Jul

3

Awesome Find

Filed Under Books, Comics Artists | 15 Comments

Every start of the month I make it a point to make a trek to town to visit our local Booksale when new stocks arrive. I want to get ahead of the others who think of doing the same thing, just so I can get first dibs on the cool stuff. Sometimes I don’t come away with anything except the odd magazine I use for reference. Sometimes I come away with something awesome. Yesterday I found one book that blew my mind.

houdini01

“Houdini: The Handcuff King” by Jason Lutes and Nick Bertozzi is something I read about in reviews online, and I saw a copy of it at Powerbooks the last time I was there. I wanted to buy it, but I just couldn’t afford it.

I flipped when I saw the hardcover at Booksale, and priced at only P65. That’s slightly less than US$1.50. I couldn’t believe my luck.

houdini02

The question is, is it any good? I thought it was terrific. It focused only on a specific event in the life of Houdini. I thought that was a cool idea because focusing on the minutiae of a single event allows one to see in detail the the inner workings of this man, without being cluttered by all the detail, dates, and other events that populate his life. It becomes a more intimate portrait, and what a wonderful portrait it is.

It is moving, funny, and even suspenseful and exciting. Even Ilyn likes it.

Jul

1

ONE WORD

Filed Under Video Blogs | 1 Comment

Early in June 2009 I asked a few people I know off and on You Tube if they wanted to participate in a collaboration video. The task was simple enough. What is that one word that you think best describes you? They’d shoot themselves saying that word and then send it to me. I would then edit that into a single video. The entries have all arrived and I’ve finished putting it together just today.

I’m ecstatic that guys like Arnold Arre agreed to join, as well as bonafide You Tube superstar Tony Huynh, better known as thewinekone. But I am thankful to everyone who joined. You guys are the best!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMCXtexJoK0

Featuring:
Zara Macandili
U2bianSynic http://www.youtube.com/U2bianSynic
celebfalath http://www.youtube.com/celebfalath
MokongX3M http://www.youtube.com/MokongX3M
Cynthia and Arnold Arrehttp://www.youtube.com/arnoldarrefilms
trebornoican http://www.youtube.com/trebornoican
maexdae http://www.youtube.com/maexdae
GaeriSummerhttp://www.youtube.com/GaeriSummer
MattHawes http://www.youtube.com/MattHawes
Gasang1 http://www.youtube.com/Gasang1
olea24 http://www.youtube.com/olea24
b33p of BSonT http://www.youtube.com/BSonT
Jagamp http://www.youtube.com/Jagamp
Epsky84 http://www.youtube.com/Epsky84
BIGKELE http://www.youtube.com/BIGKELE
cjxtin http://www.youtube.com/cjxtin
yugoban http://www.youtube.com/yugoban
gwumpee http://www.youtube.com/gwumpee
Komikero http://www.youtube.com/Komikero
IlynFlorese http://www.youtube.com/ilynflorese
andymoosemanhttp://www.youtube.com/andymooseman
icebreaker0426http://www.youtube.com/icebreaker0426
FilipKid http://www.youtube.com/FilipKid
jake0112 http://www.youtube.com/jake0112
spray2009 http://www.youtube.com/spray2009
thewinekone http://www.youtube.com/thewinekone

I anticipate I will be running into some computer problems in the next few days so I wanted to post this before all that went down. Hopefully, I wouldn’t have a problem with the computer at all. Let’s see! If I do, I might not be able to approve comments as quickly as usual.

Jun

30

Cornelia!

Filed Under Filipino Artists, Online Comics, Philippine Comics | 3 Comments

cornelia
“Lasong Walang Kamandag” (Poison Without Venom)
Written by Teresita Arce Cruz and Rico Bello Omagap
Illustrated by Noly Panaligan
Tagalog Klasiks #111, October 3, 1953
(Translated and colored by Gerry Alanguilan)

I thought it would be nice, as an occasional exercise, to take a random panel from one of my old komiks, restore it, translate it, and then color it. It’s really fun to do, and it would give our non-Filipino readers the opportunity read it. I don’t think I can do this for longer pieces though. This way, I can spotlight various artists from various komiks magazines.

