13 Responses to “Steve Gan: The Forgotten Genius”

1. dennisvillegas on October 16th, 2008 11:15 am

   I have a conversation with Steve about this, and he said he’s resigned to the fact that only Carlo is the owner of Pieta (and Panday as well). Sabi ko nga ipaglaban niya karapatan niya(naks!) pero si Steve ang taong napaka-humble, pinalalampas niya ang mga abusado…Napakabait na tao at mabuting kaibigan

2. paulo dayto on October 16th, 2008 12:03 pm

   sir gerry wala ka pa bang offer na gawing tv series yung mga gawa mo.. if ever magkaroon willing ka ba.. me nagawa na po ba kayo na kayo po ang nagsulat pero iba ang illustrator.. ang willing po ba kayo din na ibigay sa kaya yung half ng royalties at pagkilala na akukuha niyo.. tanong lang po.. salamat po.. parang gusto ko makita ang humanis rex, timawa, at si elmer sa tv.. sana magkaroon ka malapit ka naman kay kc cordero baka mailapit niya sa abs.. sayang po kc saka para maipagmalaki natin sa caparas na yan at sa ibang tao na di natin masasabi na galing sa komiks ang isang tv series kung wala siyang kasamang illustration.. kung storya lang novel lang yun.. diba?..

3. Gerry Alanguilan on October 16th, 2008 1:22 pm

   Paulo… meron na rin akong ilang kwento na iba ang nag illustrate:

   “Blood Brothers” illustrated by Leinil Francis Yu
   Lumabas ito sa Dead Heart Stories #3.

   “Lastik-Man” illustrated by Arnold Arre. Mars Ravelo ang creator ng Lastik-Man, pero sa kwento namin may bagong character, si ATOMIKA, kung saan co-creators kami ni Arnold. Mag spinoff sana ang Atomika sa sariling series pero di natuloy. Sa amin yun completely.

   Meron din akong upcoming comic book, ang title ay “Where Bold Stars Go To Die” na si Arlan Esmeña ang illustrator.

   In all these cases, equal collaborators ko sila, at kung ano man ang kitain ng mga creations na ito either sa comics o baka sakali sa ibang media, patas din ang credit at hatian namin ng kita.

4. kc cordero on October 16th, 2008 2:41 pm

   gerry,
   noong editor pa ako sa atlas ay pinag-aagawan si mang steve ng mga beteranong nobelista. pag kasi siya ang nagdrowing halos 100 percent na mapepelikula. ganoon kalakas ang impact ng drawing niya sa mga movie producers.
   i think siya lang ‘yung illustrator na nakasama sa movie credits at posters ang pangalan.

5. Journalista - the news weblog of The Comics Journal » Blog Archive » Oct. 16, 2008: No goodwill in the markets on October 16th, 2008 4:55 pm

   [...] Gerry Alanguilan laments the obscurity of cartoonist Steve Gan, co-creator of the Filipino adventure series [...]

6. Ferres on October 17th, 2008 1:47 am

   Our willingness to tolerate injustice encourages the commission of even greater injustice.

   “Ipasadios na lang” is a curse upon ourselves.

7. Joel Chua on October 17th, 2008 9:20 am

   Genius with his artistry, but (in this example) not very smart with his rights and ultimately his legacy.

8. Gio Paredes on October 18th, 2008 12:56 pm

   I remember last year, aksidente kaming nagkita sa Megamall. Sabay kasi kaming nag pa photo copy ng comics namin. Dala ko yung Kalayaan comics ko. Sa kanya naman, dala nya yung compilation ng Panday. Napaka bait nya. Sya ang unang bumati sa akin ng nakita nyang comics ang pinapa xerox ko. Masyado akong nanliit nang nakita ko yung mga gawa nya sa Panday.

   Just like the title said, he is truly a “Genius”.
   Too bad he does not receive any recognition and royalties for his work.

9. Fermin Salvador on October 19th, 2008 9:02 am

   Kung tutuusin mas may credit pa dapat si Mang Steve kesa kay carlo. why? kasi nabigyan niya ng maayos na bersiyon ang LA PIETA na orihinal ni Michaelangelo. Yung illustrations actually ang redeeming factor ng naging nobelang komiks dahil ang ginawa lang ni Capural ay i-corrupt ang konsepto ng LA PIETA (of Michaelangelo) na ang layunin ay i-present sa buong mundo ang kanyang (Michaelangelo’s) interpretation of the image of Jesus Christ after His sufferings. Ginamit ni Capural ang image ng estatwa pagkatapos ay nilagyan ng maling istorya – “dalamhati ng isang ina”. Gawin mo itong for international audience at pag di pinagtawanan ng ibang lahi ang mga Pinoy sa pagkaignoramus. O…napagtawanan na?

