mababang langit

BLTXXX happened over the weekend, and things went so well the party literally spilled over into the street. i was kind of alarmed when i arrived (around 10 pm), seeing all those people milling around and blocking one lane and a police cruiser happened to be driving past ilyong's with its lights flashing. i thought maybe someone had overdosed on irony or something. photo by michael david later, adam david told me that some barangay officials had dropped by and offered to move everyone into the neighborhood basketball court. that would've been a laugh. he also said they'll probably need a bigger venue next year. an encouraging sign. i ended up buying more than i sold, as usual, but hey, viva xeroxography. i also wish i had the budget to support our prose bros, but, sorry, my panel pals come first. note to self: think of better smalltalk than, "hi, nice to meet you. i bought your comic." or at least, do not say this while the person is holding a browsing ...

if you add one blog to your subscriptions this year, make it teacher's pwet by motsmots. it's a hilarious, heartwarming, inspiring webcomic about a the life of a "barrio teacher." i really can't recommend it enough. someone give this guy a book deal! someone invite him to komikon!

mr. sheffer, thank you for selected shorts. listening to it helped me through many a rough time. thank you for showing me the special quality of a story told, the magic of a story heard, and the gift of a speaker of stories, of whom you were one of my favorites. yours in tears and laughter, macoy

aklas isip posted a rebuttal to yesterday's post here , which can be summarized in his closing quotation: "everything you know is wrong --god." not surprising, coming from aklas. it's actually a small comfort to debate with people and know exactly what expect to hear from them. jerald uy also responds : "the issue isn't really that i said komiks is dead, macoy is just out to get me!" sorry jerald, not everything is about you. and don't blame me, you put your own foot in your own mouth.

as a comics fan and someone who makes self-published comics, i've spent the last decade or so watching pinoy komiks redefine itself and struggle to bounce back from the 90's malaise that saw mainstream comics dwindle down to near zero. i've watched the independent komiks scene, led by creators like budjette tan, gerry alanguilan, arnold arre, carlo vergara and the komikon team, make slow, gradual progress toward establishing itself as critically and financially viable. komiks shifted business models, moving from the banketa to the bookstore,  the newfangled comics convention circuit, and the web. and yet, some people still insist that pinoy komiks is "dead." their definition of death varies slightly, but the thought remains the same. the longtime komiks blogger/s who goe/s by the name "aklas-isip" posted a blog titled "WHY THERE IS STILL NO COMICS INDUSTRY IN THE PHILIPPINES Part 1" late last october, where he/they stated: "...we...

how do you drive this thing?

 my respect for mr. brand just went up several notches. via

right click on image --> open link in new tab to enlarge character sketches for a story idea about a bunch of tweenage mythological creatures going to a magical high school that is nothing like hogwarts. this is waaay down the line, with so many issues of school run still to go (i pretty much have the entire plot for school run all finished in my head, just need to set it down on the page). i just wanted to call dibs on the concept, and a few specific ideas. still deciding on a working title... "lamanglupa high" "aswang academy" "my PE teacher is a tikbalang"

Hominid from Brian Andrews on Vimeo  is an animated short featuring  "photo composites made from human and veterinary images creating hominid creatures."  

care of birdhouse bakers . yet another really cool komikon thing i missed.

i love it when people point out elements of my comics that i wasn't aware of as i was making it. case in point: taal volcano monster. i don't remember which komikon it was that carljoe told me he was writing a paper about that character (but i seem to recall that my first thought was something akin to, "psh, good luck.") and he asked me whether the "atsetse"-type comedy of tito, vic and joey had any kind of influence on the humor in that book. a light bulb went off in my head then, because TVJ was a huge comedic inspiration to me growing up. some people have monty python or bill murray, i had T.O.D.A.S. and "send in the clowns." it was by watching their stuff that i saw the power of being able to make people laugh and imagined that maybe i could do the same. in that conversation with carljoe, i realized (and he mentions this in his paper) that taal monster fits into a specific comedic tradition--not out of any conscious effort on my part, that ...