Jun

29

The Difficulty of Doing Superheroes in the Philippines

Filed Under Creating Comics, My Art, My Comics, Philippine Comics, Timawa | 59 Comments

The question of the superhero in the Philippine setting has always eluded me. And today I think I’ve hit upon one of the reasons why. I demand a lot from stories, specially my own. If I’m going to do a superhero story I wouldn’t just have him get bit by a radioactive salagubang and go off and foil a bank robbery. If that’s how simple I wanted to do it, then it would be so easy. But I want to do much more than that. I want it to mean much more, not only to me, but to Filipinos reading it. It has to have substance and deeper significance to Philippine history and culture. I don’t think I’ve managed to accomplish that to my satisfaction in Timawa.

On a certain level, it’s easier to do superhero stories abroad, like in the US. They’re a very strong country economically and politically. If superheroes existed there, they don’t have to worry about problems in that regard. Superheroes are free to worry about more mundane things. Things like super powered villains who want to take over the world, or evil geniuses who want to drain the world’s oceans.

Here in the Philippines, our economic and political problems are much more severe. There are the huge problems of poverty, education, political corruption, crime, rebellion and so forth. If a superhero existed, for him to don a colorful costume and deal with evil geniuses out to drain Manila bay of water, or fight with an evil creature with snakes for hair, is patently ridiculous. Why isn’t he dealing with poverty? With starvation? With education? With the corruption that infects society not only politically, but the very spirit of the Filipino?

If I had powers myself the very first thing I would do would be gather up all these idiotic and corrupt politicians and beat them senseless.

For a superhero in the Philippines to ignore such harsh realities seems rather off kilter to me. And I believe this is at the very root of why I find it so hard to do it.

I’ve been trained by my reading habits to consider superheroes the way foreigners do it. Superman, Batman, and all those guys are huge influences. To attempt to do that kind of thing here would only transplant foreign sensibilities to vastly different local sensibilities.

I would like my superhero to be the result of the Philippine circumstance. To be the product of our unique problems, needs, dreams and desires.

Which is why I find Carlo Vergara’s ZsaZsa Zaturnnah so fascinating. While sidestepping the country’s harsher realities and problems, Carlo was able to create an entertaining and involving story that’s so distinctly Filipino and has now made deep inroads into Philippine pop culture.

Is that the secret though? As a fan, I myself would rather not read the real world in my comic books. I want to be entertained, and I want to escape. A comic book creator can create a different reality in his story after all. A world where such sordid problems don’t exist or if they do, their existence is not essential to the story.

When Marvel and DC attempted to address the real world problem of hunger in Africa in the twin benefit books in the 80’s “Heroes for Hope” and “Heroes Against Hunger”, it was spectacular in that it became a gathering of many of the greatest comic book creators in one place. But the story? The stories for both books sucked really bad. There were flashes of genius in the little bits like those of Alan Moore and Stephen King, but the overall plot seemed overwhelmingly unsatisfying.

Because you know deep in the back of your mind that superheroes can’t deal with real world problems because it puts them in a very awkward situation. These are problems that they cannot solve.

There’s an answer in there for me somewhere. Perhaps I need to ponder it a little bit more.

Jun

26

TIMAWA and a Bunch of Naked Men

Filed Under My Art, My Comics, Philippine Comics, Timawa | 5 Comments

Oh man, it looks like a room full of naked men. That’s what I immediately thought about looking at this detail of the Timawa finale. Timawa ended in the June issue of The Buzz Magasin, and from here, I don’t know what the future holds for this character. There’s no plans of compiling it at the moment. If there were, I’d probably add more pages towards the end to flesh out the story as I originally intended. But for now, Timawa is at an end.

I’m sad, but at the very least it gives me more time to draw other things.

This experience has probably taught me that writing superheroes is still a very hard thing for me to do. At least, it’s very hard to write down my idea of what a really really good superhero story is.

It has informed the writing that I’m currently doing for another comic book. I’m not drawing this one, but the artist is supremely kick ass. I find myself enjoying writing this one. The difficulty is there, but I’ve set a clear direction of what needs to happen so I have a clearer grasp of what I need to do.

Jun

24

Between Sucking and Awesome

Filed Under Bold Star, Filipino Artists, My Comics, Philippine Comics | 5 Comments

So what have been up to and why haven’t I been posting? I’ve been incredibly busy. I haven’t even had time to make You Tube videos in a while. I’ve been doing the Martian thing. I’m incredibly slow on it, pathetically so. But I’m working on improving my speed, with Ilyn helping me do the flats on the pages.

