{"id":26182,"date":"2022-07-18T08:00:10","date_gmt":"2022-07-18T08:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=26182"},"modified":"2022-07-15T18:01:49","modified_gmt":"2022-07-15T18:01:49","slug":"vimanarama-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2022\/07\/18\/vimanarama-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Vimanarama"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nBy Grant Morrison<\/strong> & Philip Bond<\/strong> (Vertigo)
\nISBN: 978-1-4012-0496-9 (TPB\/Digital edition)<\/p>\n

South Asian Heritage Month (SAHM) starts today, running, as it does every year, from 18th<\/sup> July to 17th<\/sup> August. We\u2019ll be dropping the occasional new and old review that might be of added significance over that period and probably beyond if I can find enough books that qualify through content or creators. Let\u2019s start with a certifiable classic\u2026 <\/em><\/p>\n

Superbly aided and abetted by the brilliant art of Philip Bond, Grant Morrison\u2019s classic modern theological soap opera fantasy Vimanarama<\/strong> is set in and around an \u201copen all hours\u201d corner shop in Bradford.<\/p>\n

Here second son Ali<\/em> is fretting because his arranged bride is due to arrive any moment. His future happiness and life\u2019s success or failure is tied to a girl he has never even met but fears that he is utterly unsuited for and will inevitably disappoint. Therefore, he really hasn\u2019t got time to worry about the massive hole that has opened up under the shop, or brother Omar<\/em>\u2019s severe injuries from falling down it, or even that the baby has wandered into it and found a lost outpost of Atlantis.<\/p>\n

Forced to explore the incredible ancient and remarkably well-preserved under-Earth mega-metropolis, Ali is, however, pretty impressed by the very capable and newly-arrived Sophia<\/em>. His intended bride has made her own way to the shop, and also sought to find the toddler\u2026 She\u2019s beside Ali when the savage techno-demons – who had slumbered there for millennia – awake and escape, intent on undoing creation. She helps him awaken the godly Ultrahadeen<\/em>. \u2026And she\u2019s beautiful.<\/p>\n

The problem is that the leader of these lordly heroes instantly loves Sophia too, which could drastically impinge on the whole saving humanity thing, as well as interfering with Ali\u2019s now eagerly anticipated nuptials. The god-like Ben Rama<\/em> is really tall, really beautiful, and, let\u2019s not forget, a god.<\/p>\n

How the world is saved and Ali gets what he deserves is a gloriously exuberant romp, bright, colourful and very, very funny. I haven\u2019t heard a cool media term to pigeon-hole this sort of cross culture comic with, and I\u2019m not going to use any form of \u201cBollywood\u201d derivative. You should just read this and make one up yourself. Or, if not that, you should just read this.<\/p>\n

This very Vedic epic was originally seen as a 3-issue miniseries in 2005 and first collected as book a year later. The story is also available as half of a graphic double bill with Morrison & Bond\u2019s anarchically surreal social comedy Kill Your Boyfriend<\/strong>. When I review that soon , you can either reread the above review again or just ignore it. As ever in this Cycle of Existence, the choice is yours (although our assorted destinies are already written)\u2026
\n\u00a9 2005 Grant Morrison & Philip Bond. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Grant Morrison & Philip Bond (Vertigo) ISBN: 978-1-4012-0496-9 (TPB\/Digital edition) South Asian Heritage Month (SAHM) starts today, running, as it does every year, from 18th July to 17th August. We\u2019ll be dropping the occasional new and old review that might be of added significance over that period and probably beyond if I can find … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Vimanarama”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[102,66,125,107,116],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fantasy","category-horror-stories","category-humour","category-science-fiction","category-vertigo"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-6Oi","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26182"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26184,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26182\/revisions\/26184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}