ELMER will be released both in North America and Europe from two different publishers at the end of 2010.

SLG Publishing (formely Slave Labor Graphics) will be publishing ELMER in North America and other English speaking territories of the world in November 2010.

SLG currently offers the first 30 pages of ELMER for free via downloadable PDF File.

Official SLG Publishing Site
SLG Publishing Facebook Page

Editions Çà Et Là will be publishing a French language edition of ELMER in France and other French speaking territories of the world, also at the end of 2010.

Official Editions Çà Et Là Website
Editions Çà Et Là Facebook Page

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“Where Bold Stars Go To Die” written by me and illustrated by Arlan Esmeña will be adapted as an independent film by Lem Garcellano, fresh from directing “Tin-tin, 15″. We’re at the early stages of production, currently adapting the story into a Tagalog screenplay. More on this soon!

Where Bold Stars Go To Die Info

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Now that’s out of the way, I gotta admit, I just kinda shat in my pants. Holy shit 2010! Where have you been all my life??

“Tin-tin, 15″ is produced by Plan International to raise awareness of human trafficking, specifically trafficking of children in the Philippines. It depicts the true to life case of one such victim and the fact that guilty parties are attempting to escape prosecution.

I sincerely hope that “Bossing”, the character that I play will be brought to justice in the soonest possible time.

Here are video snippets from the screening last night:

Now that I’ve put a deadline to bed, I’ll be posting more often on this blog soon enough. I have lots of ELMER news as well as news of a “Where Bold Stars Go To Die” film adaptation.

“Tin-tin, 15” will have its first public exhibition for FREE! at Mogwai in Cubao X at 9:00pm, June 27, 2010. Please check out the official movie site for more info, map, and RSVP.

There will be at least three consecutive showings depending on how many people show up. Around 30 people can be accommodated at the venue for each showing.

From the director Lem Garcellano:

Tin-tin, 15 is A short film based on a true story about child trafficking in a remote province far, far away in the galaxy.

Produced by Plan Philippines, Written and directed by Lem Garcellano, Videography by Rolly Perez, Light design by Hector Lopez, Production design by Medel Templonuevo. Performances by CJ Domasig as Tin-Tin, Angeli Bayani as Pam, Lumeng Medrano as Mamang, Gerry Alanguilan as Bosing and Natasha Cabrera as Joyce.

Artists included in this signing are Macoy (School Run, Mascot), Andrew Villar (Ambush) and Gio Paredes (Kalayaan).

And speaking of Sputnik, the little Cubao store that’s becoming a mecca of underground and indie comic book creators, it’s one of the featured locations in Arnold Arre’s newest short film “Kaye for Komiks”. You can see it in the trailer below:

Mabuhay ang Sputnik!

Naturally, I made a video of my experiences.

Thanks to Jonas Diego and Aya de Lasan for additional videos and photos.

I played a really, REALLY bad guy.

Johnny Danganan (playing a straight guy), Jonas Diego (playing a drunk beerhouse customer), and Neil Cervantes (playing a naked guy cavorting with girls) are my friends from the comics world who went along for the ride. In fact, it was Jonas who got me for the gig. I believed I would only be an extra, but when I got the script it turned out I was part of the main cast with lots of freakin’ lines.

It was an incredible, amazing, energizing experience for me and I met a lot of new friends along the way.

My hat’s off to director Lem Garcellano and his close gang of collaborators Hector (the lighting guy), Rolly (the cameraman), Aris (assitant director), and the whole crew for making the production run like a tight ship. It was all very professional, but at the same time incredibly fun. I spent a lot of time waiting, but it was great watching the others work.

There are probably a hundred small tales to tell that sum up how awesome the last two days were for me. I’ll probably just make a video.

Jonas has a bunch of photos at his Multiply page.

All throughout this, I have of course been continuing to work on these comics projects. It’s been kinda crazy. I was counting on the Internet to you know, de-stress and relax. Then this Caparas thing hit and you know, how can I relax with that going on, and how can I just sit here and say nothing? To say and do nothing means I agree and go along with it.

I think I’ve said plenty in the last two weeks. If anyone wants to see how my posts have developed on this CJC issue, just click on the appropriate box on the left column.

Well, enough of that for now.

Ninoy Aquino was assasinated 26 years ago today. Wow, has it been 26 years? I still remember that day. I was young and I didn’t know better. I didn’t know who Ninoy Aquino was and how much of a big deal his dying was. I asked my dad at dinner that night who Ninoy Aquino was and he shushed me quiet, and said not to mention that name as “people were listening”. How times change, and how lucky you people are today not to have to be afraid to mention mere names. That’s how it was back then. Believe me, you don’t want to go back.

And how many years has it been since Titanic? 12 years? James Cameron is back with his first feature length film since Titanic, AVATAR. And the trailer is here! So, what do you think? Although I’m looking forward to that, I’m actually more excited to see Peter Jackson dialing it down with Lovely Bones. Trailer here!

