mababang langit

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.

the komik ninja (also of jumpercable) posted some nice feedback a few days ago! "This is the one that is not the walking dead, and as it winds down to its conclusion, its unique attack on a difficult trope is why it is an important part of the indie age. "

meganon comics ' tepai pascual, who's set to break into the mainstream this year with visprint's publication of her opus maktan 1521, recently blogged about reading the latest few issues of school run: 'The depth of the story usually contradicts with his cute, doodle-like art style but still manages to convey the message to the readers—- spot on... The drama and the tension are written and visualized wonderfully. I couldn’t put it down! And of course at the end of it all, I can only say this—- “Seriously Macoy? Seriously?! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”' i love the gif with which she punctuates that last sentence:

so, got my face on a komikon poster and i guess it's all downhill from here. the maskot film and DVDs seemed pretty well-received, and by that i mean no one's complained about it, except maybe for that one social studies teacher at the panel (mediated by jason inocencio of and the geek shall inherit the earth ) who wanted to know why ketchup had to swear so much in that one scene. ketchup and i made long-winded explanations about maskot's pent-up rage and need for catharsis, and then direk chris just says "it was funnier that way." people seemed excited to get two new issues of school run , and to hear that the end is in sight with about four issues to go--that's only two more releases, if i can stick to two new issues per event. i feel rather proud of school run 6 and 7, the culmination of quite a bit of setting things up between robert and maki. still, it feels like i've been doing school run for a decade, and it'll be good to start on s...

(some spoilerish but general plot discussion here) the Hero is a man from a different time and place, and the world has changed without him. he is treated as a symbol of goodness, but his idealism seems antiquated. this leads him to doubt himself, although never his principles. the military complex adopts him, makes use of his powers, but he later learns that all is not as it seems.  the only person he can trust is his female companion, who is physically weaker but knows more about the world, and so helps him uncover the achilles' heel of the rogue military operation.  his nemesis, with whom he shares a unique shared past, is in many ways his equal in combat, but with the advantage of being completely ruthless. in the end, the hero triumphs not by destroying the baddie, but by convincing him that their shared history, what they have in common, is more important than their differences. captain america: the winter soldier is the superman ...

Terminus We've come back this season, at least those of us still alive Here within this Terminus we all hope to arrive I was a survivor from Cell block C, you were with the Governor of Woodbury and... You came down the tracks of the train and you walked by my side Shoulder up to shoulder that tunnel was 9 meters wide Oh my heart was screaming, walkers wanted to eat (us) Following my movements with a rock on your feet and... Oh, down toward Terminus all of us tread So, when were't at Terminus who will be dead?  "Won't you leave me, go find Maggie?" you ask of me then But I draw my gun and shoot a walker again We were all alone on a shooting spree Really thought my bullets would run out on me, but Maggie and some others came and made it rain lead Made sure that the walkers wouldn't rise from the dead Could have kept on walking my entire life But the season's ending so i'm back with my wife! And so we left for Terminus with one...

this article's  been popping up on my facebook feed repeatedly the past few days, to pretty much unanimous discontent. at the heart of the matter is executive order 255, which states: "all radio stations  shall broadcast a minimum of four original [F]ilipino musical   compositions in every clockhour of a program with a musical format." or to put it another way, stations have to allot about a quarter of every hour of airplay to local music. which, if you think about it, is pretty reasonable. TV ads get more airtime than that. so why all the negative comments? 1.) anything pnoy does is wrong. i'm not qualified to talk about that. 2.) i'll listen to what i want! no one's forcing anyone to listen to anything. they're forcing the station to play OPM one quarter of the time, thereby giving local artists more exposure (and/or royalties?), which hopefully leads to more income. is that so bad? the rest of us remain free to change the station, or pop ...

so the other day i was listening to this guy, who is about the most affable-looking heavy metal guitarist i've ever seen: and i thought, "gee, i can't even listen to that sort of arrangement and some of those riffs without thinking of 'head cha la'"... until i realized i was thinking of "head cha la" because the song actually sounded like "head cha la." so i tried singing the "cha la, head cha la" refrain instead of "let it go, let it go." it seemed to fit pretty well, so i thought, i should be working, why not make a mashup? i'd initially planned to lay the "head cha la" vocals over a "let it go" instrumental track, but couldn't find the former. luckily i found a "let it go" vocal track and a minus one of "head cha la" (the gino padilla version!) floating around on the web, so i threw those together in audacity : i had to slow down idina menzel's vocals by...

i finally got to see chris costello and mihk vergara's adaptation last saturday at cinemanila 2013 at sm aura in taguig. it was a tiny audience--just 30 seats(!)--but what an experience it was. with its stellar cast, liberal use of SFX (the little bird was animated by arnold arre!), and awesome music (including an actual jholliebird jingle, variations of which were used as theme music throughout the film), ang maskot feels like either an overachieving short or a full-length feature crammed into twenty minutes. the filmmakers are planning on additional screenings early next year, and a DVD release some time after. i can't wait for the film to be shown to a wider audience. here's a comic i made about my viewing experience:

well, chris costello and mihk vergara's short film adaptation of "ang maskot" unfortunately did not make the cut for this year's cinemalaya festival.  the directors, however, have their sights set on november's cinema one film festival, so we will be crossing our fingers that the film will fare better there. direk chris says the film's chances are pretty good, so, positive thoughts, visualizing, asking the universe, etc. that said, after the cinamalaya rejection, and with reboots being all the rage these days in hollywood, i think i'd like to do a reboot of "ang maskot," you know, to make it more palatable to local film fest judging panels. NOTES FOR ANG MASKOT: SOCIAL RELEVANCE EDITION 1.) instead of a fastfood restaurant mascot, the protagonist is now a gay dancer working in a seedy furry fetish gay bar, in which all the lights are tinted red. 2.) the manager is mean to the protagonist because the latter rejects the former...

