Clean Slate
Tuesday, October 24
KOMIKS REVIVAL
Komiks in the Old Neighborhood
Most young girls in the neighborhood I grew up in (Permaline Homes) read either Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys or Sweet Valley High and Sweet Dreams. Very few kids my age read beyond these books because the school libraries didn't have much variety, and buying books for leisure was out of the question for most struggling families in our neighborhood.
So when the mystery books and saccharine-sweet romance pocketbooks were all read, us kids turned to komiks. I'll always refer to the first comics I've encountered Funny Komiks, Wakasan, Hiwaga and Lagim as "komiks" simply because the experience of discovering them was completely different for me compared to the feeling of reading comics like X-Men and Swamp Thing in high school.
I didn't buy these komiks. I borrowed them from the sari-sari store near the neighborhood parking lot for 25 centavos a day. The condition of these newsprint komiks didn't stay mint, that's for sure. In fact, by the time I got to them, they'd be stained or crumpled. But as long as they were readable, nobody complained.
I read many stories in them that eventually became movies with Sharon Cuneta, Snooky Serna or Vilma Santos playing the protagonists. Come to think of it, many of the stories in those komiks had female protagonists -- unless they were superhero stories, which had mostly men as the main character. And a lot of the protagonists came from the lower or middle class, struggling to stay in school, earn money for the family, help in taking care of siblings. Even in Funny Komiks, much of the humor was based on the everyday life of the average Juan.
And almost always, the protagonist gets to live their dream: as a successful celebrity, a rich businessperson, a triumphant superhero -- and all this while keeping a healthy romance with the person of his dreams. These stories were mesmerizing, and it did thrill me a little to find bits and pieces of my own world in them.
I remember reading Ada, Bituing Walang Ningning, Planet Op D' Eyps, and many more. I would cower under the covers at night remembering the horror stories about spirits out for revenge, or psycho doctor-serial killers, or the Tikbalang.
The Facts of Life, Komiks-Style
Through komiks, I also had my very first exposure to pornography. One of my friends invited me and a couple of other kids to sneak up to her brother's room. Under the bed, we found a stack of komiks. There didn't seem to be any story in them, just situations where the man has an opportunity to undress the woman and have sex. We were aware that these people were naked, and that they were having sex -- I don't exactly know how we knew this at 8 years old -- but we did. But seeing it in komiks form seemed so oddly funny to all of us that I look back on it as a bizarre, fond memory, rather than something traumatic.
Growing up in an Ilocano-Ilonggo household with parents who mostly spoke in English, I owed komiks for much of my Filipino vocabulary and grammar. The writing ranged from formal Tagalog to colloquial expressions, so compared to other kids who were encouraged to speak English even at home, I did very well in both English and Filipino subjects.
The Comics Connection
When we moved away sfter my mother got a nursing job abroad, I lost touch with my childhood friends, and inevtiably lost my komiks connection. I was 13 or 14 years old when we left, and I wasn't able to get my komiks fix since. I began reading "more serious" books, discovered Eliot, Dickens, Doyle, Tennyson and Shakespeare. I found Filbar's in Sta. Lucia and started reading X-Men midstream, out of sequence. I fell in love with Swamp Thing, also read out of sequence.
But aside from these half-hearted comics forays, I felt lost. I didn't know anyone who was enthusiastic about comics, and the ladies behind the counters couldn't care less about the comics they were selling, much less recommend something I might like. Plus, I didn't want to spend so much for comics I wasn't very familiar with in the first place. There were no sari-sari stores renting comics out for 25 centavos anymore.
I only started reading comics again in college. Through a friend of mine, Ceres Abanil, I picked up Sandman: Seasons of Mist by Neil Gaiman. I met my future boyfriend and Hey Comics! editor Ramon, who introduced me to Alan Moore, Garth Ennis, Warren Ellis, Frank Miller and many other creators who slowly but surely had me falling for comics completely.
Around that time, Arnold Arre's Mythology Class also caught my eye, and I was floored to discover that we had local talent like him who went beyond the komiks I was familiar with in my childhood. In turn, this led to reading other local creators like Gerry Alanguilan, Budjette Tan, Whilce Portacio etc.
A Language I Can Understand
As much as I was (and still am) involved with poetry, comics simply captured my imagination, a constant source of inspiration. I'm not good at expressing myself visually and musically, so when I watch films or listen to music, I tend to focus on the words rather than the visual or aural aspect. But with comics, I find I can appreciate the marriage of words and pictures at the same level. Comics is a more organic experience for me than other artforms with a visual or musical component.
Of course, appreciating comics and creating it are two different things. Appreciation for comics doesn't always translate to becoming a good creator. But I want to try, anyway. I would say, like in poetry, I have come up with some "juvenalia" comics of my own (with Harvey Ong as artist). But I'm not completely sure that I can cut it just yet.
Making the Rounds: Komikon 2006
It was clear, however, during last Saturday's Komikon 2006 at UP Diliman's Balay ng Alumni, that there are many independent local comics creators who are definitely up to the task.
Gerry Alanguilan gives an overview of the experience Ramon and I had that day at Newsarama.