For those who missed the announcement, the next Komikero meeting will be on August 30.

I’ll be posting more stuff on Francisco V. Coching in the coming weeks.

It’s me and Ilyn again this time around, and yeah, as with all our podcasts, it’s in mostly Tagalog.

Download audio file (startrekpodcast.mp3)
54 Minutes. 52MB Download mp3 here.

Thanks to Azrael, me and Ilyn were able to watch Star Trek last night at the IMAX cinema at the SM Mall of Asia. When Az first sent the email asking if I wanted tickets to an IMAX showing of the movie, I immediately said yes. How could I not? I’ve been a life long Star Trek fan. It was one of the very first shows I ever saw as a youngster. I still remember our old black and white TV, and peering out of it was William Shatner as Kirk, fighting with Romulans in the original episode “Balance of Terror”.

The tickets were for an advance screening courtesy of SciFi and other sponsors. Apparently SciFi channel is launching on local cable. Will there be Star Trek on the channel? I’m assuming there would be since they carry it in the US. I hope they carry Doctor Who as well. It’s about time the good Doctor made it to our shores, at least the new Doctors. Ah, Doctor Who, the things I can write about it, but that’s for another article. At any rate, it ultimately won’t matter to me because we don’t have cable.

It’s my first time at an IMAX theater and I was astounded at how huge the screen was. Almost equally astounding was how close we were to the screen. Our seats were on the third row, and I wondered what it would be like watching from that close. The last time I was that close to a screen was when my friend Eclipse and I watched Tango and Cash in 1990 from the first row at SM Centerpoint. It wasn’t a nice experience.

SPOILERS

The Star Trek movie itself, well, oh my God, the movie was simply magnificent. Truly, absolutely magnificent. As a Star Trek fan, I’m completely happy with it. I initially had concerns about continuity issues, but that went out the window when I realized continuity was perfectly preserved. Yeah, in spite of George Kirk dying before his time, in spite of Amanda dying before her time, and in spite of Vulcan being completely destroyed by a black hole, the continuity of Shatner and Nimoy’s Star Trek is untouched. That’s the beauty of it. As any Trek fan who has already seen it would know, with the entry of a future Romulan ship into the past, an alternate reality was created.

It’s a reality that’s very very similar to the original series, with characters that are very very similar to the original characters, but as far as storytelling goes, anything can happen from now on. It’s an alternate reality, a parallel universe. The fact that old Spock remains, he represents the old continuity and that it it’s still valid and true, somehow, somewhere.

Alternate realities are nothing new to Star Trek of the original series. There’s the mirror universe in Mirror, Mirror. In TNG there’s the darker universe in “Yesterday’s Enterprise” and infinite parallel universes in “Parallels”.

It’s an old trick, and old gimmick but it’s very well done, and it’s a brilliant move by the filmmakers to allow them to continue unhampered by what has gone before. What’s great about this is that they don’t make it an excuse to change things. There are many things here that a long term fan like myself can recognize and appreciate. Kirk was Kirk, Spock was Spock and oh boy, McCoy was McCoy! Bruce Greenwood was awesome as Captain Pike.

The only thing strange that I noticed was Uhura as Spock’s girlfriend. What? What about T’Pring? Oh right, she might already be dead.

After the screening I was kinda speechless. I didn’t know how to react right away. I was in a kind of daze. I didn’t realize I was just completely stupefied. A brilliant film, and I can’t wait for future sequels. And I’m sure there will be.

So really, apologies to Brannon Braga. Franchise Rot, Genre Rot, Sci Fi Rot had nothing to do with it. Trek just needed better creators. Period.

All right then. IMAX. Whoever thought having seats that close to the screen in an IMAX theater should have his brain shrunk. As much as I loved the movie, I was struggling all throughout with the size of the screen. I could only focus on, at the very best, one third of the screen at any one time. There were many things I missed. The storytelling on the more fast paced scenes became somewhat incomprehensible to me. I have better than 20/20 vision but there were times when all I could see were fast moving colors and shapes.

The nurse/doctor that delivered Jim Kirk at the start of the movie was an alien with big eyes. And I didn’t know that at the time because everything else was so distorted.

Apart from being a comic book creator, I’m an Architect as well. And as far as acceptable design goes, that theater is a failure. I would not design a cinema in that way. Never mind the “standards” if the standards still fail. How much of a success is a cinema design if it doesn’t fulfill the primary and most basic goal of a cinema? Which is to properly show the audience a movie?

I should have gotten a better seat? The thing is, I shouldn’t have to get a better seat. All the seats should give a good and comprehensible view of the movie. If you have seats there that interferes with the message that the filmmakers want to give the viewer, then it’s not very good, is it?