a few weeks ago, ubergeek  carljoe javier (that's him on the left) flew to mansfield college, oxford, UK to present a paper on taal volcano monster . yup. academic paper. oxford. taal volcano monster. three concepts i never would have put together in my wildest dreams. the paper is titled  " Filipino Humour and the Filipinisation of Foreign Tropes in Macoy’s  Taal Volcano Monster vs. Evil Space Paru-Paro " and is pretty damn readable for a scholarly work. i didn't experience any college PTSD at all while reading it (or at least the draft available online ). so, wow, my everlasting gratitude to carljoe and the folks over at mansfield college. and my everlasting inggit to taal volcano monster, who has visited places i'll probably never reach.

underappreciated musician seeks greener pastures abroad, boo hoo what a tragedy. our teachers doctors scientists artists are underappreciated and seeking greener pastures abroad. you know who never do? politicians showbiz folk now you can weep.

i find it pretty pathetic that almost all my blog content these days is inspired by stuff i read on facebook.

...in-game, the year is about 4,000 AD. Only three remaining super powers remain, each competing for the scant resources left on the planet after dozens of nuclear wars have rendered vast swaths of the world uninhabitable wastelands. The polar ice caps have melted 20 times due to nuclear wars and all of the big cities have crumbled. Roughly 90% of the worlds population (at its peak 2000 years ago) has died either from nuclear annihilation or famine caused by the global warming that has left absolutely zero arable land to farm "I was forced to do away with democracy roughly a thousand years ago because it was endangering my empire. But of course the people hate me now and every few years since then, there are massive guerrilla uprisings in the heart of my empire that I have to deal with which saps resources from the war effort." The military stalemate is so tight and balanced that no other action is possible except the construction of more tanks. This also me...

"Finally I have gotten around to reading one of the word-of-mouth sensations of the recent Komikons. First of all this must be said: listen to the hype, because it is deserved. Do NOT let the simplistic cover illustrations deceive you (as I was initially deceived).   Zombies roaming the Philippines? No problem. Live around it, as we always do. Thus Pinoys have learned to establish surge warnings, put up barriers, create tough buildings, make anti-zombie pills, etc. However everyone also reaches a level of complacency about the drawn-out problem, and people start making mistakes." read the full review here . thank you for the compliments EK! i will take your closing words to heart: " Find this series, follow it, finish it!"  especially that last part, heh heh

kwentillion is summit publishing's attempt to kick-start a nonexistent local YA readers' market by offering a mix of comics, short fiction, and articles aimed at young readers. that's a heck of a daunting task that editors paolo chikiamco and budjette tan have set themselves to, but then these two know what it's like to build readerships where no one believed one could exist before. tan was instrumental in the 90's indie komiks movement, later parlaying that popularity into the crossover success that is trese, and chikiamco has championed pinoy sci-fi through his rocket kapre imprint. going back to the first issue: it is excellent. the comics alone are worth the cover price, and seeing them for the first time in full-size print is a joy. there are four stories in all: the last datu 's short-haired, dagger-wielding, aswang-fighting heroine (alexandra trese precursor, anyone? ) is out to assassinate the head of the aswang tribe that massacred her people. s...

photo by GeekMatic! comics superstar mark millar , writer of wanted, kick-ass , and the ultimates , was a surprise guest at this year's summer komikon, and he had the crowd guffawing with his opening quip, spoken in filipino: "How are you guys. I am Dingdong Dantes. Only a few know this, but I'm Filipino. I color my hair blonde to look caucasian. This is our secret!" (it should be explained that he was preceded onstage by local actor dingdong dantes, who has quite the female following.) millar went on to talk about how national bookstore won a personal appearance from him by ordering a truckload (or two) of his latest title  supercrooks, on which he collaborated with local comics heroes gerry alanguilan and leinil yu. thanks to carlo pagulayan for posting the video! EDIT: geekmatic!  posted another vid on youtube, it's got better audio. also, here's a link to mark millar's amusing manila journal . he seemed quite surpr...