If we had our way, we would have bought comics from every creator present there. But I could only afford to get from the creators we already know and love, and from a few talents whose work sounded too good to pass up (e.g. "Askals" by Dodo Dayao and Bong Leal. Before the Komikon I had read their wonderful one-shot story called "Noisy Blood").
Mango Jam editor and literary fixture Karen Kunawicz, though a tad tired, found fulfillment in the work she's doing for the popular and best-selling comics of the Mango Comics line.
Our good friend, comics artist Harvey Ong, gave away copies of his latest work, Tri-Tech (written by Jamie Bautista), published by Nautilus Comics. Showing his work to American comics agent, David Campiti, Harvey came away from the experience relatively unscathed.
The Filipino as an (Derivative) Artist
It seems cliche to mention that many Filipinos are talented as visual artists. But the greater concern is not so much skill and talent, but sensibility. Looking through the works and talent in the Komikon, I noticed that many of the art and illustrations were too derivative of popular artists. And I'm not just talking about the manga-style of drawing.
Several artists parrot Dave McKean and Ashley Wood so much down to the subject of the illustration (cats, robots, half-naked women). And this is not all right. There's nothing wrong with taking inspiration from great artists, and learning from their style. But at some point, one's art has to grow beyond imitation into one's own sensibility.
As a writer, I have a collection of juvenalia: poems which I feel shouldn't be published into a "serious" collection because they smack too much of the Confessional writers I drew inspiration from. I will only publish poems which I feel have my own voice, finally. Poems that can't be called anyone else's.
So I find it hard to understand how some Filipino artists feel confident enough to publish or exhibit their work when it is clear that their styles haven't developed enough yet to merit sharing to a larger audience.
Is this a manifestation of the shortcut or puwede na mentality of Pinoys? Or is there really very little interest among these artists to develop their own style, hoping instead that nobody will notice where they have derived their works from?
For me, this trend is more alarming than the manga boom. Manga has a very specific style of drawing, and those who want to become involved in this comics genre have a very defined and clear path to follow. It is easy to appropriate the manga style to our local situational stories, and it has a very specific audience in mind.
But the non-manga comics style does not allow for a highly derivative, template-based illustration style. If many of our crop of aspiring comics creators ascribe to this kind of art, they will be swallowed whole in the international market. There will be little chance to establish a modern and unique Filipino sensibility in comics.
A few great creators like Arre, Alanguilan, Portacio, Tan, etc. aren't enough to develop the local comics industry. My hope is that many of the Komikon 2006 talents do take their art to the next level like the creators I have mentioned above, and spur a Komiks Revival in our country.
Most young girls in the neighborhood I grew up in (Permaline Homes) read either Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys or Sweet Valley High and Sweet Dreams. Very few kids my age read beyond these books because the school libraries didn't have much variety, and buying books for leisure was out of the question for most struggling families in our neighborhood.
So when the mystery books and saccharine-sweet romance pocketbooks were all read, us kids turned to komiks. I'll always refer to the first comics I've encountered Funny Komiks, Wakasan, Hiwaga and Lagim as "komiks" simply because the experience of discovering them was completely different for me compared to the feeling of reading comics like X-Men and Swamp Thing in high school.
I didn't buy these komiks. I borrowed them from the sari-sari store near the neighborhood parking lot for 25 centavos a day. The condition of these newsprint komiks didn't stay mint, that's for sure. In fact, by the time I got to them, they'd be stained or crumpled. But as long as they were readable, nobody complained.
I read many stories in them that eventually became movies with Sharon Cuneta, Snooky Serna or Vilma Santos playing the protagonists. Come to think of it, many of the stories in those komiks had female protagonists -- unless they were superhero stories, which had mostly men as the main character. And a lot of the protagonists came from the lower or middle class, struggling to stay in school, earn money for the family, help in taking care of siblings. Even in Funny Komiks, much of the humor was based on the everyday life of the average Juan.
And almost always, the protagonist gets to live their dream: as a successful celebrity, a rich businessperson, a triumphant superhero -- and all this while keeping a healthy romance with the person of his dreams. These stories were mesmerizing, and it did thrill me a little to find bits and pieces of my own world in them.
I remember reading Ada, Bituing Walang Ningning, Planet Op D' Eyps, and many more. I would cower under the covers at night remembering the horror stories about spirits out for revenge, or psycho doctor-serial killers, or the Tikbalang.
The Facts of Life, Komiks-Style
Through komiks, I also had my very first exposure to pornography. One of my friends invited me and a couple of other kids to sneak up to her brother's room. Under the bed, we found a stack of komiks. There didn't seem to be any story in them, just situations where the man has an opportunity to undress the woman and have sex. We were aware that these people were naked, and that they were having sex -- I don't exactly know how we knew this at 8 years old -- but we did. But seeing it in komiks form seemed so oddly funny to all of us that I look back on it as a bizarre, fond memory, rather than something traumatic.
Growing up in an Ilocano-Ilonggo household with parents who mostly spoke in English, I owed komiks for much of my Filipino vocabulary and grammar. The writing ranged from formal Tagalog to colloquial expressions, so compared to other kids who were encouraged to speak English even at home, I did very well in both English and Filipino subjects.
