Liquid Comics (formerly Virgin Comics) launched a new digital comics initiative last week called Graphic India. (Note: The site doesn't work properly in Safari.)

Graphic India intends to be India’s premiere graphic novel platform and community, leveraging Liquid’s large library of high quality content created by Indian creators, while also aggressively commissioning and showcasing numerous original stories by India’s greatest new visionaries.

It's a smart move, as India has a burgeoning comics market; Archie Comics recently set up an office there. The Graphic India website features an array of online comics, interviews, and feature articles, as well as a graphic novel competition designed to flush out new talent and, the Indian media site MediaNama speculates, rounding up a whole lot of intellectual property that can be leveraged in different directions:

According to a report from Livemint, all the writers of 20 specially commissioned graphic novels will be given contracts but the copyright for these novels will remain with Liquid Comics. We hence assume that the company will probably use the digital rights of these graphic novels to create additional revenue channels like digital movie rights, mobile rights and so on.

Indian creators who are contemplating signing those contracts would be well advised to Google "Tokyopop global manga" before continuing. Still, with titles like Mumbai Macguffin and Ramayan 3392AD, this site looks like it has some promise.