10. Fermin Salvador on October 19th, 2008 9:17 am

    Kung ang layunin ng world renowned sculpture ni Michaelangelo ay i-depict ang sinapit ni Jesus Christ na walang ginawang kasalanan at tinubos pa ang sanlibutan ngunit pinatay…totally opposite nito ang istorya ni Capural. Sa Pieta ni Capural (na gumamit ng image ng LA PIETA ni Michaelangelo) ang pigura na nagre-represent kay Jesus Christ ay naging isang kriminal at masamang tao. Naging anti-Christ.

11. Jose Mari Lee on October 20th, 2008 3:58 am

    Fermin:

    Ito rin ang reklamo ko sa panulat ni Ginoong Caparas. May mga pagkakataon na nagkukulang siya sa research at ang nagiging resulta ay hindi ka-aya-aya. Pero hindi naman sa lahat ng pagkakataon ay palpak siya. May mga nagawa rin siyang maipagmamalaki ng ating naglahong komiks industry. Ang problema siguro’y dahil sa dami ng ginagawa niya noong mga serials. Sige na lang nang sige, at ito’y very detrimental sa quality ng kanyang panulat. Sana naman, kung may maipapayo ako sa kanya ay ito: Magdahan-dahan ng pagsulat, pero tiyaking lahat ng butas ng kasaysayang isinulat ay matakpan. Kasi nga, dahil sa pagmamadali, ang mga butas ay kabi-kabila at napupulaan tuloy siya ng mga kritiko. Alam kong may talino sa pagsulat itong si Caparas. Kailangan lang niyang maging mabusisi sa mga detalye dahil sa parteng ito ay makikita natin ang kaibhan ng ginto at basura.

    Napapailing na lang ang mundo sa mga kabalbalan minsan ng ating local komik talents, pero marami rin ang mga tunay na may talent.

    On the other hand, now that JONAH HEX is becoming a film with Josh Brolin as Hex, I don’t suppose Mr. Tony de Zuñiga will receive some compensation as co-creator, either.

    I think what really takes the cake with the Steve Gan case is that he actually had an input in the whole concept of the the story? But even this, we’re not so sure exactly as to what extent his contribution was in the serial.

    The problem the publishers are facing is this: if a writer submits a story with all the characters delineated as to how they should look and what sort of persona they have, the illustrator is drawing the original idea from the writer. And as far as publishers and even copyright laws are involved, the author is the one who wrote the story and who also created the characters in the story. The illustrator will and should own the drawings, but not the story.

    Because it involved teamwork, it becomes a very sticky situation as to whom shall the credit go.
    Until now, if a writer created everything without the input of the illustrator regarding character appearance, personality, etc., the writing credit will surely go to the writer.

    There is one solution, however, for this problem.
    The Illustrator should also write his own story, thereby getting all the credits to himself. But then again, how many illustrators have the talent of writing stories?

    And the writer who can’t draw?

    Well… there’s always prose to fall back on. Mind you, prose is still the strongest type of fiction reading material around. So they can’t go wrong writing fiction. If they just itch to have drawings in their book, why not do the Stephen King way of having some sort of gorgeous illustration in the beginning of every chapter?

    It might take sometime, even decades, and probably NEVER… that an illustrator will be included in the credit as a co-creator, unless that illustrator is also the CO-WRITER of the writer.

12. Fermin Salvador on October 21st, 2008 7:08 am

    “The problem the publishers are facing is this: if a writer submits a story with all the characters delineated as to how they should look and what sort of persona they have, the illustrator is drawing the original idea from the writer. And as far as publishers and even copyright laws are involved, the author is the one who wrote the story and who also created the characters in the story. The illustrator will and should own the drawings, but not the story.”

