously, it was a life time experience. Its not often the metal heads clap, but bloody hell this crowed rocked no matter what it did.
Then Mikeal talked about the whereabouts of each and every member of band, guess most of the band is from Stockholm, except for one guy who is from some village in Sweden.The next song they played was napthene from their new album Heritage, the song starts with very gentle riff and then drums starts progressing slowly and Mikeal started singing. And then there is complete transition with keyboards thrown in,and song picks up speed and then slows down again. The colours on stage started changing with the riffs and drums, its was site worth witnessing, beats and transition was hitting every cell in your brain, enhancing the senses.
As soon as the song finished, the set up of stage started changing and I knew that this is time for some acoustics mixed with metal sound. This is something which you will see rarely in metal concerts. Now Mikeal starts talking again, this time he says that this song has no standard structure and this may take may fuck it up a little and he then says "would you guys be okay if we fuck it up a little", crowd screamed in agreement. To which he responded "good, because we don't give a fuck anyway", and there was giggles and laughs all round. He said this song is part of sound track of God of war to which crowd responded with uproar. The song "throat of winter" was really a bit unusual but it was pretty good song and his guitaring skills are pretty amazing even on acoustic guitars. He then started strumming "faith by George micheal", and crowd responded to it by singing with it, that is when he literally did *FACEPALM* and says you guys suck, lol. He then started to introduce Akerson again by telling that his guitar has 12 motherfucking strings, I gasped in awe by the idea of 12 string on an acoustic guitar. I raised my hand to show my respect by showing devil horns. The next song they performed was  credence, oh the sweet familiar riffs and a great opening.  My entire body was enthralled by the great ambience that this song has created around me.
And then before you could recover from this song, the next song came flying right at you and hit you with such a force. Oh my god, this is probably the song I was waiting to hear live. Every fucking note resonates in my mind, the closure is probably one of the greatest song sung by opeth and its hard to describe the epicosity of this great song. My headbanged for entire song and the visceral vocals of Mikeal were intoxicating "In the rays of sun, I am longing for the darkness" leading to epic drum and guitar solo, man I felt totally out of this world, the moment was something which you can never forget.
As the song stopped Mikeal started talking about his friend from katakonia and stalker dude who took his picture and thought it was him. he says he wont mind lady stalker, but not dudes (ha ha). Next song they played was slither, which was good song, but I was still under the influence of previous song. This song was fast liked speed metal with some great riffs. Then he talked about the year he was born, it was the time when sabbath released their 5th album and asked the crowd if anyone born in that year, I guess only 2-3 people were of same age as him. He than talked about Ronnie James Dio(\m/ respect) and asked "how many people like him", and there was uproar in crowd devil horns in air. He then said that he is biggest fan since he as coffee with him, which he later said is not the reason to be his biggest fan, but he then dedicated this song to Dio which was A fair judgement. Indeed a great song for a great man, respect to Mikeal and Dio.
After finishing this song he started strumming again and this time he sang with it "shit cock anus", it was absolutely funny. And some bloke made some random comment on that to which Mikeal was like, "shut up man" and thus creating more laughs.  He then played some riffs from other band and talked about Whitesnake, the crowd responded to this song with more screaming. The song I think was "Slow and easy", they played some intro before they break into full blown metal mayhem that is called a Hex  Omega. The song has characteristic heavy drumming with a lot of metal guitaring, the lights on stage were again flipping with different colors. Mikeal Akerfelt has amazing voice and he does high pitch singing so well, its mesmerizing. But, he didn't do any songs with growls, which is my only complaint against this concert. The Guitar solo on this song were pretty sick, I was totally awe stuck .
Now they started thanking the crowd and bowed down and went back.
This is an epic crowd, so it did what it does best, started shouting and chanting opeth opeth opeth, the time for an encore. It was funny when crowd started shouting 10 more songs after encore and Micheal blew them apart by shouting back "10 more pounds", it was absolutely hilarious. He then started talking about this entire encore thing and "how its a little game we all play". Man, this dude is amazing on so many levels, I am in total awe of him. The next song they played was Folklore, the starting of this song is very much like a folk song, as told by Mikeal that its a swedish tune. With heavy heart I have to walk out of this song, I cannot believe that I was walking away from 7 more minutes of face melting music. Something I have never done before and I felt like a sinner to walk away in middle from the lords of progressive metal. With each heavy step, I walked towards the gate and then music completely disappeared. I pulled my self back to run towards the underground to catch the next train back to my accommodation. I felt so empty that entire time until I sleep, Every moment of concert was replaying in my head and I wanted it not to stop. This concert has triggered my hunger for more metal, but I have to wait until next year for some real music, until then the emptiness of live metal will be surround me.

the cynical connection

Sapota do not care about these terms or putting him self in one of these categories, But for sake of knowing new words he do familiarize himself with these terms once in a while.
So the question here is "is sapota cynical?"
Well, not really, he is not there yet.
Does he want to be a cynic?
No not at all, but is it really a choice?