I’ve also done further restoration and coloring on some of Francisco V. Coching’s work, including the artwork that’s going to be used on the covers of both EL INDIO and THE LIFE and ART of FRANCISCO COCHING coffee table book to be launched this August. I wish I could post a preview of the the artwork as I’m particularly proud of the restoration and coloring I’ve done on them. But I can’t. ha! ha! Once I can, I definitely will!

The inking thing hasn’t started yet. I’m ready to take it on whenever it does start. I’m very excited about that. 2009 is split right in the middle between completely sucking, and completely awesome. I’m just about to step into the awesome side and God damn, it’s about freakin’ time. The past couple of years has just been… indescribable. In the meantime, I’m hanging by my balls. To anyone out there who owes me money, right now is about the right time to help me out.

Artwork for “Where Bold Stars Go To Die” is only a few pages away from being completed. YEAH! My pal Arlan Esmeña has done a tremendous job on the artwork so far. I’ve enjoyed our collaboration so much that I’m already planning our next project together.

I can’t believe who I got to do a pinup for Bold Stars. I’m so ecstatic that this artist agreed to do it. He’s not Filipino and he’s not typically known to be a comic book artist, but man o man, his artwork is awesome.

I’m also trying to get in touch with other artists to do pinups for it, and being really shameless about who I ask. I mean, what am I gonna lose? The worst that can happen is they refuse. One already has. ha! ha! I guess I just wanted to make this comic book special because it’s Arlan’s first comic book and he’s done a great job. I’m also rather proud of the story I’ve written. It has a rather provocative subject matter so I’m both excited and anxious at how it would be received.

Jun

19

Pinoy Comics Artists, Beware of this Scam (UPDATED)

Filed Under Filipino Artists | 10 Comments

There’s a lot of comics artists, aspiring and professional, here in the Philippines. A lot of them are looking for work abroad through the Internet, and more often than not, that’s you reading right now.

I found out about this scam through Rich Johnston’s Bleeding Cool Forums, at these specific topics here:

http://www.bleedingcool.com/forums/showthread.php?t=376

http://www.bleedingcool.com/forums/showthread.php?t=713

June 20 Update:
http://www.bleedingcool.com/forums/showthread.php?t=664

June 21 Update: The Story So Far
http://www.bleedingcool.com/forums/showthread.php?t=859

The way I understand it, this person would either approach you to “represent” you as his agent, or be your “writer” or pretend to be actually you, and accept assignments from companies or individuals for commissions. He would then ask you to do the work, submit a few pages to the company, asked to be paid in full, and then disappear, leaving both you and the company in the dirt.

Be cautious who you deal with online. Before accepting any assignment, search fastidiously online for information about this person you are dealing with. How would you know if he is pretending to be someone else? Look for *other* contact info online. Many pros are on Facebook and Twitter or MySpace. Contact them there to confirm who they are.

This is why it’s very important now for a Filipino comic book artist to be typically street smart online. The Internet is a great place to find jobs in comics, but it’s also a place where you can get scammed big time.

Be careful out there!

Jun

19

Happy Birthday, Ser!

Filed Under Dr. Rizal | 1 Comment

Jun

16

That Video Blogging Thing

Filed Under Internet, Video Blogs | 5 Comments

I’ve been doing video blogs since July 2006. The very first video blog I did talked about a rained out Komikero meeting that ended up in our house. Now, I don’t know what possessed me to start doing these things. But I’ve always been fascinated by photography and video. Long before You Tube I was already shooting and editing video clips and uploading them up at my site. But the exercise of shooting yourself talking in front of the camera, relating diary-like entries in video form seemed intriguing to me.

Strangely enough, I can’t stand looking at myself or listening to myself on screen. But I do it anyway. Why do I do it? I’m still thinking about that one. Is it because I want to become famous? Some people would think I’m lying if I said that wasn’t true. Well, I do want my work in comics to become well known. And if I’m ever going to be well known, I’d want it to be in comics.

