mababang langit

found this on bibliodyssey -- it's described as "Satirical anthropomorphic 'cartoons' from an ancient Egyptian papyrus manuscript". in his book understanding comics , scott mc cloud points out that ancient egyptian paintings often depicted a sequence of events and thus could be considered a predecessor of today's comics. this manuscript demonstrates another commonality--that of satirical intent. not only did the egyptians tell stories in pictures, they did so to make fun of one another, too!

because nothing says christmas like a reindeer shoved up your ass. via

made this awesome, awesome comic . there's also an awesome, awesome interview . can't wait to see more adventure time , it's a trip. herpich bros. blog here .

made this geeky marvel christmas card. never knew ben grimm was jewish.

have a great one y'all!

i was pretty excited to stumble across vibal's reprint of coching's el indio on amazon.com . world's biggest online marketplace, baby! but then i saw it was marked "unavailable". and then i read this in the description: "[The hero] joins a rebel group led by the enigmatic Kapitan Martin Castillo, who bequeths [sic] to him the salakot belonging to the infamous native outlaw Sabas." kapitan castillo, a tulisan commander? that's like saying darth vader led the rebel alliance. paging whoever writes amazon's product descriptions... get your shit together!

got some pictures in my email. i think they're about some sort of moving picture show. based on some comic book.

via

...with their penises.

you're a very special man, morgan freeman

budjette tan points out a usatoday article about whilce's latest efforts to bring local artists together: Portacio has two parallel missions: one, to establish the first professional network of Filipino artists and two, to activate this network for charitable causes. The network's main goal is to unite Filipino artists in order to gain recognition within the creative industries while, at the same time, creating career paths for future generations of art professionals. portacio goes on to spill the beans re: that renaissance thing next month: "It's a charity auction that will provide money to some of these artists who have fallen on tough times. I got the top Filipino artists together to create pieces for this auction. Their mission was to create a Filipino superhero. I told them, 'You're world-class artists, make a character that kids in the Philippines can look up to, can be inspired by.'" aha... too bad i had to get the details from a foreign newsp...

or is it the other way around? anyways, this made me laugh. click to zoom in. via

the Great Komiks Comeback sure has its work cut out for it. case in point: i asked the saleslady at national bookstore for the new lapu-lapu graphic novel republished by atlas, and she led me to an obscure corner of the textbook section, where coching's masterwork sat beside the elementary school newsprint editions of ibong adarna, florante at laura, etc. makes sense, yeah? graphic classics in filipino. but placing lapu-lapu in that section may well prove a death sentence, because no one browses those shelves . school curriculi keep balagtas in print, but coching is not similarly blessed by academia. so please, please someone ask national bookstore to display this book where it belongs, in the comics section, beside pugad baboy, kikomachine, underpass and other graphic novels! sigh. pictures: as you can see, atlas' lapu-lapu (6.2"x8.75") is significantly smaller than vibal's el indio (7.75"x11"). the smaller size means it's cheaper (a gr...

so atlas has released a couple of preview images for the lapu-lapu compilation that they don't seem to want people to know about (click to enlarge images): hooray, etc. etc. i hate to play the part of doomsayer but atlas' republishing foray fills me with dread. you can't just plop stuff onto bookshelves and pray for a miracle, you gotta market that shit. let's say times are hard and atlas doesn't have a budget. still, social media sites are free. blogs are free. sending out press releases is free. frickin' deviantart is free. anything, atlas! anything! and what happens if lapu-lapu doesn't sell? we can say goodbye to further reprints. and who loses out then? via

step one: run your comics monopoly to the ground. step two: don't try to revive the company with compelling new ideas. instead, make lame-ass copies of whatever other people are doing at the moment. superheroes are hot? make ATX . w.i.t.c.h. selling like hotcakes? come out with c.h.a.r.m . vibal publishes an el indio compliation? republish lapu-lapu . step three: don't let anybody know about your project. no press releases, book launches, blog posts, nothing. yes, your book must escape even google's all-seeing eye. step four: repeat step three for subsequent compilation releases.

ammathorn makes enigmatic, surreal comics in this scratchy, kinetic style that i can't keep my eyes off of. check out his deviantart here . barrio manifesto #2 is the only title of his i could find in comics stores. at P100 for 21 pages it is the priciest b&w indie out there i think, but man, this stuff looks awesome (click to embiggen): this metaphysical dream-tale unfolds as idiosyncratically as ammathorn's drawing style. it takes some getting used to, but part of the fun is putting the seemingly random bits together into a narrative whole. ammathorn's highly anticipated (by me) next book will feature agent knuckle, his supercool bullet-headed secret agent from heaven, going up against ol' jolly saint nick. he better watch out!

it's been a bad week for dealing with past addictions-- machinarium got me hooked bad. now i've been jonesing for more point-and-click... grim fandango looks promising. yeah i could try it out, just to taste. i can stop anytime i want. i quit fishkeeping a decade ago, thought i'd kicked the habit for good. but when the kids went on a field trip to bio research, those sneaky so-and-sos handed out free goldfish. free goldfish! now i could've been a pragmatic parent and flushed the things down the toilet right away; or a typical parent and bought a cheap fishbowl with plastic mermaid and hot pink "plants" and overfed the fish until they drowned in their own excrement; but oh no. once an aquarist always an aquarist. first we kept them in a punch bowl for a few days (100% water changes everyday, but not straight from the faucet, you let the water breathe for a day or so to reach room temp and release its chlorine). then i bought the smallest tank available (P19...