This month marks the beginning of Alamat Comics’ 8th year. Seems like every year is star-up mode for us. Below is an article which is suppose to appear in the revised Alamat website, but that might take awhile, so I’m posting it here.
The Secret Origins of Alamat
Alamat Comics started some twenty or so years ago, when we were still kids and made our own superheroes using crayons and papers, when we traced and copied our favorite characters and made up stories about them.
Alamat Comics started in 1992, when comic book artist Whilce Portacio came home to the Philippines and judged a drawing contest. Hundreds of “Pinoy mutants” were submitted and it lined the walls of a ballroom, where the contest/ party/ autograph signing session was held. Little did we know that the people who later be the founding members of Alamat were all in that ballroom.
Alamat Comics started in 1993, when a group of La Salle college students published the “first comic book” as far as Western standards were concerned. The comic book was called FLASHPOINT, it was in full-color, printed on glossy paper, written in English, had guys and gals in spandex, and their story was set in the Philippines. As the months stretched into 1994, more groups would publish their comic books. Some were just Xeroxed zines, but it was good enough to inspire others that they could also make their own.
Alamat Comics started in October 1994, when the Platinum comic book store in Robinsons Galleria hosted a “comic book convention” for anyone who ever had a comic book to show. Platinum could only provide two tables for the more than seven groups. So the seven comic book groups took turns occupying the tables located in front of the store. That was the first time all the comic book groups met each other. There was a great feeling of community and competition during that humble event.
Alamat Comics started in November 1994, when Whilce Portacio returned and called for a meeting of all the comic book groups. He met with the dozen groups in the food court of the Shangri-la Mall and took them to his condo-unit several blocks down the road. And in that packed room, Whilce gave them the one piece of advice that would, without exaggeration, change their lives forever. Whilce said that the groups shouldn’t compete with each other, that Manila was a small enough place to have 12 different comic book groups, that they should help out each another just like newly-born Image Comics, that each group would still have creative independence but they would still support one another, that they should have just one name and one logo that people would eventually identify as comic books that are Filipino-made, and hopefully as quality Filipino comic books.
The group continued to meet long after Whilce went back to the United States and they all agreed to call themselves Alamat, a name suggested by Ian Orendian, and they would all gather under the logo of a shining sun, as designed by Lando Inolino. It was only appropriate that the group called itself Alamat, which is the Filipino word for “legend”, because in the Philippines, legends are stories about how things began and as far those young comic book artists were concerned, they were on the brink of a new age of Filipino comic books. The shining sun was also an appropriate logo since they looked at the future of making comic books as bright and promising.
Alamat Comics started in February 1995, when Alamat has its first exhibit in Robinsons Galleria. On that day, two new comic book groups came over and they would become part of the founding members of Alamat.
And that, boy and girls, is the Legend of Alamat Comics.
Then again, you could also say that Alamat started when…
…to be continued.