1.) corona's conviction may not have been strictly a legal victory, but it was certainly a moral one. people in positions of power hardly ever get their comeuppance--i'll take what i can get. 2.) it remains true that powerful people can only be removed if they tee off enough powerful people of lesser influence, or one person of much greater influence.

ok, so let me bite the bullet and get this over with. school run #5 will not be available at tomorrow's komikon. i am sorry. i put off starting for too long, incorrigible crammer that i am. and by the time i started in earnest, dayjob-related stuff magically began to pile up. so i missed my self-appointed deadline for SR #5, i missed 24-hour book day, i chickened out of flipread's 24-hour komixathon, i chickened out of my contribution to the melon pinup anthology, i failed to do my unofficial komikon indies preview... aagh. my apologies to adam and benj and to everyone waiting to see what will happen to maki and the gang. SO, as i type this i am hurrying to finish yet another long-delayed project so i won't be completely empty-handed tomorrow (if i can find a photocopy shop that opens early, that is). it's a collaboration with a pair of young, very young, up-and-coming creators. still 7 or so pages to go!

knot? or knife ? well, ok, the knife guy didn't actually die. but the audience did applaud the realistic "special effects." i wonder if they were cheering for the hanging guy while he kicked and pissed his life away too.

just read a post over at boingboing about what would happen if all the cavendishes (the standard western banana, which are apparently genetically identical) in the world get wiped out, just as their predecessors, the gros michaels, did. the heir apparent? this little guy: isn't that a senorita?

from xkcd : i have never understood the attraction of tumblr. it's like a blog, only you can't comment?

brought to you by the la salle students behind panelmag , an online magazine about pinoy comics. i especially enjoyed his comparison of a long-term comics writer-artist relationship to marriage.

best nat geo headline ever.

i mean the book. spoilers. i was expecting to read about a heroine plunged against her will into a deadly game of combat and survival. but what i got instead is some kind of bizaare prom queen story. plain jane is selected! she is given a nice dress and is the center of everyone's attention! which hunk will she choose? will she become prom queen despite the odds? i did not like how katniss went from kitten-drowning outlaw to rose-kissing, dress-twirling, camera-conscious media darling literally overnight. can we please stop with the titles? "the boy who lived." "the girl who was on fire." howsabout "the reader who rolled his eyes"? i did not like how the other tributes had no personality at all. the strongest, funniest, most interesting character in the book was actually peeta. but with a name like that who cares. i did not like how the actual games' narrative was driven neither by the human interaction/tension amongst the tributes no...

if you grew up watching M.A.S.K. like me, you probably wanted one of these: (it's called condor, by the way) well, soon we may be seeing these things in commercial production: as close as it's going to get, i think.

discrimination against senior citizens? check. discrimination against the physically handicapped? check. way to keep it classy, PDI.

by andrael . her "team stannis" cartoons are full of win.

HOW TO CHASE A PAVEMENT 1.) Lie down on pavement. CONGRATULATIONS, YOU HAVE CAUGHT A PAVEMENT

"andaming tao" "kelan yung susunod na issue?" "philippine flag costume nanaman?" "alin dun si kajo?" "eiiii! si manix!" "meron bang polgas na stuffed toy?" "ano'ng devart mo?" ah, ikaw pala si ___________ sa devart!" "alin ang bago?" "dito ko lang nilagay yung laptop..." "ikaw ba yung artist?" "inaantay ko parin ang culture crash reunion" "ang mahal naman neto, xerox lang yan e!" lots more here

no wait, let me rephrase that... do you feel back to the future old? via

so a bunch of russian scientists have drilled into a vast underwater lake that has been sealed under four kilometers of ice for the past 20 million years. they expect to find forms of life that science knows completely nothing about. so i suppose no one knows what the new germs are going to do to our bodies. don't these guys read science fiction at all?

The tarsier, a small primate best known for its bulging eyes and quiet demeanor, has a secret: It's actually incredibly loud, particularly if you're a dolphin. Until recently, this fact was a mystery to humans because the tarsier has an ultrasonic scream, inaudible to human ears. Texas A&M anthropologist Sharon Gursky-Doyen stumbled across the find when she noticed that when the tarsiers opened their mouths to speak, she wasn't hearing anything. "She had the foresight to get hold of a bat detector, and she was able to get that vocalization on a recording," Ramsier said. The tarsiers now find themselves in an exclusive club in the animal kingdom. Bats, dolphins and whales are the best-known practitioners of ultrasonic communication, but some cats also use the high-frequency method to communicate with their baby kittens . via

i admit i got excited, watching the earlier parts of this with a naive hope that the troll might get some kind of comeuppance.  but once the veil of anonymity was lifted, all we found was... an unmasked troll, going about his trollish ways. via

in which the former master was most respectfully pwned. sound bites won't do it justice, but here's the intro posted by letters of note : In August of 1865, a Colonel P.H. Anderson of Big Spring, Tennessee, wrote to his former slave, Jourdan Anderson, and requested that he come back to work on his farm. Jourdan — who, since being emancipated , had moved to Ohio, found paid work, and was now supporting his family — responded spectacularly by way of the letter seen below (a letter which, according to newspapers at the time , he dictated).   Rather than quote the numerous highlights in this letter, I'll simply leave you to enjoy it. Do make sure you read to the end. read the full letter here .

