May

22

Restoring Francisco V. Coching’s EL INDIO

Filed Under Philippine Comics | 23 Comments

Just updating you all about this project and let you know that it has not been forgotten, and in fact work is ongoing on it on a regular basis.

I’ve taken on an assistant, Zara Macandili, to help me restore the pages, who is working on El Indio at least 2 days a week, wherein she can finish up to 4 to 5 pages. Zara is a talented artist who I met while she was working as an OJT at our UAP (United Architects of the Philippines) office in 2004. Me and Ilyn were impressed by her quickness to adapt and learn, as well as her talent. I’ve since invited her to join the Komikero Artists Group, and me and Ilyn have since hired her to act as our all around assistant. She would sometimes spend time helping Ilyn with her paper crafts business, and then sometimes she would spend some time helping me organize my things. I took the risk of trying her out with a page of El Indio since I wanted the project to move faster. The restoration process is a bit tricky, and you really need to be an artist to do it because you will be making many artistic decisions in bringing Coching’s work out as faithfully as you can.

Zara has impressed me with how quickly she adapted the process, and has in fact done a far better job on the pages than I would have. The above page is an example of Zara’s restoration work.

Since no original artwork of EL INDIO is known to exist anymore (which is damned shame), all the artwork comes from the original print comics. Expectedly, the paper from the early 50’s has become very delicate and yellowed. In fact, it is no longer yellow but a sort of orangey-brown.

I’ve devised a system through weeks of trial and error just to be able to strip the color off the page and give me a clear and strong image of the black and white illustration. It can get very tricky because very thin lines tend to disappear in the process and care needs to be taken that they remain.

After extracting the black lines, it is understood that they have suffered considerable damage and do not give 100% accurate depiction of the original art. The damage comes from the printing, the aging and the texture of the paper. Some lines need to be restored by reconstructing sections of brush strokes that have faded, “opening up” details due to thickening of the lines from printing, and in some cases, complete replacement of lettering when excess ink obliterated large sections of the lettering. This is done by copying and pasting existing font.

It is quite a bit of work and although the pace is slow, it’s getting there slowly but surely. I think I can say with an amount of certainty that if there’s a KOMIKON in October, EL INDIO will be there.

Comments

23 Responses to “Restoring Francisco V. Coching’s EL INDIO”

  1. Sandy Sansolis on May 23rd, 2007 12:47 am

    Gerry,
    I can’t wait to see El Indio in print. Coching’s artwork is just absolutely beautiful.

  2. Rod Samonte on May 23rd, 2007 3:22 am

    Gerry,
    Yahooooooo!!! Hanepppp!!!!! This I’m really excited about. If the whole novel can be restored same as you’ve restored Oras Mo Na, wowwww what a boon to the Philippine comic industry. As somebody in your comments section said, this might prove to be good business, restoration of golden age Pinoy Komiks. Think what could happen with classics such as this one El Indio or Darna, Bondying, Ukala and all those other classic novels by our best novelists and illustrators. Philippine publishers should take note and published these old comics just like books. Rod

  3. Rod Samonte on May 23rd, 2007 3:26 am

    Gerry,
    This is amazing restoration work. Shows Coching in all his glory, and this is just one page. Coching was and is still the best, period. Rod

  4. Erwin on May 23rd, 2007 8:27 am

    Hi Gerry, sulit na sulit ang pagiintay dito sa El Indio. If there will be a Komikon this October, will you sell this in TPB format or in CD? Either way, I will buy both. One thing more, since this is a “sequel” to Barbaro, is there also a possibility to restore the latter? Thanks.

  5. Gerry Alanguilan on May 23rd, 2007 8:39 am

    Erwin, EL INDIO will be in print. Probably with a CD supplement. I think it would be nice to interview Coching’s widow and other family members about this piece of work. I first thought about doing BARBARO because it the part 1 of sorts to El Indio, but the family chose El Indio instead. Which is allright because I feel that this komiks-novel presents Coching at his absolute prime.

  6. Gerry Alanguilan on May 23rd, 2007 8:42 am

    Thanks Rod! Yeah, my mind is opening up to the possibilities of this. I’m pretty excited myself! The family of Mars Ravelo actually do want to reprint the first two volumes of Darna. Sana matuloy.

