kick-ass copy

If there was ever an award for Best Copy on Packaging, I'd give it to Glaceau's vitaminwater.

I was standing in line at Krispy Kreme when I saw these multi-colored bottles. I picked up one, read the first line and was hooked. I stood there for a good five minutes, read all the copy on the all the bottles, and laughed at every punch line. The people behind me didn't seem all that amused.

Anyway, here are the ones that I liked.


You can read the rest at: http://vitaminwater.com/


ESSENTIAL: orange-orange (c+calcium)

ah, orange juice commercials. funny stuff, mom cheerily prepares some huge breakfast while the rest of her family sleeps. sure, this could happen, but every morning? please. maybe if mom were heavily medicated, in which case, we wouldn’t condone operating a stove or any electrical appliance.

for those of us who don’t live in an orange juice commercials, there’s still a way to get your morning nutrition. this product has calcium and lots of vitamin c, so you can get your day started right, minus the whole stepford mom thing.

vitamins + water = all you need

For best results, stick it in the fridge.

REVIVE: fruit punch (b+potassium)

if you woke up tired, you probably need more sleep. if you woke up drooling at your desk, you probably need a new job. if you woke up with a headache, on a ferris wheel at the idaho state fair, wearing a toga, you probably need answers, not to mentioned this product.

it’s got potassium and b vitamins to help you recover and feel refreshed – kinda like in those old irish spring soap commercials.

and if you’re like our boss, mike, and woke up married to an elvis impersonator, you probably need a lawyer.

POWER-C: dragonfruit (c+taurine)

legally, we are prohibited from making exaggerated claimed about the potency of the nutrients in this bottle. therefore, legally we wouldn’t tell you that after drinking this, eugene from kansas started using horseshoes as a thighmaster or that this drink gave agnes from delaware enough strength to bench press llamas. Heck, we can’t even tell you this drink give you the power to do a thousand pinkie push-ups… just ask mike in queens.

legally, we can’t say stuff like that—cause that would be wrong, you know?

vitamins + water = all you need

DEFENSE : raspberry-apple (c+zinc)

if you’ve had to use sick days because you’ve actually been sick then you’re seriously missing out my friends. see, the trick is to stay healthy and use sick days to just, um, not go in, and the combinations of zinc and fortifying vitamins can help out with that and keep you healthy as a horse. So drink up.

remember, don’t overdo it on the coughing and sniffling (big rookie mistake). Just stick with the ever elusive “24-hour bug.” the symptoms are vague and people will actually encourage you to stay home.

ENERGY: tropical citrcus (b+guarana)

in soccer (excuse us mexico, spain, and italy, we mean “futbol”), there isn’t a more exciting moment than when the announcer screams “gooooooooooal” (yelling “ooooffffsiddde” never quite caught on).

with that said, we added b vitamins and guarana to give you an extra kick (pun intended), so now when you’re watching soccer, playing soccer, coaching soccer, driving kids to soccer or doing anything that starts with “socc” and ends with “er,” you too can have the energy or a raving lunatic to yell “gooooooooooal.”

Building Stories

Last week, me and the Eheads (the Executive Heads, not the rock band) went to Pampanga to plan to the future --the FUTURE, Conan?-- yes, the future of the agency. As most "planning sessions" go, you go to some place with a really great view but spend the next three days inside some hotel conference room. So, Maricel made it a point that we get to see the place and try out the food in the area.

When we got there, we walked around a nearby wet market, went to the Rivera's farm, then had lunch at Cely's carinderia (where I got to taste camaro/locusts for the first time). We had dessert at Claude Tayag's house or more popularly known as Claude Tayag's Bale Dutung.

The story of how the house was built fascinated me.

People's usual reaction to the house would be, "How wonderful that you've restored this old house!" And Claude would usually reply, "Oh, it's not an old house. It's a newly built house."

As it turns out, the construction material for the Bale Dutung was slowly collected in the span of 10 years. Some parts of the house even came from a church. Claude saw the demolished church and bought the rumble from the people who were just planning to throw it away.

Claude collected and cataloged every piece he found.

He said he had drawn up the plans for the house and when he completed it, it was 80-90% of what he had in mind.

It took him seven years to finish construction.

The house made me think of how stories are written. In a way, writers go through the same process: we collect and catalog different experiences that will later be used for the foundation of the story. We pick up and use conversations we overheard in cafes and elevators; the sound of thunder that frightened us a child; the lyric of a favorite song heard during that particular summer; the taste of that last piece of chocolate cake found in the fridge at 12 midnight; the scent of the perfume of the one who left without saying goodbye.