it's 4 am and my brain is refusing to let me go back to sleep because it wants free comic book day to last a few extra hours longer. photo by chino andin FCBD at fully booked today/yesterday had something of that first komikon experience feel, only with air conditioning: new venue, new audience/market, and things were laid back enough to allow some pleasant jibberjabber with seatmates (doc carlo san juan and the QBCCC /flipreads crew--noel pascual, aj bernardo, josel nicloas, and later in the afternoon, trizha ko and charles tan). things i overheard: the first person in line outside fully booked had arrived at 1 am that morning the free comics ran out sometime past noon and they had to send some of the people waiting in line home empty-handed :( photo by mel casipit when i arrived at 11 am, things were already in full swing: the line outside snaked around the block, and inside, the building was jam-packed. i'd brought a laptop to play the  ang maskot  m...

TLDR: 1.) a 30% entertainment tax levied by the government throttled local cinema output and creativity in the 90's. bong revilla wrote a bill cutting that tax to 10% in 2009, so things are on the upswing of late. bong, you are forgiven for ang panday 2 . but only that. 2.) i wish diokno had talked more about how a screen quota system can be made to work in the philippines. i think it's disgraceful that iron man 3 is playing on 3 out of 4 of our neighborhood screens but when a man loves a woman   it takes a man and a woman  only played on one. 3.) films aren't just fluff. they bring jobs and contribute to the GDP. they advertise the philippines (philippine products, culture, tourism) to the world. and the world is starting to take notice. 4.) use your money to change pinoy cinema. watch good films. give negative feedback on bad ones.

flipreads is handing out the free comic book day edition of "ang maskot," which is a slightly sanitized version of the first half of the story. a pretty good way to check if it's worth buying the whole comic. thanks to charles tan and co. for helping get this comic out there! photo by renejoshua while you're at flipreads, be sure to also download the FCBD editions of robert magnuson's if-richard-scarry-did-superheroes book kuting magiting #1 , and josel nicolas and ej galang's lovely meditation on commuting, taking the train . both are excellent reads, and both are FREE .

photo by danry ocampo just dropped off a few copies of ang maskot and school run at comic odyssey's new shop at the basement level of robinson's galleria. note that the school run are sold in full sets of issues 1-5 for P200 each.

editor, writer, blogger, and world fantasy award nominee charles tan recently had some nice things to say about my comics: "Snappy and upbeat,  Ang Maskot  captures an element of the Filipino zeitgeist and weaves an adult narrative around it without falling into the temptation of cynicism. While it doesn't have as much depth as School Run  (and appropriately so since this is a self-contained story), it highlights many of the strengths of Macoy's comics. There's a lot to love about Macoy's  School Run . The art alone is an interesting juxtaposition between the bleak setting and iconic characters. But don't let the simplicity fool you: over the course of each issue, Macoy packs depth into his characters, at the same time imagining a setting that organically resonates with Philippine pop culture, such as the parallelism between the zombie outbreak and typhoons ( "Signal #1 Laaang? Sayang!" ). Or something as simple as naming a cat as Catniss....

all kinds of awesome. can't wait to see the inevitable talent show ripoff.

this blog is now complete. via

i'm very impressed with andoyman 's development as an artist and storyteller, from his journeymanish debut work, " foodcourt ," to the charming " palimos ng kulangot " (writtten by ronibats), to the considerably more sophisticated series he is currently collaborating with SuperGi on, " ang sumpa ." the protagonist, arman darte, has senators and the president of the philippines for childhood buddies, yet is "merely" an NBI investigator, so you know he's a man of honor. issues 1 and 2 establish a central mystery: the president of the philippines is found dead under strange circumstances. a birthday party held by senator edgardo hernandez introduces the rest of the barkada and the president's ostensibly loving wife (presumably the suspects), and gives darte the opportunity to show off his powers of deduction and observation. andoyman's visual storytelling is deft, confident, and well- paced. i love his semi-realisti...

free comics! and i don't mean one or two copies, i mean a fat bag full of lovely comics you get to take home without forking over a peso. no, check that, TWO fat bags. at left is the cover of this year's comic odyssey sampler, to which i contributed a 2-page story. the sampler will be available at the fully booked/comic odyssey event at the bonifacio high street branch of fully booked. also at the event will be the following comics folks: Dr. Carlo Jose San Juan (Doc Callous) Frances Luna III Illustration Firm (Manila Accounts 1081): Rh Quilantang (Hipon Gamay) Wan Mañanita (Ang Morion) Kai Castillo (Patintero) Mel Casipit (Mukat) Paul Michael Ignacio (Astiging Boy-Ipis) Aaron Felizmenio (Gwapoman 2000) Freely Abrigo (Kapitan Tog) Jon Zamar (Codename: Bathala) JP Palabon (Puso Negro) Macoy (School Run) Manix Abrera (Kikomachine) Melvin Calingo (Pasig) Michael David (Kubori Kikiam) Nelz Yumul (Shatter Space) Noel Pascual & AJ Bernardo (Crime Fighting Call Center Agents...

random footage by pinoy tekkie gerry alanguilan's komikon vid. 0:37 shows part of the The Great Komikon Proposal, featuring cartoonist lovebirds omeng estanislao and ails casis a feature on a trio of comics personalities, care of jerald uy and rappler.com more links and discussion over at sir gerry's summer komikon 2013 roundup post .