    And Jess Jodloman is only waiting until they find a few more missing pages of RAMIR and they’ll definitely be reprinting it.

    Dennis Villegas, who was the first to reprint classic komiks with “Album ng Kabalbalan ni Kenkoy”, is planning to follow that up with KURDAPYA. I hope that pushes through because I’ve seen Nestor Redondo’s art on it and it’s magnificent!

  7. Reno on May 23rd, 2007 9:33 am

    Finally!!! Yahoo!!! :)

  8. Rod Samonte on May 24th, 2007 4:57 am

    Gerry,
    Naiingit ako pag nakikita ko ang mga reprints ng Terry and the Pirates, Li’l Abner at iba pang mga U.S. komiks na na-publish noong 1930’s pa, kumpleto at buong-buo. Maging mga klasikong pelikula natin ay nangagkawalaan din. Nakakapanghinayang. Sayang na sayang din yung kompleto kong koleksiyon ni Coching na kasama na rin dun ang Barbaro, El Indio, atbp. na nasirang lahat sa baha. Rod

  9. Noel on May 25th, 2007 8:16 am

    I’d like to purchase a copy once it comes out but would you accept orders from Canada?

  10. Gerry Alanguilan on May 25th, 2007 8:59 pm

    Hello Noel! I’m sure I will… shipping will be a bit steep though, but I’ll definitely offer it. :)

  11. Rod Samonte on May 26th, 2007 12:32 am

    Gerry,
    I hope El Indio will be good quality printing and paper and at least standard comic size or larger. I will definitely be one of the first to order. What will you do about the covers? I think there were at least two or three covers that Coching did when it originally appeared which should also be reprinted. Rod

  12. Noel on May 26th, 2007 8:17 am

    Thanks, Gerry.

  13. Gerry Alanguilan on May 26th, 2007 9:48 am

    Rod, EL INDIO will have the same printing quality as ELMER, which is I think pretty good. And yes, it will come out in the original size. I’m trying to track down good quality versions of the covers so I can include them. I only have 1 cover of EL INDIO that I personally own, and I will definitely be including it. The EL INDIO collection I got from the Coching family to scan didn’t include any of the covers.

    I will try to put as much related material into the compilation including photos from the film and a bit of commentary from the family and other people.

  14. auggie on May 27th, 2007 11:35 pm

    Sa wakas, lalabas na rin sa Oktubre ! make sure na mi kopya ako Gerry. Do you have any idea kung magkano ang retail price including mailing charges ?
    BTW, di ba meron kang kumpletong ULUPONG series ni Pidong Alcala ? would you also include that in the pipeline for your future restoration projects ? nauna ito sa Pirates of the Caribbean…

  15. Gerry Alanguilan on May 28th, 2007 1:04 am

    Auggie! Kumusta! Sa ngayon wala pang estimate kung magkano kasi hindi pa pinapadala sa akin ng printer ang quote nila. Mailing within the Philippines anything between 60 and 80 pesos, pero AIR 21/LBC na yun.

    So far wala pa akong plano na susunod na print compilation after ng EL INDIO. Malamang doon ko na iko-concentrate ang extra time ko to do yung Philippine Comics Art book na matagal ko na ring binubuo.

  16. Journalista - the news weblog of The Comics Journal » Blog Archive » May 28, 2007: Other shoe undropped on May 28th, 2007 5:50 pm

    [...] Gerry Alanguilan is currently working to restore El Indio, a classic of Filipino comiks by master cartoonist Francisco V. Coching. He describes the process of restoring a fine-line illustration classic from aging newsprint, when none of the original art is known to exist. (Above: a page from El Indio restored by Alanguilan’s assistant, Zara Macandili; date and copyright information unknown.) [...]

  17. Just a Small ELMER Update : Komikero Comics Journal on May 28th, 2007 11:01 pm

    [...] Restoring Francisco V. Coching’s EL INDIO [...]