 Here is the thing, from the outset he was never anything closely related to cynical and he tries hard even today not to be one. But as he knows more about the world and as he interact more with the world it grows. Its a sad thing that it cannot be escaped, he will be a bigger cynic in coming future.
he does not want to assume anything about anyone's motive, but finding inherent good in others and pursuing that belief is becoming harder and harder day by day.

The intelligent school of thought says its good to be informed than to be betrayed. But when Sapota looks back at younger people or people who do not know the dirty secrets of the world, they seem to be blissfully in love with the world. Whereas the so called know-it-all are grumpy and skeptical even about the simplest of the  things.
The other day sapota was talking to someone younger to him in age and she talked about oprah, and good philanthropist work of Oprah. And sapota just went on his usual rant on how its about business and be-fooling everyone. He has not researched about the stuff much because he doesn't really care about it. But in popular culture, she is often joked about as being uptight and glamorous. Perhaps, there is a lot of good charity work at the core of all this. But, sapota simply wont be absolutely convinced of anything. And that is when she(the friend) pointed out that sapota is just being cynical. Not that sapota was not aware of this change which slowly taking place, he was unprepared for this and he was a little awakened by it.
We have our own sense of maturity and being responsible and we tend to forget the great things about life. No one is absolutely good or bad, but we base our decision on 1 bad deed of other person and just paint the entire resume with it.
Sapota tries very hard to maintain his "look everything with good in it" perspective and don't question the underlying motives, don't try to read between the lines and don't try to over analyse it. But with one bump on this road, he immediately puts on his cynical goggles on and see everything with question marks in it. Everyone says you can not live life and be successful if you act simply on what you see, you have to dig deep. Whereas digging deep is not necessarily bad thing, but what are we looking for? And in honesty, with the cynic glasses sapota doesn't look for treasures, he looks for skeletons.
Is this behaviour unjustified, is this just overdoing it? well, no. Sapota have seen a lot of so called beliefs shred to pieces, the people who appeared to be saints turned out be devils. The falseness of this world is so monstrous that until unless you are deep rooted with your firm beliefs, you will be absorbed. You have to weigh everything and perform a quality check on it.
To sapota cynicism is merely a word and he wants it to remain that way, if it touches him, he will be unhappy. What will it bring to him? supposedly it can be a good companion for survival, but it will make him miserable. It will feed you, but you will remain unsatiated.

Wolverine or Magneto

Its a futile to even think about killing Wolverine. And its stupid to think he will die, Until unless you are Lord Magneto. For many years Sapota has been a Logan fan, to the extent that he sometimes poses with the imaginary claws and call others as "bub". Sapota's interest rose from the movies, he haven't read any comics until recently. So Hugh Jackman had been the logan,the badass which initially was face of Wolverine. On the other hand, Sir Ian Mckellen is very impressive, but he gives no competition to wolverine as Magneto. Though in second movie when he lifts the entire bridge, its one of the most impressive moment in the history of comic book movies. For many years wolverine( jackman's persona) was the cool one, the hero with the attitude, magneto was still under his shadow. Though Sapota knew that wolverine got nothing on magneto even in the series. Magnus( in movie) told logan that he better stay away because he can destroy logan without a thought.
Now the next series sapota came across was xmen evolution a teenage take on xmen. In this series logan is even a much bigger badass. For the first time it felt jackman can't capture the total awesomeness of wolverine. At the same time magneto appeared to a much stronger character and much much poweful mutant. Entire team of Xmen is useless against this one mutant. He is much much wiser and have leader ship capabilities and intelligence rivalling of professor xavier. Logan on the other hand is troubled mind single dimensional killing machine personality. Though he is a shrewd fighter a total badass, but not much of a character which will inspire a lot of awe to everyone.
As sapota watched the good old original awesome series of 1992, that is where entire perception of xmen is altered. That is where you meet the most awesome of Magneto and much better logan. Logan have a lot of personality conflicts and a lot of issues with his past. He is still the same ruthless maverick who just throws himself at any danger without caring much about himself. Even in this series logan have a very little personal life, its widely known that he had major love interest in Jean. Unlike Xmen movies, scott is not some pansy boy, here he is pretty much the leader what xmen should have. Magneto on the the other hand have an aura of someone like a president of a country. He is awe inspiring, he motivates people, he calls mutants as his children. On top of everything his mutant abilities are way beyond most other mutant.
When sapota read polls from wizard magazine magneto was rated best villain and wolverine as best hero. As much as sapota loves wolverine, he still don't think wolverine is the best hero ever. Besides he is pretty much an antihero.
To discover more, sapota read House of M, Deadly genesis, Messiah complex and other related comics. The awesomeness of Magneto kept increasing with each comics. Its strange thing that most series sapota have came across are more related to magneto. But one one the biggest conclusion(which may be partial) is that Magneto is much more of three dimensional personality as compared to wolverine.
Magnetos skills and capabilities are on much much larger scale. He even have three ultra powerful kids. Wolverine commands a respect of lot of fellow mutants, but Magneto is worshipped by an entire country of mutants. His tactical, strategic and diplomatic moves are much ahead of any other mutant, even charles is not that shrewd to command an entire race of human beings. Magneto is driven by the philosophy and motivations much much bigger than any of his personal reasons. Though Erik has horrible past, but he has turned his rage and anger into creating a dream not just for himself but for entire homo superior. But, What makes logan a lovable character is he is fearless, there have been very few times in long history of Xmen that wolvie was afraid of anything. If they were to recruit him as lantern, he would almost be as strong as Hal Jordan.