So I guess I just enjoy the act of creating videos and sharing them with people online. That’s basically it. I don’t have any ambitions of doing this because I want to be on TV. In fact, I’ve been asked to be on TV because of my videos lots of times and I’ve declined every time. I like the interaction I get on You Tube, and the little community that I found over there. Those kinds of things you will lose when you go TV.

Do you want to start video blogging yourself? It’s not really that hard. All you need is a camera, a computer, an Internet connection and most importantly, thick skin.

EQUIPMENT

The great thing about video blogging is you really don’t need high tech equipment to do it. All you need is a digicam that shoots video. Or your cellphone if it has video capabilities. I myself don’t have any video cameras. My earliest videos were shot with a Sony W-1 5 megapixel digicam. My recent videos have been shot with a Canon IXUS 8 megapixel digicam.

To get the video files from your camera to your computer, I strongly advice that you install the software that came with your camera into your computer. Some people have been complaining that they can’t transfer the files. That’s because they’ve just been trying to transfer it directly using explorer. Install the drivers/software and you’ll successfully transfer your files.

SHOOTING

It’s better to set your camera on something before you start talking just so the shot won’t be so shaky. I usually mount my camera on a tripod or on a stack of books. In the video above, I placed the camera on a stack of paper and just went for it.

I already had a story in my mind about this blind date I had back in 1994 and I just told it the way I would tell a friend. Lately, I’ve been using Ilyn as my “laugh track” because viewers seem to enjoy her commenting and laughing as I tell my stories. She doesn’t like to be on camera, so at the very least her voice could be on it.

Your subject could be anything. You can relate a funny story about what happened to you, or you could relate an incident that happened in your life that gave you some insight, you could relate a joke, or you could do something silly like I do in the video below:

The important thing to keep in mind is just to let your hair down, and speak up. There’s nothing more frustrating to watch than someone being too shy to talk or someone too nervous. Just let it all out and go for it. None of that shy shit. It’s only you and the camera. If you make a mistake, you can do it over again. You can just go ahead and ramble on and on, and just edit it later on.

EDITING

If you’re a video whiz you can put special effects and editing gimmicks in your video. I do that myself on special videos like my cooking ones and travel ones. But for videos where I just relate stories, I just go ahead and talk and do it in just one take. I admit, it’s taken me a couple of years before I got confident enough to do straight videos like that, and once in a while I do still have to edit out the parts where I’m stuck thinking.

I edit my video with a Power Director program that I got bundled with my DVD Rom. Chances are, you have a Windows Movie Maker already installed in your computer if you have Windows XP SP2 or Vista. That’s a pretty good program to use in editing videos. If you rummage through the CD Roms that came with your disc drives, you just might find a software that you would find useful.

With Windows Movie Maker, the file is saved as a .wmv file. That’s perfectly good for uploading at You Tube. The higher quality file you upload, the better chances the quality of the video will look.

In Power Director, I save my file as .avi, using the Xvid codec saved at high quality. An 8 minute video translates to around 150+megabytes. That’s how large the files I upload to You Tube are. That allows my videos to have the HQ or High Quality option.

If you want HD, you go for the highest setting your software is capable of, and save it using the mpeg-2 format. That’s an incredibly huge file. But if your computer can take it, and if your connection is fast enough, well, why not?

WHERE TO UPLOAD?

You can upload your video in a variety of places. There’s Vimeo, DailyMotion, Metacafe, LiveVideo, Revver, etc., but I kind of prefer You Tube because really, it’s the largest one around, and I’ve managed to find a community there that I enjoy interacting with.

There’s a lot of haters in You Tube, so be prepared to take some surprisingly hateful comments. You can disable comments or at the very least moderate the comments so you can weed out the bad ones.

But in spite of the haters, more likely than not, you will find much more people who appreciate your videos that would make the effort worthwhile.

Jun

14

A Master Collaboration

Filed Under Comics Artists, Online Comics | 12 Comments

Harlan Ellison writes, Frank Miller draws and Bill Sienkiewicz inks. A dream collaboration you wouldn’t think in a million years could happen. But it did! It happened in December 1985 on the pages of Heroes For Hope, starring The X-Men, published by Marvel Comics. For three fateful pages, three colossal talents came together to create the tale below:

The cover to the comic book reads “All proceeds from this comic book are being donated to famine relief and recovery in Africa.” And for such a cause insane collaborations between people you wouldn’t expect to see together came to pass.

