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Jun

2

Eugene and Coffee

Filed Under Family, My Comics, Online Comics | 7 Comments

It’s a been a year, almost to the day, that my dog Eugene, died. I didn’t talk about it on this blog because I find it uncomfortable to talk about very personal things here. Much of that personal stuff I keep offline and between family and close friends. But I couldn’t help express that grief somehow, and I expressed it through that where I could express it best: comics.

At the time I had been keeping a daily online comic strip depicting true and ordinary things that preoccupy me during the day. Many of those strips had Eugene in it. All of those strips can still be accessed at Webcomicsnation.com, but I’ve recently decided to reformat and re-organize my online strips into subjects right here in my site.

Subjects I went into include cellphones, sleep paralysis, PLDT woes, birds and chickens, dreams, friendships and so on. Click below for for Eugene’s online comics.

EUGENE
http://alanguilan.com/sanpablo/online/eugene.html

I’ll be uploading more of my online strips soon.

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I am participating in a comics anthology called “Liquid City”, collecting the comics work of several South East Asian comics creators, to be published by Image Comics in the fall. Having experienced no such thing as a “fall” here in the Philippines, I had no idea what that meant until I learned it’s actually anytime between September to December in the US.

I’m pretty excited about it as I’ll be in the company of some really awesome artists and I’m scratching my head just what the hell I’m doing there, you know? They’ve got LAT in there, for goodness sake.

That USED to be page 1 of what I was planning to contribute. It would just be a visual story, no dialogue involved, where this guy drinks this coffee and he takes off into the sky, and proceeds to fly erratically through the city causing all kinds of confusion, pratfalls, and all sorts of hijinks. He then runs out of steam and falls with a huge crash back on his chair and says “Great Coffee!”

Now as people started turning in their stuff for the anthology, the more I felt ashamed and embarrassed by the work that I’ve done. I’ve had to re-assess and consider what I should do. I decided to scrap the story altogether and just come up with a new one. It’s that new story that I submitted at my deadline yesterday. I worked really hard on it, and I still don’t know if it’s on par with what the others did, but at least it’s better than what I did before.

More information about the anthology here:

http://sonnyliew.livejournal.com/9183.html

After all that you’d think I’d take a break, but although I want to, it’s time to continue work on Timawa #9! With crazy deadline a few days from now. Allright!

Comments

7 Responses to “Eugene and Coffee”

  1. Ed on June 2nd, 2008 9:14 am

    Hanep! Daming projects ah. Buti ka pa. :D

  2. Jason Maranto on June 3rd, 2008 1:32 am

    The rejected page looks great so I can only drool in anticipation of seeing the final story.

    The Eugene strips are very touching — reminds me of the cat short you did years ago.

    Best,
    Jason.

  3. Carver on June 3rd, 2008 6:25 am

    Naiinis ako! Naiinis ako! Ang ganda ng “great coffee” page mo!

    Naiinis ako! :-)

  4. Gerry Alanguilan on June 3rd, 2008 7:56 am

    Hello Jason! I’m beginning to think that as long as I have pets, I’ll be making those strips when they die. :(

    Salamat Carlo! :D

  5. David Jerickson Serador on June 4th, 2008 10:15 pm

    Geez man, I know exactly how you feel about Eugene. I also lost a 12 year old dog this year and It’s very depressing ever since, like you I used my Dog
    as a main character in my yearly indie comic, I don’t even know if I can make one this year :(

    P.S Congrats on your new Project! looking forward to that :)

  6. Rod Samonte on June 5th, 2008 11:52 pm

    Gerry,
    I read all your online comics for the first time. They’re absolutely funny (except the Eugene story which was sad) and entertaining. Seems to me they belong to a daily newspaper strip.
    One thing that caught me too (because it was a question I asked you before but was unanswered), was your strip with the royalty check from DC for Superman. It seems to me this is one reason for you to at least do to an inking job for Marvel or DC. Superman and X-Men comics will always be printed and reprinted, and royalties will keep coming. However, I can’t fault you for this and for keeping Pinoy Komiks alive and well.
    Another thing, you’ve got so many new projects going on which is fine and good. I know your creative mind can’t stop coming up with new ideas, and it’s so much fun to start new projects, but almost all of them are still left unfinished Humanis Rex seem to be the only exception). For example we were left hanging on Oras Mo Na, El Indio still has not been published, and then there’s entirely too much time between issues of Elmer.
    Rod

  7. Gerry Alanguilan on June 6th, 2008 9:06 am

    Hello Rod!

    Those are actually very valid concerns, and believe it or not, they are concerns that I share with you.

    First off, the inking thing. I’ve responded to a few people about this with where I stand, and in all this time, my position remains unchanged.

    Two, the unfinished projects. Unfinished projects really do stick in my craw more than most things. I hate when that happens. Unfortunately, certain things are beyond my control, specially if the project is in the hands of another publisher. Such is the case with Humanis Rex and El Indio. The restoration work took several years, and I’ve spend considerable money to find help to finish it, but it’s finished. All it will take now is to iron things out with the publisher…and that would take a bit more time.

    I’ve been disappointed that the Humanis Rex book hasn’t come out, when I’ve already finished all the work that’s needed for the compilation. But since it’s with a different publisher, and they have other things they need to prioritize, or for whatever reason, at this point there’s really nothing I can do about it except remind them once in a while.

    ORAS MO NA, is one of the things I have had to sacrifice in favor of things that pay. I did vastly underestimate the time I would need to do it. I had intended to just scan it and post it, but my wife and I felt we needed to represent it by recoloring, which ended up taking more time than I expected. So for the moment, it’s on hold.

    As for ELMER, well, work does continue on it. I do admit it takes a long time between issues. I do wish I can work on it more, but oftentimes I do have to set it aside for paying work. There are actually a few comics and other art things I’m working on to make money, which I really don’t mention here, for various reasons (confidentiality mostly). I’ll probably talk about them when I’m finally allowed to. And those are the things I sometimes prioritize just to get us going. Elmer does make money on its own, and so far it’s been one of my most profitable projects. But it’s really not enough. It’s also something I don’t want to sacrifice just so I can get it out early. Just don’t think of Elmer as a commercial periodical, but my personal pet project that I don’t do for money, something I work on in my spare time and make it the best comics that I can make it, which I share with friends when I get parts of it done. I’m sure that once it’s done and compiled into one book, I would know that it’s something that it took a long time doing, but something I would be really proud of.

    Of course, there are plenty of other things I’ve finished (and not just Humanis Rex). Many of them took years to complete, like Wasted which took two years as well. Humanis Rex also took two years to finish serialization. I think the same would be true for Timawa.

    I work slowly, but I do get there in the end.