Visi 8 Entertainment is a publishing and media company based in Jakarta, Indonesia that will present their first round of titles in February 2023. The company combines US comic veterans with comic creators from South East Asia to tell stores about the history and mythology from that part of the world.

To learn more about Visi8, Scoop chatted with Raiyan Laksamana (Visi 8 CEO and creator/co-writer of Nusantara Falls), Kevin VanHook (Executive Editor, writer of Changelings and Seventh Tiger, and co-writer of Nusantara Falls), and Triandhika Anjani (Creative Director and creator/writer/artist of KARA: Guardian of the Realms). They shared how the company was created, discussed their goals, and previewed what’s to come in their first round of comic releases.

Scoop: Let’s start with an introduction to Visi 8 Entertainment. What is Visi 8 and how did the company begin?
Raiyan Laksamana (RL): Visi 8 is an IP Development company. Initially we met with our principal partner about making content, based on our past experience and skills. It evolved quickly into IP development, as we analyzed the fast changing landscape of the media industry.

We saw that Indonesia has a lot of talent and content potential. So, we gathered a diverse group of artists and relevant stakeholders to collaborate with partners from many regions, to create exciting projects, as well as developing international market for the IPs.

We are interested in publishing comic books because we believe that comics have a way to take the audience into our world and introduce the journey within that universe. It will be the very first canvas for our creators to tell our stories to the world.

We’ve seen many great stories come from comics, so we are excited to be a part of such great tradition of storytelling, worldwide.

Scoop: Your team has American comic industry veterans and comic creators from South East Asia. How will you combine the different cultures and backgrounds for this new storytelling initiative?
RL: We believe that in every culture and background, there are universal values that we can all appreciate. Expressed through different lenses and dialects, we need to process the values into a way of universal storytelling, by collaborating with storytellers and artists around the world, so that the message can be appreciated by diverse people from around the world.

Scoop: At Baltimore Comic-Con, you had a Visi 8 Sampler comic that teases some of the upcoming titles, which range from giant monsters, to kid-fantasy, to a crime/horror book, and more. Why did Visi 8 choose to cover so many genres right out of the gate?
RL: “Unity in Diversity” is our country’s motto. We have 1,340 tribes alone in our country. Each with its own unique culture and their own stories, in both a traditional and contemporary framework. So, we would like to celebrate and expand that diversity early on, in which we are collaborating with many artists from around the world to better express our stories. We believe that the diverse stories, art, and expression will make a beautiful tapestry to represent our country.

Scoop: One of the first books to be published is Changelings, which opens with a kaiju-level path of destruction through Jakarta. What can readers expect from this book?
Kevin VanHook (KV): Changelings tells a pretty unique story that has some familiar touchstones. There’s a tale of Changeling Children – we’ve seen it in Gaelic folk stories, for instance – a human child and a magical child are swapped at birth. In our case, we deal with a human child, a little girl named Durjana, and a child from the spirit plane called the Hantu, and that’s a little boy named Arga. The big twist in this is that while these two are pitted against each other in a contest with the fate of humanity at stake, the demon child grows up to be the hero and it’s the human that plagues the earth with fantastic creatures like the kaiju, dragons, a three-headed giant and more. There’s a rich cast of characters as well that round out the book. As time goes on, we learn that this kind of contest has gone on throughout history. Every now and then, there are Changeling Children and through flashbacks, we see snippets of those past lives.

Scoop: How will you set this apart from other giant monster stories?
KV: The monsters are kind of the MacGuffins in the story. The real story is about nurture vs. nature, showing that this little demon child that was lovingly raised by good people is more human than any of us.

Scoop: The other debut title is Kara: Guardian of the Realms, an all-ages book about a young guardian who must protect her world. What story do you want to tell with this comic?
Triandhika Anjani (TA): As the Guardian of the land, Kara is given the ability to connect with nature on a deeper level, even control them while maintaining balance. But even with this special ability, as a human being, deep down inside she still longs for connection with another human. Through Kara, I’d like to share and explore the story of connection, both the connection between humans and also humans with nature.

Scoop: It looks like a highly imaginative world. What inspired you to create Kara?
TA: I used to spend some time working at a place called Anyer, in Banten Province of Indonesia. Although Anyer is long famous for its beaches and sea, the inland’s beautiful nature seems to be unknown to the general public. I thought of Anyer’s nature as a hidden beauty, which inspired me to create Kara’s Unseen Realm.

Scoop: Can you give us a preview of the new titles that will follow Changelings and Kara?
KV: We have multiple titles coming up: Nusantara Falls, The Seventh Tiger, and Galeo of the Seawalkers are the next three and all are being worked on as we speak.

Nusantara Falls tells the story of Purok, a young boy from the Mahajati Jungle clan who finds himself trapped in a world of political intrigue when he is framed for an attempted assassination and declared an outlaw. As he struggles to survive, he gains kinship with a band of military brothers only to find out that his true enemy is the father figure that he has been longing for.

The Seventh Tiger begins when a powerful figure in the criminal underworld of Indonesia is found murdered in an almost ritualistic slaying, and an investigation follows that leads to a mysterious group of immortals dating back more than a thousand years, The Seven Tigers. These people have carved out their own power centers throughout Asia and have held a peaceful truce for centuries. That truce is over. 

In short, someone has started killing the immortals.

Galeo of the Seawalkers tells the story of a boy, Galeo, who is afraid to participate in the Ikiro Trials, a dangerous rite of passage that makes children of the seas into mighty Seawalkers. In a freak accident which destroys the temple trials, Galeo cannot complete the trials, resulting in his family getting banished and his father missing. In their exile, Galeo’s younger sister Adeleo runs away from home to chase sea-ghosts, which she believes can bring her to their father. Although scared, Galeo goes after Adeleo braving the open seas and dangerous sea-forests. Along his journey, Galeo is forced to face his past-demons and overcome natural challenges identical to those of the Ikiro Trials.