We collect and catalog and ever so slowly, piece by piece, letter by letter, we build the story.

An author was once asked how long it took him to write his novel. He answered that he wrote it in less than a week, but he had been thinking about it for over 15 years.

In my afterword in TRESE, I talked about all the different stories and TV shows and people that lead to the creation of the Alexandra Trese and her (under)world. I look forward to next week, when I get the chance to put the finishing touches on the house called TRESE.




Photos courtesy of Dino, taken with his Sony Ericsson cellphone.

Post this on your wall for your own protection



We'll be giving away this diabolical TRESE poster during FREE COMIC BOOK DAY, May 3.

Buy a copy of TRESE: MURDER ON BALETE DRIVE and get a free poster. It's that simple!

It'll definitely be available at Comic Odyssey, Robinsons Galleria.
I'll update you guys if we'll make the poster available at other comic book stores.

Please check my Twitter page on Saturday morning for updates:
http://twitter.com/Budjette

(If you already bought a copy, don't worry because we're putting together a plan so you can also get the free TRESE poster. More details about that soon!)

One more thing, if you see two suspicious looking individuals lurking around Comic Odyssey, Galleria and Comic Quest, Megamall during FREE COMIC BOOK DAY, that's probably me and Kajo. :)

That clown from Stephen King’s “IT” freaked us out. Me and Brandie borrowed the LaserDisc of that movie way back in the early 90s. It promptly gave us nightmares and inspired our first comic book collaboration: PAYASO.

Brandie was a big fan of Dave McKean, Bill Sienkiewicz, and Duncan Fegredo’s art in ENIGMA. He even managed to hunt down the works of McKean’s mentor: Barron Storey.

So, when we decided to do that short story for COMICS 101, he was clearly playing tribute to his comic book idols.



The next time we collaborated was for our contribution in the short-lived literary anthology CHIMERA. Once again, I wrote the story and he did the art.



Of course, I already told you about the time we published our own newspaper and the time we worked on his Great Taste campaign.

Now that we’re working for our respective agencies, we don’t get to collaborate much, but that doesn’t stop him from giving me advice on how to make my work better.

Maybe the opportunity will eventually come that we’ll get to work on a new project. A new TVC? Print Ad? Maybe even a comic book?

Today is Brandie’s birthday, so if you’re somehow linked to him in Facebook or Multiply, then please do greet him. You can also say hello to him at: http://brandietan.blogspot.com/

13 days to go

book 1


the front and back cover


By the end of the month TRESE: MURDER ON BALETE DRIVE should already be in several bookstores. (We'll be giving you a complete list as soon as they are delivered.)

This book compiles the first four cases of Trese, has an introduction from Gerry Alanguilan, an afterword from me-- where I talk about the beginnings and influences of TRESE, a bonus section in the back-- with sketches and character designs from Kajo.


TRESE: MURDER ON BALETE DRIVE
Published by Visual Print Enterprises
Written by Budjette Tan, Art by Kajo Baldisimo
Format: Black&White, 104 pages
Cover price: P140.00

the sneak preview

I finally found a copy of SINDAK! in Filbars. This was scheduled to come out a little after Holy Week, but its great that it was made available this week, since it comes close to the release of TRESE: BOOK 1 (more about that in the next couple of days).



So, if you’d like to know more about the origins of Trese, is there or isn’t there a “Trese movie” in the works, do we have anyone in mind for the casting of Trese, who was the mysterious Frenchman who called up Comic Quest, then all the answers can be found in SINDAK! #1!!!




Of course, other reasons to pick up this horror-thriller magazine are the comic book stories by Gerry Alanguilan, Randy Valiente, KC Cordero, Novo Malgapo, Ner Perdina, and the rest of the Sindak! Team.

Many thanks to KC Cordero, Athena Fregillana, Paul del Rosario for featuring me and Kajo (and TRESE) in their first issue.

escape into a book

One of my favorite campaigns won big time in the recent ADFEST.
Click on the images to see larger version.

Gold Single Press Lotus - Penguin Books "Train"
Saatchi & Saatchi Singapore



Silver Single Press Lotus - Penguin Books "Bus stop"
Saatchi & Saatchi Singapore



Gold Campaign Press Lotus - Penguin Books "Bus-Stop/Train/Airport"
Saatchi & Saatchi Singapore



See the rest of the ADFEST winners at: Adobo Magazine

(Would be nice to do a campaign promoting comic books, yes?)