The Master Post Journal posted the collaboration between Alan Moore and Richard Corben here.

Another titanic collaboration included Stephen King writing, Berni Wrightson pencilling, and Jeff Jones inking. Chris Claremont, Brian Bolland and P. Craig Russel worked together on another four pages.

DC Comics came out with their own benefit books shortly after, entitled “Heroes Against Hunger“, which featured awesome collaborations as well including between Robert Bloch, Berni Wrightson and Mike Kaluta. There was also one with Gerry Conway, Barry Windsor Smith and Jeff Jones.

Jun

13

A Master Plan

Filed Under General | 3 Comments

Several months ago I joined a networking website that focused on the university I went to in college. Having been open to worldwide networking sites like Friendster, MySpace, Facebook and Multiply, I welcomed a networking site that focused on and accepted only members of the school I went to.

Yesterday, I deleted my account and left the site because I was starting to feel uncomfortable in it. I’m taking great care not to name names because I honestly think there’s nothing illegal going on. I’m just not comfortable with what I suspect the ultimate purpose of the site is. If you want to comment, don’t mention the site if you know what it is because I won’t post it.

At first I felt it was all right. It was cool to be there being with my fellow alumni and current students and perhaps even some faculty. There’s blogs, message boards, videos and so forth. I recognized that the site was built on a Ning platform. It’s a platform I’m familiar with because I previously joined other networking groups using that same platform. It’s easy on the eyes, and easy to navigate. So for a while I didn’t have a problem with the site.

I started to get persistent emails from the sponsor of the site. When I left yesterday, there was only one sponsor to the site. And in the months I’ve been there, there has only ever been one sponsor. Also, I learned that it is the sponsor itself who created the site in the first place. Basically the emails encourage me to attend seminars on list building, whatever that is. Joining the seminars would “help pay” for the site.

I thought about that. Ning is a free platform. Anyone can create a networking group on Ning for free. But since the school site had it’s own domain, one had to buy that domain. A domain of that type goes from anywhere around $30 to $40. And Ning charges $4.95 to link that domain to the site. So that’s what… $35 to $45 cost for the site on average? Still, where are you going to pick up $45 just like that, I thought. So I let it go.

The emails persisted. Someone commented on my profile page welcoming me to the site, but at the same time, the person encouraged me to attend the seminars. The seminars on list building, whatever it is.

I went to the site and I started to notice, right on the front page, adverts all over the place pointing to the sponsor’s service of offering seminars for list building. I visited a few classmates’ pages and on their pages are similar welcoming messages encouraging them to attend the seminars.

The featured blogs talk about benefits of the seminars, and 2 out of 3 discussions in the message board talk about the seminars.

On the front page members are encouraged to invite even more members to the site. The sponsor is even holding contests. Anyone who gets the most people to join will get to attend the seminar for FREE. And how much is the seminar? $1000. $40 for those who sign up early. Just one customer and the site is paid for already.

I researched online just what this list building business is.

List building is a manner by which you collect a list of potential customers to whom you can sell your products and services. A list like that is very valuable to advertisers online because they can use it to promote their stuff.

In the old days, a list was generated automatically when products are sold via advertisments on television. Meaning, everyone who sees that ad on TV becomes part of the list to which that product is promoted to. That kind of loose anonymous list is still used today.

But with more people tuning online, people can choose to ignore ads. Advertisers are having a much more difficult time getting eyes to tune in on their products.

And so companies started to build lists in different ways.

One technique is to create a networking site, and invite as much people to join it. To get people interested, there has to be a theme or subject to the site that would encourage them to join. And once a few people join in, they are then encouraged to invite other people. And when the people are there, they would now be exposed to numerous advertisments of that company.

It was then I realized our school networking site is one huge elaborate list building exercise, designed to ultimately sell us the product of the sponsor. And what is the product? Seminars on list building. It was a truly horrifying realization. But it’s an awesomely brilliant scheme.

Let me say again that there’s nothing illegal about this that I can tell. It’s all perfectly above board. There’s nothing inherently wrong with it as it’s just a business trying to make money. We’re all trying to make money in this world somehow, someway.

