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Jan

21

Page One Covers

Filed Under Filipino Artists, Philippine Comics | 7 Comments

These are covers from Rex Komiks #4-7, published by Rex Publications, Inc. in 1978, representing a unique characteristic of this title of the time, that of “page one covers”. Simply put, the very first page of the very first story of the anthology comic is also the cover. The cover is not a separate entity from the first page. The cover IS the first page.

I can only speculate the reasons why this was done. The most obvious reason I can think of is the cutting of costs. I don’t know if the artist received simply a page rate for it, or if he received an additional rate because it’s also a cover. Most likely, it was a regular page rate, if the cutting of costs was the purpose.

The trend lasted only a couple of weeks, with the page one covers running only from issue #4 to issue #15. #16 saw the resumption of the regular covers.

A relatively modern equivalent I can think of would be Budjette Tan and Arnold Arre’s Batch #72 #3. Here Budjette says it was done to minimize the cost of printing.

“Dugo ng Aztec” created by Jim Fernandez and Elmer Esquivas
“Batch 72″ created by Budjette Tan and Arnold Arre
Rex Komiks covers courtesy of KC Cordero.

Comments

7 Responses to “Page One Covers”

  1. Rod Samonte on January 21st, 2008 2:32 am

    Gerry,
    The Rex Komiks cover/first page is not a bad idea, actually. Seeing as how sometimes in the rush to get a cover out, or in the absence of the original artist, another artist is utilized, and the cover ends up being completely different or not at par with the illustration inside. The only thing is the cover/first page suffers from all the words that need to be on the cover – title, price, logo, etc. I can’t think of a U.S. equivalent to this.
    Rod

  2. Jose Mari Lee on January 21st, 2008 5:24 am

    Ruben Yandoc’s SAWA was done as first page cover, in 1962!

    Mind you, KISLAP GRAPHIC was TABLOID size in those days. Beside being a first page cover, it was also done as a WRAP-AROUND COVER, which made it more spectacular!

    I wonder if Dennis Villegas has a collection KISLAP KOMIKS where Sawa was serialized by RUBENY. It would be really good for the new generation to see them. I was just a kid in the late 60s and saw old comics of this fabulous creation. A bound copy of Sawa I used to own which I lost eventually, probably thrown by the maids because no one reads comics at home but me. Thinking that comics clutter my bedroom, they thought they were doing me a favor by throwing them all away.

    But, every issue of Kislap Komiks with SAWA on it was a collectible piece.

  3. Azrael on January 21st, 2008 8:52 am

    ok din sya as a first page.
    parang short teaser na din agad.
    pero dapat may malakas na impact agad ang first page kung gagawin sya cover.

    hmm..parang medyo mahirap ata yun.
    pero galeng nagawa din nila.

    something new to see for me sa mundo ng komiks

  4. Gerry Alanguilan on January 21st, 2008 9:12 am

    Hello Rod! I think WATCHMEN could conceivably be an equivalent for it abroad. The Watchmen cover acts as a kind of splash page that leads in directly to the first page of the story. In many ways, the covers are like the first big panel of a page, focusing closely on a certain object, like the smiley face on the cover of #1, and then panel 1 of page 1 zooms out from the smiley face, with every panel of page one zooming further out until we see the observer from high above. I only just thought of it when looking at the post again.

    JM… I heard a lot of great things about KISLAP in the early days. The only versions I ever got to see was one issue from the 70′s and the showbiz mag it became much later.

  5. Budjette on January 21st, 2008 10:55 pm

    other reasons why we did the “page one cover”:

    1. a friend of mine told me about this novel she read that actually had the first page of the novel on the cover (thought it was neat idea)

    2. i missed comic book covers that had dialogue on it, those comic books that told you : IT’S NOT A HOAX! NOT A DREAM! NOT AN IMAGINARY STORY!!!
    (hehehe)

    3. yes, it did act like a preview for what was inside the book

    4. yes, it did help cut down the page count and make printing cheaper

    SUDDENLY REMEMBERED…
    In the last issues of Warren Ellis’ run in STORMWATCH, he used the cover as a “page one” and marked the opening scene of the story

  6. auggie on January 21st, 2008 11:17 pm

    It was I think, the first large-format Philippine Komiks ever. It was just like an extension of the recently defunct Ace during that time, because they were utilizing the same artists. It was given a stiff competition by the Komiks of RUDY NER SIONGCO, the GOLD STAR publishing. Same gang of artists were strutting their stuff. Sino kaya ang may mga kopya nito ?

  7. Gio Paredes on January 22nd, 2008 5:09 pm

    Hello Gerry,

    In my case. Kalayaan #3 that will be release this Feb. (nag advertise pa… :-) ) ,The cover is also the 2nd page. But there is a slight difference. In the cover, there is the big KALAYAAN title and logo and stuff, while the page 2 there is none. Instead, in page 2, there are captions of the narrator and the character.

    I did this for the following reasons.
    I think its cool. It will save me time and money. And I am just darn lazy… :-)

    I guess that will make my comics a “page TWO cover”. :-)