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komikon: homecoming 2023

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my kids grew up watching me make komiks, and at some point they started making their own, without prompting or instruction from me. eventually i redrew some of those comics (with permission) and released them at komikon alongside the original creators:   and then, as befits my bloodline, a decade went by without any new issues. BUT then sometime after puberty, they started fooling around on my old drawing tablet, and lo and behold, they maketh pinups, and it was good. so i offered to sell some of them at my komikon table this past weekend.   and people bought them, like mike! thanks mike. (mike has a new comic book out, check it ) people also bought copies of aswang high...all the copies i brought, in fact! cy and i also received our very first fanart, ever. i was touched. thanks marco! you had some great questions! komikon was held at the UP college of fine arts gallery, and there were a bunch of greek-style statues scattered around the venue. it was the most number of penises and n

how to get your comics published in the philippines (based on my experience)

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  want to make comics get introduced to the local komiks scene, in my case, komikon early 2000's find somewhere online to talk with other comics-minded people be friendly realize that komiks creators are just a bunch of ordinary dudes (it was mostly dudes back then) "if they can do this i can too" pirate stuff to read (had been doing this for years at this point actually) learn things online pirate stuff to draw with have a college roomate move to america and bequeath you their old pen tablet held together with scotch tape make the damn comic try not to care about it too much sell the damn comic be friendly get noticed by other komiks creators. if you can catch gerry alanguilan's eye that's a good sign consign your comic anywhere that will have it make more comics (?) get asked by some friendly comic shop owners if they can turn your first comic into a film never stop beating that particular horse get noticed by more people in positions of power (critics, editors,

komiket ortigas 2022

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    sometimes you don't know what you got till you lose it; sometimes you don't realize what you lost till you find it again. komiket let me hang around their table and try to hoodwink modern-day readers into buying some early 2000's black and white indie comics. i also had issue #1 of the new school run series (reinterpreted by ardie aquino), but for me it was all about seeing how my old work piqued the interest of the new crowd. they had almost zero interest. still, had tons of fun catching up with komiks people new and old. such a small venue, smaller than bahay ng alumni where it all started, yet so meaningful.

four things we can learn from the success of TRESE

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1- overnight success takes a long time the first issue of trese the comic came out in 2005, SIXTEEN YEARS ago. it was indie as indie gets: a photocopied comic put out by two guys at a comics convention. no publisher, no facebook page, nothing. basicallly all these guys started out with were talent, an idea, and photocopying money. then the indie sold well enough to attract a publisher, and with that came something completely unquantifiable yet immeasurably important: mainstream respectability. and after THAT came acknowledgement from the local establishment in the form of awards, news features, merch. it's important to note that throughout all of this, tan and baldisimo kept churning out content with consistency and quality. over a thousand pages, on time, for over a decade. and then they found a producer. who shipped the IP around for years before finally landing the netflix deal. so that, to my understanding, was trese 's road to netflix, each step only made possible by the

"Kainin ko pa yang ashfall na 'yan. Pati 'yang Taal na 'yan, ihian ko 'yan."

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gerry alanguilan, 1968-2019

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it would be difficult to overstate the effect sir gerry has had on today's pinoy comic book industry. he was uniquely suited to act as a guiding (if curmudgeonly) voice for pinoy komiks during its troubled transition from the old bangketa model to the dynamic multi-outlet market we have today. through his influential blog , message board (the now-defunct PKMB), and personal connections here and abroad, he helped gather around him the generation of komiks creators that would establish the "indie komiks" scene. a lot of people talked about reviving pinoy komiks back then, but i don't think anyone did more to actually bring that dream about than sir gerry. i stopped making komiks several years ago, and one of my last purchases at the time was this: inside were autobiographical stories about a couple of stray dogs he adopted and how one fell ill and died, and about how sir gerry first learned that his kidneys had begun to fail, the crisis that stemmed from that,

the last filipino

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this comic was a finalist in a recent comics-making contest held by the french embassy. the theme was "manila 2050: city of the future."

everything important i learned from sesame street.

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yes, reading and counting and other life skills , but also an appreciation of music and animation , and a deep love for silliness. the "milk song" gave my six-year-old self my first taste of melancholy, though i'll never be able to explain why. diversity and getting along. linda was the first "handicapped" (as was the term at the time) person i ever saw. being smart is a good thing. dealing with loss . and then there's kermit the frog. one of my earliest memories is an image of kermit that my mother had cut out of someplace and scotch-taped to the inside of my crib. today i've got kermit in my soul. from his "breaking news" reporter sketches i absorbed an exasperated yet ultimately hopeful world view, a sense of humor that hoped for the best and took the worst with a crumpled face but with dignity intact. i was a lonely kid, and like many lonely kids i found solace, instruction, and a sense of belonging in fictional worlds that i

school run now online!

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i made a tumblr (late to that particular party, i know) for anyone who hasn't read my school run series. the first issue's already up and i'll be updating a page a day until it's caught up.

rise and fall of a real-life superhero

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costumed do-gooder phoenix jones is retiring . My whole life has been about making a balance.. in the end, there is not a balance. I’ve seen it on the streets. I’ve seen what people do to each other. And I live with it every day. Every day I live with horrible, horrible things. And I think to myself, ‘I made a difference.’ But I didn’t make a difference.

komiket 2019

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my first comic convention in a while. i have much to learn, and relearn

the mascot

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ang maskot

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click here for english version

i guess i'll be making comics again.

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the story pitch i submitted to komiket's first philippine international comics festival made it into the finals, and i couldn't be happier. i'll be working with the awesome cy vendivil , who generously agreed to lend his talents.
on the air pa pala si triggerman. he was doing his old bit, "the top 20 at twelve,"  only it was on a different radio station, and he was doing a buzzfeed-type list ("20 infuriating friends you find on social media") instead of counting down the most-requested songs, and the "twelve" was twelve midnight instead of the radio primetime lunch hour. he was even using the exact same "triggerman!" and "the top twenty at twelve!" soundbites from, what, thirty years ago? it's like he had resigned himself to a very specific circle of hell where we was doomed to play the same bland 90's music surrounded by sad affectations of his past fame. i listened for an hour until about midnight, after which cherry woke up and changed the station.