mababang langit

photo from spot.ph i think if carlos celdran had been sentenced for something like "disturbing the peace" or whatever, it would have been easier for his supporters to accept. then he would've only become some folk hero whose act of protest got slapped down by the man/bishop. still, attention won; issue raised: mission accomplished. but instead, this whole "offending religious feelings" affair has only muddled the issue even further. the rabid anti-catholics are having a field day applying the phrase to everything from the inquisition to pedophile priests. the CBCP, for their part, have yet to comment on the conviction, but remain as blithely pigheaded as ever, feting marcos' widow and such.

in its october 2012 isssue, glossy lifestyle mag preview acknowledged indie comics as one of 2012's noteworthy publishing trends. they also included  rob cham , the QBCCC crew , rommel estanislao , noel pascual , a.j. bernardo , and myself in their "creative it list" for 2012, "the who's who of up-and-coming talent in the culture scene"! says the blurb: click to zoom "We don't really have a proper comics industry anymore. The days of Darna and Captain Barbell are long gone, and it doesn't look like the economy is willing to support a return any time soon. But the comics fan looking for local flavor won't suffer a shortage of things to check out: The new breed of Filipino Komiks resembles the 'zines of the '90's, with crude black-and-white printing and stapled binding, But the content is great--most notable of the new creators is Macoy, whose books Ang Maskot, Operasyon , and School Run employ simple, cart...

i had the best, most amazing day of my life as a cartoonist yesterday: watching a bunch of wonderfully talented, extremely hardworking people turn a comic i drew into a movie. that is to say, yesterday was day one of shooting for "ang maskot," a short film being produced for competition in this year's cinemanila film festival. chris costello (of the much-missed sputnik comics) and mihk vergara are directing. i've been sworn to secrecy about many things, but i can tell you they've put together an ace production crew, a stellar cast, found some really great locations to match the scenes in the comic, and commissioned an actual jholeebird jingle that will make your ears bleed . i was graciously allowed to hang around the set, get in the way of the production staff, etc. and ogle the people while they were working. naturally my camera  chose that day to conk out, the pictures it took going from this: to this: to this. and that's jholeebi...