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Jan

18

Elmer and the Family

Filed Under Elmer, Family, My Comics | 4 Comments

One of the rare times our family is together in one place. This was taken on January 1, 2008, at our old house here in San Pablo. I suppose I shouldn’t call it an old house because after all, it was constructed in 1989. But it is the site of the house we used to have long before I was born.

This house has appeared numerous times in the many comics I worked on. If you look again at my work for Siglo: Passion, you will notice the same stairway in the old haunted house. You will see the stairway again, many times in Elmer. The backyard in the comic book, along with one of the rooms and the windows, all came from our old house. In many ways, Elmer is a very personal story, specially the first issue. Many people have noted the father-son relationship as one of the strong themes in the story.

I have to be honest and say that I hadn’t really planned it that way. It just happened. Perhaps I am feeling a lot of the things that Jake was feeling about his dad. The paranoia, the concern, the feeling that time is growing very short. These are very real, and very strong emotions. I tried very much to create Elmer free from my personal experience, but I cannot help but put myself into the stories I do, specially stories that I have invested so much of myself in as I have in Elmer.

As I work on the final issue of the comic book, there’s a feeling that I don’t want it to end, that I want it to continue. At the same time, I want to finish it so that I can work on my next story. Although I have a rough plot of what goes on in the fourth issue, I still have no idea how it will eventually turn out. It could be far different from what I’m planning. I feel now is the right time to do it. The kind of things I’m feeling now, the kind of things I feel is important to me now, would be perfect for the kind of comic book Elmer #4 is going to be.

Comments

4 Responses to “Elmer and the Family”

  1. auggie on January 19th, 2008 9:09 am

    Gerry,

    Nice family foto…your Dad seems a little bit younger than I expected. Is that your younger brother ? an artist too ?

  2. Gerry Alanguilan on January 19th, 2008 9:18 am

    Hello Auggie! Believe it or not, my dad is 70, and my mom 73. That’s actually my older brother, older by 4 years. He started out as an artist, but I think he grew out of it and became more interested in computers. He’s a computer whiz doing computer whizzery stuff now on a freelance basis. :D

  3. Reno on January 20th, 2008 8:23 am

    Nice photo, parang studio shot. Kulang na lang ay supling ninyo ni Ilyn. :)

  4. kc cordero on January 21st, 2008 3:04 pm

    gerry,

    na-miss ko bigla ang mga magulang ko at kapatid. wala kaming family photo, at hindi na mangyayari iyon kasi wala na ang mga parents ko.
    you look like a jazz player.