WHY AM I HERE?
Below is the talk I gave at GENERATION WHY, a series of seminars organized and conducted by the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
300 students from all over the Philippines attended the talks last Saturday at the Li Seng Giap Auditorium in the University of Asia and the Pacific.
Like I mentioned in my other blog entry, I was part of the panel that talked about "How young Filipino innovators and entrpreneurs are reshaping our country's business landscape".
I got lumped together with well-established entrepreneurs. I thought I'd be out of place. I was... kind of. But I'm glad I went. I had fun and felt really good, especially when a couple of the students came up to me and said they wanted to start writing again.
+ + + + + + +
When I was invited to give this talk, the email I got said that the objective of today’s event is: “To inspire the participants to harness their energy and idealism to initiate positive change in society by profiling young Filipinos who are leading the way in forging a modern, dynamic nation.”
So, I don’t really know why I’m here.
I am a storyteller.
My job in the ad agency lets me tell stories that are 30-seconds long. At the end of which, you will hopefully be compelled to buy a new cellphone.
I also write stories that appear as print ads in newspapers and after you read them you will hopefully be compelled to call up your loved ones abroad… using your cellphone.
But my favorite way to tell stories is through comic books.
THE IMPOSSIBLE TASK
There is a scene in Norton Juster’s children’s book "The Phantom Tollbooth", where the hero, Milo, having succeeded in a mighty quest is told the one piece of important information he was denied at the start of his journey.
He's told that the task he has just accomplished was impossible.
When he asks why they hadn't told him that before, it is pointed out to him that, had he known it was impossible, he wouldn't have done it.
And that’s how we ended up trying to do comic books here in the Philippines. Nobody told us it was going to be an impossible task.
COSMIC IDEA
I started making my own comic books back when I was in grade school. I only made one copy and sold it to my mom, then got it back and sold it to my dad.
The name of my character was COSMIC MAN! He rode on his Cosmic Ship, has a big Cosmic Gun, which fired a Cosmic Ray, and well… you get the big cosmic picture.
DEALING WITH REJECTION
When I was in high school and college, I submitted stories to several comic book companies. I collaborated with my friends who could draw and we submitted stories to Marvel and DC Comics. We also sent stories to Atlas comics. All of them got rejected.
It was Image Comics who gave us the idea of self-publishing-- that we didn’t have to work for some big comic book company to get our stories published.
Having worked on the newsletter back in college gave me some idea / knowledge of publishing.
So, we started to go around printing presses, showed them an American comic book and said, “We wanna do this!” Once I got the cost of making a comic book I went back to my mom and dad and tried to convince them to buy my comic book. Thankfully, they did.
My barkada formed CHEAP THRILLS STUDIOS and we published a grand total of one issue. It was called COMICS 101. A black and white comic book that was supposed to be a back to basics approach to comics. And it was also cheaper to print it in black and white. My objective was to bring COMICS 101 to the Annual San Diego Comic book and get a publisher for our stories.
Well, I didn’t find a publisher but that’s where I got to meet Whilce Portacio, Filipino artists of the UNCANNY X-MEN and, later on, in WETWORKS and STONE.
When Whilce came home in 1994, he found a very active comic book scene. Aside from Cheap Thrills, there were groups like Flashpoint, Memento Mori, Archon, Exodus, Pagan Press, Shadow Comics.
He called for a meeting and gave his sermon on the mount… well, it was more like his sermon in his condo.
His suggestion was simple: for all the comic book groups to band together and not compete with one another. To share resources and contacts. To have one logo which would be shared by all and that one logo would be the mark that it’s proudly made by Pinoys.
And so, we did just that.
Thus was born ALAMAT COMICS on November 3, 1994.
Mind you we were not a company or corporation. We were more like… a club… a guild of comic book creators. Some of us actually had full-blown studios! Complete with drafting tables and computers! While other people’s studios was the kitchen table (which could only be used after dinner). But that didn’t matter. All we wanted to do was make comic books!
ALAMAT COMICS still remains a network of comic book creators that share information and the occasional cup of coffee. We talk about reliable printing presses, new ways to scan or color comic books, where to buy good drawing materials, and, the most important info of all, what new comic book just arrived!
HIT OR MISS
So, do we have fun doing this? The answer is YES!
Do we make money doing this? Yes… well, kind of… maybe… not all the time.
In the past nine years, we’ve published titles like ARCHON, INDIGO VALLEY, PNOISE, SHADOW COMICS, BAYLANS, ONE NIGHT IN PURGATORY, ANGEL ACE, and BATCH72.
Just like a movie company, some titles will become a blockbuster hit and other’s will end up in the “buy one take one” bin.