  18. Joe Procopio on May 30th, 2007 4:41 am

    Gerry, Thaks for posting this lovely page. I’m especially intrigued by the system you’ve developed for scanning and cleaning up these old newsprint comics becasue I am beginning a comic-restoration project of a similar sort. Any advice/insight would be much appreciated. Thanks…

    Joe

  19. Gerry Alanguilan on May 30th, 2007 7:42 am

    Hello Joe! It starts with a very high resolution scan of the page in RGB. I scan at 600dpi. Other restorers would recommend 800dpi or even higher, which is even better. It’s just that my computer isn’t powerful enough to handle resolutions that big easily.

    For a black and white page like that page of EL INDIO this is what we do…

    Using Photoshop, the first thing you do is do an “Auto Levels”. Just make sure you select only the scanned image, and don’t select any white areas outside the scanned image or else the Auto Levels won’t work as it should. You’ll be startled at how this one step improves the clarity of the page immediately.

    Your objective is to bring out the black and remove the remaining dirt without losing the thinnest lines, and closing lines that are very close together.

    At this point it’s hard to describe an exact process because it depends on what your eye sees and what happens on the page. And take note that there are a lot of different ways to achieve the same thing. Other processes may well be more efficient than mine. But this is what I’ve gotten used to.

    Experiment with “Curves” to darken the lines at the same time lighten the spaces outside the lines.

    Then use “Levels” and play around with the Input Levels. Try 60, 1.00, and 205. Change the values as you see fit. Repeat if necessary.

    Then use “Unsharp Mask” and try Amount : 150, Radius: 4. Leave threshold alone. Change the values as you see fit.

    Zoom in so you can see individual pixels and zero in on the remaining color pixels. start with the lightest yellow ones. Then use “Replace Color” to replace the yellow with white. Then start picking off the next darker yellow colors and other colors you see. Be careful about removing the darker red, blue and green colors because sometimes the thinnest lines disappear. You really have to have a very strong black line at this point before you start removing colors or else many tiny details will disappear.

    You can strengthen faintest lines with the dodge tool if you wish.

    Now comes the hard part. Convert the file to greyscale and start fixing the drawing. Fill in areas that should be black and remove excess dirt, pixel by pixel if necessary. Zoom in very close and start reconstructing lines that have been damaged, using your instincts as an artist to understand what the original artist was thinking. Sometimes you need to make decisions on what would make the image look good without having to compromise the original artists’ intent.

    Good luck!

  20. Joe Procopio on May 31st, 2007 3:04 am

    Gerry, Thanks so much for taking the time to get me started with this project and for sharing your hard-earned knowledge in this area. I’ll share some results with you once I get comfortable with doing this.

    Thanks again, and keep up the fine work.

    Joe

  21. Ted Santiago on June 5th, 2007 1:05 am

    Gerry, great undertaking. I was wondering if this could be done for other tales as well, e.g. Ifugao, Jack and Jill, Dyesebel, Darna, Dumagit to name a few that I grew up with. Or conversely, could the volumes of Pilipino, Hiwaga, Espesyal Komiks and Takalog Klasiks just be published as bound volumes? I suspect that they will sell well both in the Philippines and abroad. In the USA, bound volumes of Green lantern, House of Mystery etc. have recently appeared and they are selling well.

  22. Gerry Alanguilan on June 5th, 2007 9:29 am

    Hello Ted! It can get very complicated when reprinting whole volumes because of the rights to individual stories involved. It’s easier when it comes to EL INDIO because I have direct contact with the Coching family and I have their consent to do it.

    If any large scale archiving of this material is to be done, it would really take a lot of money, not only to print these books, but to hire people to restore the pages and put the books together. Somebody who really cares about comics, our comics culture and history, and has the time to do it is really needed. If he’s rich it would be great, but if not, he needs to go out and solicit money for it.

    It would be something great to do, and I wish I had the time, but my primary purpose is to create comics myself. And that’s a full time job in itself. The free time I have I work on El Indio for several hours a week.

    But yeah, seeing those books in print again, would be fantastic.

  23. auggie on June 8th, 2007 9:45 am

    This sounds like a job for Mrs. Ramos, owner of the National Book Store. She has the wherewithal, resources, and enough clout to do it. Maybe NBS, should have a new department. ARCHIVES& RESTORATION. Create this new department, generate jobs for the production crew and other creatives. They won’t have a problem with marketing. Has somebody approach Mrs Ramos about this thing yet? I’ll go for this rather than the much hyped Komiks Kongress.