mababang langit

apparently it's been out there for quite a while, but i've only just found out. best played at work, set at the highest difficulty, with the speakers at full volume. play it here .

reyes from operasyon, by josel nicolas . i love how josel's reyes looks so different but feels so right. a speak-softly-big-stick kind of maskot by dj legaspi . love the psyched kids and horrified parent.

espresso comics magazine is a 40-page, black-and-white, weekly magazine that is given away for free to LRT passengers, ala PDI's libre! the first issue will be coming out on monday, june 21 and will be available at the following stations at around 4pm: Edsa – LRT 1 Cubao – LRT 2 Recto – LRT 2 more free copies will be given out the next day (tuesday) at the ermita and robinson's galleria branches of comic odyssey . the july 12 and july 19 issues will serialize ang maskot in two parts. we're currently working on toning down some of the obscenity for public consumption. :p what really excites me about espresso is that it's completely free. there's no reason for people not to read it and pass it on. the first print run will be 50,000 copies. if that number stays constant it means 100,000 people might get to read my comic. that is a mind-numbing number to me. and i'm getting paid, too! more than i could hope to earn in several years of indie conventions and consign...

and i just remembered i have a blog. so the kids are back in school. i should get back to running, something i promised myself i would keep up during the summer but did not. i sat on my ass for two months and all of a sudden one day decided a stand-up desk setup was for me and without any kind of preparation stayed on my feet for 6-8 hours a day. my right ankle did not like it and on the fourth day it swelled up and now i am neither running nor standing very much at all. i've been writing a weekly-ish column for the philippine online chronicles, mostly about komiks. i should start working on the next issue of school run, due out at MCC in august. i've got stuff appearing in certain publications, which is very exciting for me but will be spoken of in detail at another time. first things first: if all goes well i will be at toycon on sunday, selling comics and ogling toys that i cannot afford.

metakritiko 's resident pop culture critic and all-around really smart guy adam david has been writing a series of articles on pinoy cartoonists, including manix abrera, josel nicolas and myself: Macoy’s is a world populated by people stuck in ruts of their own making, living less than exciting lives, either deeply unhappy or regretlessly resigned to their stations in life. The keys to their salvation are mundanely everywhere – birds, soiled clothing, a driverless bus – if only they’d pick up on it, if only they have the desire – the will, the ability – to change both themselves and their lives. And that is what’s important in Macoy’s stories, especially in Ang Maskot : the story stems from decisions the characters actively make, whether for good or for bad... they make their own decisions, they glean their own meanings. It is a thoroughly humanist agnostic worldview rendered as shapes on paper. in a word: whoooooaaaaa. full article here .

my comics are now available at waku-waku anime hobby shop , located at the fbr arcade on katipunan avenue, near ateneo gate three. maraming salamat sir joma! http://wakuwakuhobbies.multiply.com/

i promise this will be the last youtube vid in a while. it's just too heart-wrenching to pass up. he-man's (or rather prince adam's) rendition of the 4 non-blondes hit, what's up? :

mental note: friday night signings? not a good idea. everyone's out having lives. thankfully the following distinguished individuals were present to provide their company and stimulating intellectual discourse: that's me at left, then michael david and andrew villar. gio paredes and johnny danganan. note the beer bottles on the table, the contents of which contributed significantly to the quality of our conversation. topics discussed were what you would expect from a bunch of guys with two or three red horse in them, and very little of it is fit to retell on this blog. i myself did not partake in the drinking, owing to my ethanol allergy (i swell up like a bad circumcision). but i did laugh so much it made my jaw hurt. michael david in particular is an inexhaustible font of kabulastugan. chez fidelino, manix abrera, johnny and jonas diego. manix was constantly getting ribbed for being popular with the ladies, and being popular in general. i wonder if he's gotten used to th...

and speaking of monkey business, the sputnik signing is tonight!

with subtitles, naturally.

as the guy on topless robot said : Dear Hollywood dipshits: This is how you do it. xoxo, -Rob

check out this sweet poster by ambush creator andrew villar . andrew, gio paredes and myself will be at sputnik comics on may 14, hanging out, signing stuff and basically taking up space. i'll be doing free sketches for anyone who asks. drop by if you have time!

it was madness yesterday at comic odyssey galleria's free comic book day event. i arrived around 11am and there looked to be about a hundred people standing outside the shop, while the interior was so packed you could throw in a coin and it wouldn't touch the floor. i saw one guy stumble out the door literally gasping for air while holding his credit card aloft. i kid you not. i was going to hand out some flyers to the people standing in line (better to get my message to them while their loot bags were empty, i thought), but sir sandy offered to put the flyers in with the other free comics they were giving away and i naturally couldn't refuse. it being my first FCBD, i was surprised at the number of free books. i was expecting the earlier-announced 3-5, but went home with no less than a dozen, including a maxx #1 and a beautiful edition of fractured fables with a mike allred cover. i hear some of the earlybirds received twice that number, including more than a few GNs tha...

so there's this online flash game where you get to play the classic super mario game, but using other nintendo characters like mega man, link from the legend of zelda , samus from metroid , castlevania 's simon belmont, and one of the guys from contra (spread gun!). newgrounds user exploding rabbit spent over a year putting this together. no word yet on whether the thirty lives cheat works. play it here via

made these watercolor paintings of google image search results. more via

haven't posted any animal stuff in ages, so here's einstein , a three-day old pinto stallion from new hampshire that just claimed the title of world's lightest foal. he weighs 6 pounds and stands 14 inches high. makes me think of hammond's tiny elephant from the jurassic park novel. seriously.

via

so after baking the clay parts and painting the whole thing white ( here ), it's time to start painting in the details. at this point it dawns on me that i have absolutely no idea what i'm doing . i don't know how to mix paint or stroke the brush properly to avoid streaking or anything. i was literally reading the labels on the acrylic paint for instructions. not that being ignorant and unfit for the task has ever stopped me before... i temporarily took over the kids' work table so i could work in front of the TV. watching TV while painting is my official excuse. anyways, after a final coat of matte varnish this is what we have:

just dropped off copies of taal volcano monster vs. evil space paru-paro and school run #1 at sputnik comics in cubao.

previously i cut-and-pasted various parts to and from the munny, and my wrists hurt so bad from rubbing and molding sculpey that i decided to take a day off... which lasted several weeks. and so to continue... next step is baking the clay. but the head doesn't fit inside the toaster oven. so we make do. quote of the day: "is it supposed to smoke?" apparently not. after i die i want to get cremated. just to let you know. sanding the sculpey parts after they've hardened. spraying on some primer. and then a coat of white paint. drying them out. and this is what we have so far. as you can see the lumpy clay parts are still lumpy. sorry sputnik folks. tomorrow we paint in the other colors.