    JM,

    I’m a writer but I do honestly symphatize with the illustrators’ cause. You’re right that the writer owns the story concept, the illustrator owns the “hard” drawing. The “concept” and the actual “canvass” are 2 distinct and different things — at least for copyright purposes. Even if in truth and in fact, drawing has abstract and “intangible” contributions to the popularity of a komiks story. No matter how detailed the writer may put it in his illustration guides the illustrator’s mind will still have to work to make sense out of plain texts which is what writer’s script is all about. We are speaking here of KOMIKS, not a prose novel where Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s or Hemmingway’s elegant passages alone are enough, independent of any other artistic condiments, for millions of readers to get sold. Caparas may be a good komiks writer but he’s no Marquez nor Ernest of Illinois (yes, Hemmingway’s from a Chicago suburb). Then again, we could put it this way: when you make a movie in Hollywood the writer usually get paid with amount that’s just a fraction of director’s take home. The immediate explanation is that all the writer has to do is to make a concept, a storyline, arrange it into acts, scenes, speaking lines and wallah! a check will be in the mail. How to make “real” sense out of the screenplay will be the director’s problem. And “real sense” would mean, if period story, knowing the right/accurate costumes, customs, sceneries, locations, even lingo. So applied to komiks — did the writer make the concept, the storyline, the captions, and lines but left to the illustrator (the directorial) work of putting “real” sense to all those texts? We all know that Capural is a writer-director and we need not deal more about his writing-directing capabilities. The important question is: did he wrote and directed as well in regards to komiks products “primarily” attributed to him?

    Or, what’s worse: That traditionally, there never really was a need to make “real” sense out of what was put in the pages of our komiks?

13. jose Mari Lee on October 21st, 2008 9:14 pm

    Caparas – a Marquez or Hewingway?

    Holy cripes on toast. Not even close. My basis on saying he had written some good ones are only based upon the standards of better works we’ve seen in our local komiks. And if Caparas had written 5,000 serials and I can safely say 3 or 4 are good and 1 is very good, what does it mean? Many may disagree with me on this but this is my own conclusion. The VERY GOOD rating I am giving goes to ANGELA MARKADO. The good rating goes to AKO’Y LUPA, SOMEWHERE, TILL DEATH DO US PART. many were simply hack writing, lacking in thorough research and higher consciousness, so to speak. And let’s face it, the komiks materials we’ve seen since time immemorial are not really comparable to the obras of Garcia Marquez or Hemingway. After all, no komiks reader would be bothered, for instance, by an old man trying to capture a big fish. He-he. They’ll be bored to death. But prose readers are enthralled by the way things are described. Also, since there are more prose readers than komiks readers, more people tend to consider komiks less appealing for them than prose fiction. That’s why if a writer really wants to have wide readership worldwide, he/she should write prose fiction.

    The point of contention over the demarcation line of writing and/or drawings remains the status quo because in the old days, writers and poets created their masterpieces without the aid of an illustrator. This consciousness remains in the minds of people that even now, the credit goes to the writer or poet if he/she wrote a prose or poetry.

    We can say for example, that without any drawings, readers have visualized Shakespeare’s three witches in Macbeth through the author’s description alone. We’ve known Doctor Faustus the way he was described to us by Christopher Marlowe, sans drawings. We’ve come to know Stephen King’s DOLORES CLAIBORN by simply reading the way the author described her, minus the drawings.

    Thus, copyright is also protecting the writer. He thought of the character, it is therefore clear that the writer owns that character and the universe where the character has placed by the author.

    This awareness has been with us since the early days of world lit, and therefore, will be difficult to change overnight.

    That’s why the only solution really, is to do a WILLIAM BLAKE act: write your poetry and draw them as well.

    Kaya ang labas: Katha’t guhit ni WILLIAM BLAKE.
    I think it will be more advantageous these days to do komiks in the William Blake fashion. This way, the author will have a total control of his material, and there will be no squabbles whatsoever. In fact, all artists should learn how to write and all writers should learn how to draw. They should all be another FV COCHING, ALCALA, RUBEN YANDOC, ELPIDIO TORRES, VIRGILIO & NESTOR REDONDO, AMADO S. CASTRILLO, GERRY ALANGUILAN, GILBERT MONSANTO, RANDY VALIENTE, ROBBY VILLABONA, NOEL F. LIM, ARNOLD ARRE, TEDDY PAVON, MARBEE (not to be confused with Jollibee)
    and others.

    On the other hand, the emergence of the “auteurs” in cinema is another kettle of fish. The 1950s-era saw the emergence of auteurs during the Italian filmmakers’ invasion of Hollywood, taking with them neo-realism. From then on, a director’s films reflect that director’s personal creative vision. And even the screenwriter’s job was also modified. Before the emergence of these so-called film auteurs, writers DIRECTED in their scripts. They cut their scenes according to shot. They described close up, medium shot, etc. Nowadays, a writer will only write his screenplay using MASTER SCENES. It is up to the director to divide them. And this makes more sense, because the director is there right on the set.

    But, with this change, there is no contention between writers and directors. The conflict usually hapens only when the director changes the material drastically that the writer is given the credit as the writer, when the changes made by the director sucked like hell and the writer gets the rotten tomatoes in the end.