YOU TUBE TO LAUNCH ANIMATED MAHABHARATA

Video-sharing site YouTube today said it has partnered with entertainment firm Graphic India and renowned comic book writer Grant Morrison to launch an animated web series on the epic Mahabharata titled '18 days'. The series is part of YouTube's global event, Geek Week, and the first episode of the series will be available today, while subsequent episodes will be launched exclusively on YouTube, it said in a release. The series will feature weekly episodes through the year and will be distributed exclusively on the Graphic India YT Channel and will be in English, Hindi and Tamil, it added. "Mahabharata is an epic story and we are very excited to bring the animated version of this great Indian epic to YouTube users worldwide," YouTube APAC Director (Content Partnerships) Gautam Anand said. Partnering with Grant Morrison and Graphic India for this YouTube exclusive will set the bar for more such high quality web original series, he added. The show's creator Grant Morrison said a genre mash of superhero action and mythology grounded in the all too human passions of its warriors, villains and monsters, 18 Days will rewrite the rules of epic fantasy. Morrison's was behind DC Comics' Animal Man, Batman, The Invisibles, and Marvel Comics' New X-Men and Fantastic Four. "18 Days takes one of the most enduring stories of the east, the Mahabharata, which is known by over a billion people, and places it in the capable hands of Grant Morrison, one of the greatest storytellers of the West," Graphics India Co-Founder and CEO, Sharad Devarajan said. Graphic India was launched recently and is owned by the US comic book company, Liquid Comics and CA Media LP, the Asian investment arm of The Chernin Group, LLC (TCG). An exclusive trailer for the series was posted last week on YouTube to coincide with a over-packed panel at the San Diego Comic Con, global pop-culture event and exceeded over 150,000 views within a few days of release, YouTube said.