Since appearing in public in 2022, the Indonesian IP-based entertainment company, Beyondtopia, has immediately succeeded in stealing attention thanks to its unique focus on highlighting Indonesian folklore stories.

One of them is market share in the United States. Two years later, Beyondtopia is now ready to take over the Asian market share, especially Southeast Asia. That's why in 2024, Beyondtopia is preparing ammunition which will be launched at the end of the second quarter.

The ammunition is the 'Bandits of Batavia Project'. 'Bandits of Batavia Project' is a fictional folklore story packaged in a more sophisticated way by Beyondtopia's original work, which tells the story of the city of Batavia (the old name of Jakarta) in 1865.

In that year, there was a bandit gang called Ajian who dominated the city of Batavia. This bandit gang has five types of supernatural powers, namely immortality, magic, mysticism, superposition, and power itself, which at that time was considered illegal by the Dutch government.

One day, in the village of Rawa Belong, there was a big fire caused by the bandits. As a result, many residents lost their homes, family and friends. One of them is Pitung. Because of this, Pitung intended to take revenge on the bandits. Especially the Batavian Black Bull, the most respected bandit in Batavia.

The choice of Betawi culture as the core story of this comic is not without reason. Bryan Valenza, the founder of Beyondtopia, admitted that his personal life was the main inspiration for the story 'Bandits of Batavia Project'.

“I come from the Betawi tribe who have lived in Jakarta since birth. As a Betawi descendant, I often hear inspiring stories about the Betawi tribe, including our local hero, Pitung. "How Pitung managed to defeat criminals with martial arts often amazes me," he said.

Apart from that, Bryan revealed that Betawi culture itself was slowly starting to become extinct in his city. This made him anxious and this anxiety made him decide to highlight the story of Betawi culture but package it interestingly so that it relates to the target audience.

"Back in the day, at the New York Comic Con, I realized that Betawi culture was very interesting for people in America. The marketing language of 'Superhero' apparently doesn't have that much of an impact on sales, compared to the local cultural gimmick that we use."

Next, Bryan talked about the production process behind this comic. Starting from the initial process of determining the story plot to naming the characters.

"So initially I made several stories inspired by local Indonesian folklore stories. After the story, the next step is to determine the characters. Each character is created with their story journey. So that each character has a third-dimensional character.

So each character will not be divided into black and white camps. But gray. The reason is so that readers can interpret each character in their way," added Bryan.

Currently the comic 'Bandits of Batavia Project' is still in the production process and is ready to be released at the end of the second quarter of 2024.

“We are currently crowdfunding via Kickstarter. The campaign will start in the second or third week of April. "If everything goes smoothly, the physical comics can be purchased in July 2024," he concluded.