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Jul

7

Comics 101, August 1994

Filed Under Comics Artists, Filipino Artists, My Comics, Philippine Comics | 6 Comments

The first issue of Wasted came out July of 1994. I photocopied 10 to 15 copies and mailed them off to friends. Somehow, one issue found its way to Budjette Tan, a guy who I’d never met, but who was at the time putting together a comic book with his friends called “Comics 101″. Budjette wrote to me (on paper) and asked if I would allow Wasted to be included in his comic book. To be honest, I didn’t want to. At the time, I was still holding on to Wasted like a private thing, first just for myself, then next shared with a few friends. I wasn’t prepared to share Wasted with a whole lot of strangers.

After a few days of fretting over whether to agree or not, I finally decided to let it go and mailed the original pages of Wasted #1 to Budjette. Turns out Budjette received the pages just in time. The way I understand it, they were on the process of going to press with it when my pages arrived. I thought, oh, to hell with it. Whatever the consequence, I’ll take it. At the time, I was pissed off enough at the world not to care what other people thought.

When Comics 101 came out and a snippet of my art was on the cover, I was really so proud of it. It was such a thrill having my work printed in an independently produced comic book like this. I had been published previously, having a few of my artwork coming out in TERROR and UZI, but Comics 101 was kind of special.

The issue had quite an array of talent. It featured Arnold Arre’s “Age of the Valkyrie”. Even that early, Arnold already showed what a good artist he was. It wasn’t the first time I saw Arnold’s work, though. I met him through Lakan, an earlier comic book group I was involved with. Speaking of Lakan, Comics 101 has the distinction of having the only published pages of the infamous Lakan comic book. Lakan was represented by a few pages, by an artist whose name I’ve actually, rather embarrassingly, forgotten.

This Lakan thing, I’ll talk about this in detail in a future post, with photos and artwork. I feel as if I need to talk about it and write down everything I know about it.

Anyway, Comics 101 also had “The Mission” by J.B. Tapia and Mark Gatela, “The Flying Phantom” by Bow Guerrero and Budjette Tan, “Payaso” by Budjette Tan and Brandie Tan, lettered by Jig Manaloto.

I think the concept of “The Flying Phantom” is a terrific one, and if Budj and Bow have the time, they really need to come out with a much longer story about it.

Disappointed by the quality of my drawing in Wasted #1, I redrew the first four pages sometime later, and it’s those redrawn pages that were used for the first compiled edition of Wasted by Alamat in 1998. Comics 101 is the only place (aside from the old photocopies) that one can find the original 4 pages printed. Ironically, those same 4 pages are some of the very very few original art from Wasted that survive today. Almost all of the original pages of Wasted were destroyed when the offices of Pulp Magazine burned down, which had been preparing to publish a new edition of the comic book.

Even after all this time, I look at this comic book with much pride. It has the rough quality of a group of young guys just starting out, thrilled and enthusiastic about comics. It felt like the beginning of something truly great. And it was. I’d like to think we’re still thrilled and enthusiastic about comics. After all, a lot of us are still here and creating them. I’m here with my comics, Budjette has his Trese, Arnold has his Martial Law Babies and Andong Agimat, and it looks like we’re not going to be quitting anytime soon.

Comments

6 Responses to “Comics 101, August 1994”

  1. Ed on July 7th, 2008 11:11 pm

    Ah! Now the confusion is gone with me. Lagi ko iniisip ang Alamat 101 and Comics 101 ay iisa. Now I remember this. :D I never had a copy. :-\

  2. Budjette on July 8th, 2008 1:21 am

    FILLING IN THE BLANKS…

    A friend of a friend told me of a group called THE CREATIVE UNDERGROUND and that they were looking for a writer for their comic book.

    So, one Saturday afternoon, I went to Pancake House, Robinsons Galleria and met Ian Orendain and two other guys from T.C.U.

    They showed me the initial artwork for LAKAN and was blown away. I was wondering why they wanted to re-write it. But I re-wrote it anyway, with a little help from Taps and Mark, who were my script consultants.

    Couple of weeks(?)/months(?) later, I had to meet up with Ian to show him my latest version of the script.

    He then showed me a copy of Gerry’s WASTED.
    I read it on the spot and found myself snickering when I got to the last page.

    While Ian went back to him office to Xerox my script, I gotted down Gerry’s P.O.BOX address on that back of a manila brown envelope.

    Around that same time, I already had plans to go to the San Diego Comic-Con and really wanted to bring a finished product. So, I got the guys together to produce what would become COMICS 101. When I read WASTED, I really wanted it to be part of the anthology.

    We got Gerry’s ORIGINAL WASTED pages on the day we were doing the lay-out of the book. So, we had to change the arrange of the pages to accommodate those 8-pages.

    And to answer Edgar’s question…

    When Alamat was finally formed, we thought of continuing the anthology and decided to rename it ALAMAT 101. :)

    It was supposed to have pages/stories from all the Alamat creators, but we could only afford to release one issue. Too bad.

    That’s why, back then, we were known as the #1 comic book (because we only kept release issue #1). hahahaha :)

  3. Jon on July 8th, 2008 7:23 am

    Just read this comic awhile ago while rummaging through my stuff.

  4. Ed on July 8th, 2008 10:37 am

    Every Saturday, I visit Comic Odyssey and the sales ladies there asked me about Alamat Comics coz there were customers asking for any Alamat comics being sold. It’s just fascinating, new and old comics readers still recognize us as a group. :)

  5. Budjette on July 8th, 2008 8:28 pm

    Yup, it’s always encouraging when people ask us about our old titles and old characters. :)

  6. Jig on December 14th, 2008 1:44 pm

    I gave my copy to a friend. Hmm. Should’ve kept it. :(