But I’m horrified at being asked to join such a spam list, on the pretext that it’s a school networking site. There are things we can play with on it as a networking site, but ultimately, it is a spam list, designed to sell only one product. Yes, I don’t hesitate to call it a spam list. Because I believe that’s what it is.

My school can create a networking site of its own on Ning, and it would be FREE. There are still ads, but they’re unobtrusive Google ads that everyone is used to by now.

Jun

11

Meeting Dave Simons

Filed Under Comics Artists | 7 Comments

I met comic book artist Dave Simons online when he added me as a friend on Facebook in January of this year. And he thanked me after I added him. I knew who he was and I was flattered that he actually wanted to add me. At the same time someone had set up a Facebook Group, “The Dave Simons Appreciation Society“. I wondered why someone would do that until I learned that Dave’s Wikipedia page had been taken down because Dave Simons was considered by someone at Wiki as “not inherently notable”. Are they kidding? The man has been around since the 70’s inking numerous comic books for Marvel and DC.

I joined the group, and I sent Dave a message. I wanted to tell him that, well, he was notable to me and that I appreciate the work he has done, and that I knew who he was and that I had a lot of comic books here at home with his work on it. Look, I admit I didn’t know specifically which comic books they were, but I’ve seen his name often enough to know that I must own a bunch of comic books by him.

A pretty sharp guy, he wrote back and said, “Thank you. What do you have, a bunch of my old Conan stuff?”

*gulp* To be honest, I didn’t know. But I didn’t want to let Dave down. I knew I had a lot of his stuff and I’m sure some of those must be some Conans. I had a lot of old Conans. So I said yes. And to further back that up, I looked over at comics.org to see what other stuff he worked on. If I saw a list I’m sure my memory could be jogged. I saw on his list of credits a bunch of Moon Knights. And I thought yeah! I have a bunch of old Moon Knights. I’m sure he was an inker in one of those.

So I replied yes, I do have some of his old Conans, Ghost Rider and a couple of Moon Knights.

He replied, “Moon Knight? As I recall, I only inked one cover on that.”

*double gulp*

So I went digging into my collection here in the apartment and much to my horror, none of my Conan or Moon Knight stuff had his name on it. I didn’t have any Dave Simons inked comic book, except one. And that was What If #44: What if Captain America Were Revived Today? “Today” meaning April 1984. I really liked this comic book as I liked a lot of What Ifs in this era. I was sure I had more Dave Simons stuff, but they must be at my old house where I keep most of my collection.

I replied: “Wow, I could have sworn I’ve seen your name on some of my Moon Knights, but in any case, one of the comics I just pulled which you definitely did is What If? #44, What If Captain America were Revived Today?”

He replied: “Oh yeah, I used a lot of my Woody tricks on that. Examine it closely, Bob Camp inked some panels.”

And that was the last of our correspondence. Dave passed away last June 9. Apparently he had been battling cancer for some time.

I went back to our old house, dug up my collection and there I found many of Dave’s comic books. I knew I had them. I just knew it. He was notable to me, and damn you Wikipedia, he’s notable in more ways than you can ever understand.

Rest in peace, Dave. I was glad to have met you.

***************

Wikipedia has since put him Dave Simon’s page.

Jun

4

Komikero Comics Podcast #5: The Gang’s All Here!

Filed Under Komikero Group, Podcast | 9 Comments

It’s time again for the Komikero Comics Podcast, this time featuring the gang from the Komikero Artists Group! The guys were over here last May 31 just to hang out. It’s not really a proper Komikero meeting (that’s this June 28 if you wanna come) as we all got drunk with our San Mig lites and doritos. That bottle of lambanog is 3 years old, but it might as well been a prop as no one seemed to want to touch it. WHAT? Some drunken debauchery this turned out to be!

Present were: Jonas Diego and his GF Niknok, Johnny Danganan, Ryan “Raipo” Toledo, Geoff Borgonia, Dexter Entera and April Ricafort.

We talked about a variety of things including the Komikon, The Great Manix Abrera, Wasted and the Wasted movie, Hayden Kho, Jonas Diego’s Portal, FHM, You Tube and copyrighted music, and most important of all we try to answer the question….

“Have you given up on your comic book dreams?”