The Comics Connection
When we moved away sfter my mother got a nursing job abroad, I lost touch with my childhood friends, and inevtiably lost my komiks connection. I was 13 or 14 years old when we left, and I wasn't able to get my komiks fix since. I began reading "more serious" books, discovered Eliot, Dickens, Doyle, Tennyson and Shakespeare. I found Filbar's in Sta. Lucia and started reading X-Men midstream, out of sequence. I fell in love with Swamp Thing, also read out of sequence.
But aside from these half-hearted comics forays, I felt lost. I didn't know anyone who was enthusiastic about comics, and the ladies behind the counters couldn't care less about the comics they were selling, much less recommend something I might like. Plus, I didn't want to spend so much for comics I wasn't very familiar with in the first place. There were no sari-sari stores renting comics out for 25 centavos anymore.
I only started reading comics again in college. Through a friend of mine, Ceres Abanil, I picked up Sandman: Seasons of Mist by Neil Gaiman. I met my future boyfriend and Hey Comics! editor Ramon, who introduced me to Alan Moore, Garth Ennis, Warren Ellis, Frank Miller and many other creators who slowly but surely had me falling for comics completely.
Around that time, Arnold Arre's Mythology Class also caught my eye, and I was floored to discover that we had local talent like him who went beyond the komiks I was familiar with in my childhood. In turn, this led to reading other local creators like Gerry Alanguilan, Budjette Tan, Whilce Portacio etc.
A Language I Can Understand
As much as I was (and still am) involved with poetry, comics simply captured my imagination, a constant source of inspiration. I'm not good at expressing myself visually and musically, so when I watch films or listen to music, I tend to focus on the words rather than the visual or aural aspect. But with comics, I find I can appreciate the marriage of words and pictures at the same level. Comics is a more organic experience for me than other artforms with a visual or musical component.
Of course, appreciating comics and creating it are two different things. Appreciation for comics doesn't always translate to becoming a good creator. But I want to try, anyway. I would say, like in poetry, I have come up with some "juvenalia" comics of my own (with Harvey Ong as artist). But I'm not completely sure that I can cut it just yet.
Making the Rounds: Komikon 2006
It was clear, however, during last Saturday's Komikon 2006 at UP Diliman's Balay ng Alumni, that there are many independent local comics creators who are definitely up to the task.
Gerry Alanguilan gives an overview of the experience Ramon and I had that day at Newsarama.
If we had our way, we would have bought comics from every creator present there. But I could only afford to get from the creators we already know and love, and from a few talents whose work sounded too good to pass up (e.g. "Askals" by Dodo Dayao and Bong Leal. Before the Komikon I had read their wonderful one-shot story called "Noisy Blood").
Mango Jam editor and literary fixture Karen Kunawicz, though a tad tired, found fulfillment in the work she's doing for the popular and best-selling comics of the Mango Comics line.
Our good friend, comics artist Harvey Ong, gave away copies of his latest work, Tri-Tech (written by Jamie Bautista), published by Nautilus Comics. Showing his work to American comics agent, David Campiti, Harvey came away from the experience relatively unscathed.
The Filipino as an (Derivative) Artist
It seems cliche to mention that many Filipinos are talented as visual artists. But the greater concern is not so much skill and talent, but sensibility. Looking through the works and talent in the Komikon, I noticed that many of the art and illustrations were too derivative of popular artists. And I'm not just talking about the manga-style of drawing.
Several artists parrot Dave McKean and Ashley Wood so much down to the subject of the illustration (cats, robots, half-naked women). And this is not all right. There's nothing wrong with taking inspiration from great artists, and learning from their style. But at some point, one's art has to grow beyond imitation into one's own sensibility.
As a writer, I have a collection of juvenalia: poems which I feel shouldn't be published into a "serious" collection because they smack too much of the Confessional writers I drew inspiration from. I will only publish poems which I feel have my own voice, finally. Poems that can't be called anyone else's.
So I find it hard to understand how some Filipino artists feel confident enough to publish or exhibit their work when it is clear that their styles haven't developed enough yet to merit sharing to a larger audience.
Is this a manifestation of the shortcut or puwede na mentality of Pinoys? Or is there really very little interest among these artists to develop their own style, hoping instead that nobody will notice where they have derived their works from?
For me, this trend is more alarming than the manga boom. Manga has a very specific style of drawing, and those who want to become involved in this comics genre have a very defined and clear path to follow. It is easy to appropriate the manga style to our local situational stories, and it has a very specific audience in mind.
But the non-manga comics style does not allow for a highly derivative, template-based illustration style. If many of our crop of aspiring comics creators ascribe to this kind of art, they will be swallowed whole in the international market. There will be little chance to establish a modern and unique Filipino sensibility in comics.
A few great creators like Arre, Alanguilan, Portacio, Tan, etc. aren't enough to develop the local comics industry. My hope is that many of the Komikon 2006 talents do take their art to the next level like the creators I have mentioned above, and spur a Komiks Revival in our country.
posted by neva, 3:26 PM