Now looking at his powerlevel, Magneto can manipulate electromagnetism to atomic level and on higher side he can lift an entire planet. He killed an entire city with one thought and created wormhole to travel across great distances. Wolverine on the other hand is indestructible, he is one of the best hand to hand combatant adept in every marshal art known. Admantium claws make his supercool plus allows him to cut anything and everything.He is very intelligent when it comes to ambush or attack plans. He is a very skilled battle tactician but he is merely an alpha level mutant.One of the biggest moment in comic book history is when Magneto goes mad in anger and rips off all the admantium from wolvies body proving his superiority as mutant. The kind of moment that sends chill across any fan and every xmen character. And funniest part is he goes on rampage lecturing about how foolish logan is.
At this point sapota has developed more liking for Erik Lensherr as compared to Logan mostly because of superior powers and intelligence. And Erik as a character has much more dimensions. Probably sapota need to dig more comics with logan's story lines.
The new movie first class has established Erik as one of the strongest fictional character ever to brace the silver screen. Micheal fassbender has been a pretty good magneto(though nothing like 1992 series) and Mathew Vaughn have presented the character in his full colours.

lets kill them.

PART 0

A: shall we kill someone?
B: What?
A: I mean how bad could it be? There is nothing bad about killing? people die all the time, killing will just be another medium to achieve it?
B: But why would you do that?
A: I am not saying we should just kill anyone?
B: so you are going to choose someone?
A: Yeah, potentially deserving candidates.
B: potentially deserving candidate? are you mental?
A: No, I am perfectly sane, Its a plot for a story!
B: Right! A bloody plot to you?
A: Look, we have this normal life which is perfectly all right in all senses. But we still crib and complain, Why not just correct it?
B: Correct it by killing? That doesn't make any sense.
A: Let me give you a bigger picture. If perfectly executed, killings will occur in different locations under different circumstances. And by the time investigation reaches a possible outcome, we can safely reach a number and this number will be proportional to the delay in each murder.
B: OK, Lets assume you can evade being caught.What are the chances that you will be successful in executing these plans and no one will know about it?
A: None, The plan is to find out 10 perfect candidate, study them and kill them while they are totally alone and send a message with each killing.
B: What? are you a serial killer who gives clues and messages?
A: ummm
B: Wait, you are trying to be a vigilante.
A: More like justice delivery girl.
B: and the candidates?
A: Corrupt politicians with records of charges against scam and history in general crime.
B: OK
A: Policeman misusing power, taking bribe leeching general public. Public servant crippling the weakest and poorest. Some sort of money lenders to farmers, who sucks their bloods from interests like a pest. Lawyers who save politicians, criminals, who have no moral fibre. A journalist whose life is dedicated in bringing misery to innocent victims of misfortune. A fake celebrity, who is linked with crime and exploitation the naive. A child rapist, who has gotten away because of loopholes in system. Son of a rich businessman who ran his car over people who were sleeping on footpath and raped a foreign tourist.
B: exquisite! But this list is too vague. Do you have any real candidate in mind?
a: Lets take an example of the scammer politician who stole money from coffins of dying soldiers. Or take example of that police officer, who raped a child and got away with it. And the son of chief minister who ran over those innocent kids and murdered the waitress in that lounge.
B: great suggestions, But these people are highly protected. Besides they are known criminals and will be punished by the law.
A: punished? the trial? its a joke. Its all a sham. These people need to be brought to the justice by chopping off their balls and sending a loud and clear message through Mass media.
B: Well, this could cause mass Chaos, besides mass media is controlled.
A: Chaos is very much desirable. And we need to kill one these bastard journalists.
B: Isn't the integrity of your plan compromised by revealing it to me?
A: No, it isn't. I need to Brainstorm and I need to find flaws in this plan.
B: ME? I am not doing it!
A: Why? you have better stuff to do?