63 Minutes. 58MB Download mp3 here.
Podcast is mostly in Tagalog.
“Bright Wish”, Music by Kevin MacLeod

Related links:

KOMIKON
http://komikon.blogspot.com

Jonas Diego’s The Blurb
http://jonasdiego.com/theblurb/

Royalty Free Music by Kevin MacLeod
http://www.incompetech.com

Jun

2

June 2 Ruminating

Filed Under Dr. Rizal, Humanis Rex!, Komikero Group, My Art, My Comics, Timawa, Video Blogs | 3 Comments

It feels weird that at the end of the month there’s no Timawa for me to work on. For the past two years I’ve devoted this time of the month to do the comics series for The Buzz and I have to admit, I kind of miss doing it. But part of me is happy to have finished it, so I can move on to other things.

Humanis Rex!, Timawa, Elmer, Johnny Balbona… it’s not so bad I guess, for work I’ve managed to do after taking a break from inking. Yes, I can finally admit it was a break, and not a permanent retirement. I guess I just needed to convince myself that it was really over so I can concentrate more fully on the work I wanted to do. I wanted to extend myself more in comics. The 10 years I spent inking was fulfilling, but the years I spent creating my comics were even more so.

I will be inking again something soon. Clues of what is hidden in the last Timawa installment. You can take a guess, but correct guesses won’t be approved for posting (at least for now).

But even then, I will continue to do my own work. There is after all, “The Marvelous Adventures of the Amazing Doctor Rizal”. It’s just that it will become the sideline as opposed to the main job. The main job is the priority now and I will work on my own projects when I’m free. Even then, I’m confident I can come out with Rizal for the October Komikon. By then I can afford to publish it in the format I want it.

AND SPEAKING OF INKING!

The nominations are up, and you, yes YOU can vote for your favorite inker! This is the 2nd year of the Inkwell Awards, an award giving body that strives to give recognition to the oft maligned and oft misunderstood aspect of comic book creation. Here’s your chance to show how much you appreciate them inkers!
http://www.inkwellawards.com/
Direct link to the voting page:
https://inkwellawards.justsurvey.me/546882e6579

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There’s been quite an uproar for that Multiply post during the last week. I read it, and I can understand how it can cause people to go berserk. I can just laugh it off. I mean, I was young once myself (hey I still am!). All I can say is this… they won’t be young forever. Sooner than they even realize or care to admit, they’ll be as old school as the rest of us. *cackle*

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My friends at the Komikero group was over the house last Sunday. It wasn’t a Komikero meeting really. It was just old friends hanging out and doing… stuff. As to what that stuff is, well, here’s one of them…

May

30

Posing for FHM Philippines. Oh Yeah.

Filed Under Comics Artists, Elmer, Filipino Artists, My Comics, Philippine Comics, Photographs | 17 Comments

I’m an off and on reader of FHM Philippines. For the *ahem* articles. Well, not just the articles. I need it for reference. That’s right. Reference. I’m an artiste after all. *ahem*.

And for a long time after seeing FHM feature all kinds of ordinary Filipinos from all walks of life including balut vendors, fish ball vendors, tricycle drivers and the like, I thought well, I wonder when they’ll feature comic book people. And invite ME to pose? I mean, one can harbor deep dark fantasies, right? I mean, am I right? Yes, I am.

And so when FHM Philippines sent an email asking if they could interview me for the mag, I jumped at the chance. I went to a local parlor and had my hair and nails done. I had my whole body waxed and you know, did a bit of gym. Doesn’t take much workout anyway to get into this fierce fighting figure that I have. I was all set and ready to punch walls, you know what I mean?

The article came out in the JUNE 2009 issue with that cover right there, and it’s available right now!

All right. I’m a chicken. A CHICKEN! All that buffing up and I’m a chicken.

Kidding aside, it’s hysterical! They never did get to take a picture, and I got a little too busy to shoot and send one so they went ahead with the idea of someone drawing us. “US” meaning myself, Carlo Vergara, Budjette Tan, Arnold Arre and David Hontiveros. They interviewed us separately and fashioned a group interview out of it.

And Carlo Vergara, with all his magnificent shining talent, drew all of us according to who we were in comics. Of course, I came in the chicken suit. And I just laughed my head off when I first opened the page to see it. Carlo, you’re my hero!

Thanks to B.A. Borleo and FHM Philippines!