Nielsen's apt description of the online reader: "Users are selfish, lazy, and ruthless." You, my dear user, pluck the low-hanging fruit. When you arrive on a page, you don't actually deign to read it. You scan. If you don't see what you need, you're gone. And it's not you who has to change. It's me, the writer. full article here. via 

1.) school run #5 2.) sino? 3.) 1- pager for free comic book day 4.) short comic for an all-ages indie anthology comics i am actually working on: 1.)

via

the above is a recently-unearthed, unreleased, 12-minute, um.... animated (?) adaptation of tolkien's the hobbit, produced by bill snyder . it's got an interesting "little golden storybook" look provided by czech illustrator adolf born, and a wacky, totally non-canonical plot c/o writer gene deitch. it's got a pretty twisted backstory, too, according to deitch: Why invest money, plus a year-and-a-half of work, when you can make money without all that sweat? Not only had the Tolkien estate lawyers given Snyder the rights for peanuts, but in their ignorance of film terminology, they had left a million-dollar-loop-hole in the contract: It merely stated that in order to hold his option for THE LORD OF THE RINGS, Snyder had to “produce a full-color motion picture version” of THE HOBBIT by June 30th 1966. Please note: It did not say it had to be an animated movie, and it not say how long the film had to be! so it's basically a cheap knockoff, only with...

hey DOT, i heard you spent P5M on your new ad campaign, and yet you used  let BBDO use a frikkin FREE FONT.

i love cliff chiang's wonder woman, i think it doesn't get nearly enough praise for saving her look after those jim lee/tv pilot travesties. BUT this post is about chiang's old-school anime-inspired JLA re-designs, which, according to chris arrant , were almost greenlit by DC years ago. oh, what could have been. BTW, chiang also did this awesome all-DC, all-girl rock band pinup. gods, but i love a good fictional character rock band pinup.

this is the january 2012 issue of FHM philippines, and i am totally in it. now there's a sentence i never expected to type out, ever. and the best part is, the other side of the page i am on is totally safe-for-work and i can show it to my parents after i tear it off! many, many thanks to jed gregorio and frantz salvador! (right-click on the image below and select "save as..." to download the hi-res image) right-click and "save as" to download hi-resolution image

this blog post first showed up on my facebook newsfeed two days ago. i read it, hated it, ignored it. after all, you don't feed the troll. however, as more people kept re-sharing and it showed up under my "top stories" again and again, i began to wonder why these intelligent, sensible people would share such condescending, inflammatory drivel, much less claim to agree with it. sometimes when we read something that, on the whole, jives with our own established preconceptions, we stamp our approval on it and say "agree", without bothering to take a closer look at the finer points of the writer's arguments. in this case, look, we all have our long-standing disappointments with philippine cinema. but do you really, really agree that pinoys are dumb because our films are dumb? because that is ilda's thesis statement. it's right there in the opening paragraph. you market your comics/writing to basically the same audience. do you consider your aud...

so the family and i watched enteng ng ina mo the other night, and you know what? it wasn't that horrible.  while it's true that everything falls apart by the third act, the intial premise was actually quite promising: enteng kabisote, ordinary juan and butingtingero by trade, is growing weary of having to save encantadia, homeland of his fairy wife faye, all the time. he just wants an ordinary life with his family. this yearning, plus the latest magical crisis in encantadia (they happen about once a year, around december), causes a falling-out between man and wife. to drive them even further apart, the obviously-named villain satanna then tails enteng to a drinking session and sneaks a love potion into his drink, causing him to forsake his wife and pursue ai-ai's character, ina montecillo. now that isn't a bad setup, but sotto is clever enough to know that moviegoers won't be going to the cinema to watch enteng's character resolve his heroic dliemmas. wh...

happy new year, y'all.