B: No, this is insane!
A: What is this about the sanity of yours? you live life like a rat. Someone have to take responsibility.
B: who? me?
A: No, I will do the honours, I just need a partner.
B: I don't want to get caught.
A: you wont. We will not be related. I just need ears.
B: RIGHT! and how to you intend to undo what I know?
A: How about killing you in the end?
B: damn you! you will kill me?
A: Its the only worthy thing to do.
B: May be not, can we return back to our boring Normalcy.
A: Think of how much good can be done, think of it as revolution.
B: Society wont see it as revolution. It will be seen as genocide by a psychopath.
A: Its not a crime. Its not driven by money. Its driven by a bigger cause and good faith.
B: good faith? what crap?
A: Yeah, restoration the faith in honesty and human values. 10 dead wont make a difference.
B: Right, It wont change a damn thing!
A: No, it needs to be sent as a message. A clever scheme is required. If I can evade being caught until I execute 10 killing, mission is pretty much accomplished.
B: Yeah and once you are caught. you will be the part of living hell.
A: We are already living in hell. I just need a way to send reminder to everyone else.
B: Ok, for sake of it everything goes as you say, which is highly unlikely. What you do next?
A: handover myself over or commit a public suicide with a suicide note or a suicide book with extensive details like say jim.
B: Quite brave and heroic, but stupid as fuck.
A: Not stupid. All ideas are stupid in the beginning. Good work and planning can get you what you really want.
B: Really? I think all you(or anyone else) want is shit load of money and beautiful women.
A: May be. But I am not that shallow to waste myself for material crap. As joker said, "we need better class of criminals"!
B: So we are criminals?
A: No, you are missing the point. What we are planning to do can be considered as crime in legal and civil framework, but its implications are far beyond the existence of this framework. All revolutions were called crime by the authority, Later it turned out it was the struggle for freedom/republic.
B: So you are a freedom fighter now?
A: No, we already have freedom. And this is about protecting it. And its not just me, its us now.
B: Woah! I am not a part of it.
A: you are, like everyone else.
B: If you want want to execute this. What will be the plan.?
A: Good question. First the selection of candidates. A detailed study of his/her lifestyle and creation of a profile. preparing an execution method and calculating timing.Planing the budget. Create a demo. Look for associated factors and parameter in this execution plan. Find the effectiveness of this killing. Methods of sending message. Capture avoidance planning till next execution. Estimation of time frame between each execution, I want to give them time to digest it and as the fear falls down, give them another dose of death. Human minds are so used to this freedom, fear is only way to stop its misuse.
B: So you don't rule out killing women?
A: There is no discrimination here. A scum is just a scum, nothing more.
B: Budget! Where do you get the money from.
A: Initially my own money and then each dead pays for his next companion in after life.
B. What about the families?
A: target's family would be financial secure in some way.
B: Don't you know that all crimes are driven by needs generated by family.
A: Exactly, So family need to pay the price. Besides someone will be sacrificed on the road to greater glory.
B: That sounds like lenin? You will still be affecting innocent lives.
A: The idea is to portray these filthy bastards as cancer to the society, which needs to be eliminated. The media would try to make martyr out of them. This is the biggest fallacy in the plan. So I need to kill the people who are already hated and who are in trial and send the message across. Once the message is through the martyrdom is gone.
B: Whoa, really? Trying to kill someone in judicial custody or police protection. you are not capable of that?
A: No, I will start with someone whose security protocols are loose. And I will sacrifice these easy targets first.
B: So you may still leave the biggest scum in the pool and go for an easier shot.
A: I have to strike the balance.
B: More like you want to just kill someone!
A: That is the only feasible solution to this super complex problem.
B. I suppose so. So what next.............................

hindi comics and my dissappointment

Before i start, i must apologize for two reasons:
1. I may criticise some heros and storylines(and hence may offend some people)
2. This may be a long post.

