Comments on: Around the Komiks Web

By: Jose Mari Lee

Jose Mari Lee — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 03:51:02 +0000

Gerry:

I’ll make THE WORST LIST of Philippine Komiks.
Para mapaiba naman. Naku, baka MABAROG ako
at tanghaling BANGKAY! He-he.

Tapusin mo na kasi yang Elmer para malaman na ng lahat kung ano ang ending :)

By: dennis

dennis — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 17:11:35 +0000

Hi Robby,
Well I still think I enjoyed Elmer despite it’s still being unfinished. I also honestly think that it should still be in the Top 100 list. The first installments alone qualifies it to be in the list.
I don’t know, but I can enjoy an unfinished music, unfinished movie, an even an unfinished comics.
And of course, Schubert is no longer composing..as he is already decomposing :)

By: Robby Villabona

Robby Villabona — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 09:09:01 +0000

Oh, and Franz Schubert is long dead. So we know there’s no chance he’ll disappoint with a bad 3rd and 4th movement in his 8th symphony.

By: Robby Villabona

Robby Villabona — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 08:04:05 +0000

Hi, Dennis,

Obviously I’m not comparing ELMER to MOBY DICK. Just making an analogy — that you can’t judge a story to be good or bad if you haven’t read the entire thing (and in this case, the entire thing hasn’t even been written yet!). I honestly think it compromises the credibility of the list.

I don’t know but an unfinished symphony would still give general satisfaction compared to an unfinished story. Pwede naman kasi ma-enjoy ang symphony in its component parts. The lack of 3rd and 4th movements in a symphony hardly affects the quality of the 1st and 2nd.

A serial (or graphic novel), OTOH, is one comprehensive story. It’s terriby difficult to say a story is good simply based on the beginning, with the half the middle and the full end yet to be written.

If you put it there because you expect Gerry to finish it well, then that’s really a judgement on the writer, not the story.

Again, it’s not a statement on the quality of ELMER, which I also think starts out well. But there’s still a middle and ending we haven’t seen yet.

By: Gerry Alanguilan

Gerry Alanguilan — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 07:01:26 +0000

Uy Dennis, maraming salamat ha. :D

By: dennis

dennis — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 06:33:23 +0000

Hi Robby,
I was the one who included Elmer in the list. I included Elmer(though unfinished yet) because I have thoroughly enjoyed the first installments, and it is most likely that I will enjoy the last ones. Gerry is a good writer so I am fairly confident he can deliver the ending in a consistent manner.
Of course I hesitated for a moment before including it, and would have reserved a space for it later in the Top 100. But we have to come up with the list one way or the other.
Of course, you cannot compare Elmer with Moby Dick, any more than you can compare Moby Dick with Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony. The symphony was unfinished (for some reason or another), but despite that it has been highly acclaimed as one of the Top 10 symphonies in the world. You see, you don’t have to finish a whole cake to know that it tastes great.

By: Gerry Alanguilan

Gerry Alanguilan — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 03:48:17 +0000

Auggie, guys…

I think that’s the thing with any “Greatest” lists. It’s always going to someone’s choices or a group of people’s choices. And not everyone is going to agree what is going to go in. If say Auggie or JM come up with their own top 100 lists, not everyone is going to agree with it either. Someone will always come in and say, why isn’t so and so in it, or why is that in there?

Even AFI’s list of Hundred Greatest Films I don’t agree with because they don’t list movies I feel should be in there, and they have movies there I feel shouldn’t belong.

SOMEONE has to make a list someway or another, and it’s going to be their idea of what it is.

The only way for a list to be truly democratic is to have something like what the Internet Movie Database has going where everyone has a say on what goes on by voting for it.

And if you look at that list… their top 100 is nothing to sneeze at, and it shows that a democratic vote will yield a really good batch of films:
http://www.imdb.com/chart/top

Now if someone can come up with something like that for local comics, it would be terrific!

By: auggie

auggie — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 03:23:01 +0000

Rob,

Dapat nga 1,000 GREATEST HITS, kasi it spans the late 40s to the the late 90s I think… masyadong constraining yung 100 greatest hits, maraming mawawala. Kung pipilitin siguro iyong 100 greatest, madugo ito, kasi sino ang mga judges and jurists from the several eras ?

By: Robby Villabona

Robby Villabona — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 17:37:41 +0000

This isn’t a commentary on the quality of ELMER, but wouldn’t one think that to be considered one of the greatest serials, that the series should have been finished first? Again, I’m not saying ELMER does not deserve to be there because of quality — but it’s not even halfway through yet. It’s like saying “I loved MOBY DICK!” when you’re only on page 100 (personally I couldn’t get past 50).

OTOH, I don’t agree with 500 greatest. If you make a list that large then “greatest” starts to lose its meaning.

By: Jose Mari Lee

Jose Mari Lee — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 16:41:33 +0000

The idea of the heart still beating after the person dies might have triggered PSG to create something totally different. What’s more, Allan Poe’s work was more about the narrator’s guilty conscience of killing the old man.

Tanikala was about true, undying love. But it’s possible that Allan Poe’s idea about the heart made Pablo create his own using that idea. Though his work was absolutely original. It’s not even like the case of Christopher Marlowe’s DR. FAUSTUS and Goethe’s FAUST, Obviously, Goethe lifted Dr. Faustus and created his own, only in the end, FAUST was saved, FAUSTUS was damned to hell :)