I am a big fan of Nagraj and he is like the first love(in a fanboy kind of way). But to my dismay, his comics are super-silly most of the times, but his storylines especially ones which involves his origins are very interesting. Series like "nagraj ka ant", "khajana", "zahar" was fabulous, Nagayan also started wonderfully, but ended in a fiasco. They started nagaraj terrorism series two times, once they did some stupid stuff with Afganistaan and all, which was awful. The next series of "jahrila barood" and following comics were superb. The new authors and new make over was wonderful. I also like series involving Visarpi and other "Nagdweep" characters. The best part of Nagaraj series are uniqueness of its mythological origin, which is found in no other comics(there may be similar line, but not quite this). Most sideline stories of nagraj like "fuel", "venom" were pitiful. I would say that even earlier comics involving Miss killer, thodanga, nagmani, shakura were wonderful, but new villians get created in one page and get lost in other page. Its like turning around the junk to find a phoney metal. And every now and then everything and everyone in story becomes god like. and in next page they get vanished. This is stupid and annoying.
I admit Nagraj is almost as powerful as superman or lets say he is equivalent of superman for Raj Comics. But he is not a god and stop treating him like one.

Coming to Dhruv. I liked dhruv a lot during older times. I mean the first time I read grand master robo in 1995, i felt like i have discovered Pandora's box. stories like "akhiri daav" , "champion killer", "awaaz kee tabahi" were brilliant. "mene mara dhruv ko " series were very well done. His origin stories like "khooni khandaan", "Jigsaw" were marvellous., But later when they combined nagar and dhruv in THE-WORLD-WILL-END kind of series every now and then, And then Dhruv will keep doing things which are scientifically impossible plus severely flawed even from raj comics point of view. And every now and then they keep throwing "smartest man in the world" bullshit. I mean the virtues should be reflective of actions and not the other way round. To be smartest man, you don't have to say it like 100 times in a comics. I have not read dhruv's comics for a long because all new comics look repetitive with a set of formula. Only time i get to read Dhruv is with Nagraj and then also they both end up going on suicide mission like three times in a comics.

Coming to Doga, I must admit Doga is most consistent of all the superheroes. He is a no bullshitter. I haven't read a lot of old Doga comics, but I picked up a lot of his origin stories, and I must say they represents darkness, depth and pain. I was reading "doga hindu hai", "doga hai hai" series, the plots are very well crafted. I couldn't follow the series for long. But they were "the comics". you always know what to expect from Doga comics.
Other characters, i would like to mention is Bankelal. He was superb in the past, but a lot of toilet humour have sunk in his comics lately. And newer comics are driven by a synthetic laughter or forced humour. Bankelal need a really good rewrite.
My old favourite Gojo disappeared. I don't want to bring this matter. Same applies for bheria, i haven't read any comics since they separated, but lots of folks say they are still as they were, which is good.
I read couple of Tiranga comics which were utterly disappointing, i mean you want to rip of Captain, please look at his iconic stature.

Most Raj Comics fan are the old timers, who follow comics for the love of it. I am not sure how many new comics book fans are getting added??? I even recommended comics to couple of youngsters, they rejected it on the grounds of it being too silly or some kind of LIFT-OFF from DC or Marvel. We all know that is true to certain extent. A lot of fans would defend the comics in whatever way they are.
I think a lot of recent changes by Raj comics are wonderful and I am thankful to them for creating a wonderful site and revamping the franchise. But lets face it, contents need to revamped.
We need stories, which have depth and some sort of association with reality. We need somebody like Frank Miller, Mark Millar and Alan moore. And I am sure there are people who can do equally good job. Please tell me I am not being over ambitious. I guess the character of Dhruv's potential need a story which should be very complex and yet believable. There is a desperate need to remove the redundancy from his comics. He need to less verbal and stories should be self explanatory. Not everytime Dhruv has to say things in his mind. That represents a week plot and week graphics because the whole idea of comics is to understand a lot of things from the graphics. And for christ sake, stop resurrecting characters. In time period of 5 comics, characters get entirely rebooted, This is so annoying. We need some stories(or graphics novel) which can redefine the characters and story lines. No matter how good the marketing is, if your product is not good enough, the market will eventually reject it. The last thing I want is Raj comics to suffer the same fate as tulsi/manoj etc.
Another major issue is consistency, they always have wonderful starts and wonderful themes, but by the climax its all screwed up. No one gets a single scratch??? why is that so? The comics are reflections of life in exaggerated manner, so why is everything always "hunky and dory"? and why can't they keep the good story line till end. One comics is fantastic, and other total rubbish. I kinda hate it when I spend my money to find out i bought a total rip-off. As much as love Raj comics, I must say they fail to impress 5 out of 10 times. I still buy comics for the sake of it. But lets face it this may keep them alive, but wont let them grow as i would expect them to be.