So, let’s just talk about the books that have become blockbuster hits.
Quite recently Carlo Vergara’s ZSAZSA ZATURNNAH not only sold-out, it also won the National Book Awards for Best Comic Book of the Year, and is being developed into a movie by Regal Films.
Gerry Alanguilan’s WASTED seems to be always sold out in whatever format it comes out it. Gerry first released WASTED as a Xeroxed comic book, each issue running 8 to 12 pages. When he finally finished the story, it was finally compiled and published. That sold out in less than a year. It was later serialized in the music magazine PULP. And just last year, PULP reprinted WASTED in a bigger format and glossier paper. It continues to a best-seller in the comic book stores.
So, when you go to the comic book store these days, you’ll get to see Alamat Comics as well as a whole lot of other comic book titles and projects.
It is encouraging and exciting to see new local comic book titles on the shelves, even if some of them are out selling you by a thousand copies. Aside from Alamat, there are now comic book publishers like QUEST VENTURES, KESTREL STUDIOS, CULTURE CRASH, PSI-COM, MANGO COMICS (publishers from the modernized DARNA). There are also a whole lot of Xeroxed comics, going through the route of WASTED and maybe one day, they’ll find publishers as well.
Atlas, the last of the great komiks companies, is dying a slow and painful death. At least, that’s how I see it. They have recently attempted to cash in on the market tapped by Summit Magazine’s WITCH by releasing a comic book called CHARM, also featuring five girls with supernatural powers. Is WITCH the new Zagu? The new lechon manok? Wait and see! Two big publishing companies are supposedly planning their own WITCH-type books. Good luck!
So, with all these things happening I’d like to declare that the Filipino comic book scene is in good health. Come one! Come all! But it is not for the feint of heart.
READY TO MAKE YOUR COMIC BOOK?
So, you ready to make a comic book?
Do you already have a story?
Do you already have an artist? Or will you draw it yourself?
What will be the format of your comic book?
How big or small? (because this will affect your printing cost)
Will it be in color or black and white?
How will you distribute your comic book?
You can do it by yourself, if you choose to (which is what most of the Alamat guys do), so you only have to worry about gas money and parking fees.
Or you can hire a distribution company. If you do, then be ready to give them 30-40% of your cover price. Of course, the comic book store and magazine shops also take 20-30% of your cover price as well.
Will you get sponsor / advertising for your comic book?
Or will it be a pure graphic novel, like book, with no ads whatsoever.
Once it’s out there, how will you market / promote your comic book? Since Alamat doesn’t the advertising money of big companies, then you tend to get creative on how you promote your comic book. You make a deal with a radio station—give them an ad in your comic book and they’ll promote your book launch.
Make a website! Email people about it. Make sure your website has lots of art work and preview pages of the comic book.
Photocopy the first eight pages of your comic book and give it away at the comic book store.
Who do you think will like your comic book? Can you give away your comic book preview at school fairs or at some club in Malate? Should you have a booth at the toy convention or at the book fair in the Megatrade Hall?
Send free copies to newspapers and magazines with a press release. And if you get lucky and they really like your comic book, they’ll write a review and interview you. Same goes with sending copies to TV talk shows or the news department who are looking for material on a slow news day. Send copies of the hosts of those radio talk shows and maybe they’ll invite you to talk about your comic book.
GAIMAN ON CREATING COMICS
So, what comic book story are you going to do?
Let me end with these words from Neil Gaiman, one of my favorite comic book writers. It is advice to the comic book creator, which I guess, can also apply to any sort of art or business you want to get into.
Gaiman said : As a writer, or as a storyteller, try to tell the stories that only you can tell. Try to tell the stories that you cannot help but tell, the stories you would be telling yourself if you had no audience to listen. The ones that reveal a little too much about you to the world. It’s the point I think of writing as walking naked down the street: it has nothing to do with style, or with genre, it has to do with honesty. Honesty to yourself and to whatever you’re doing.
Don’t worry about trying to develop a style. Style is what you can’t help doing. If you write enough, you draw enough, you’ll have a style, whether you want it or not. Don’t worry about whether you’re “commercial”. Tell your own stories, draw your own pictures. Let other people follow you.
If you believe in it, do it. If there’s a comic or a project you’ve always wanted to do, go out there and give it a try. If you fail, you’ll have given it a shot. If you succeed, then you succeeded with what you wanted to do.
We are creators. When we begin, separately or together, there’s a blank piece of paper. When we are done, we are giving people dreams and magic and journeys into minds and lives that they have never lived. And we must not forget that.
Below is the talk I gave at GENERATION WHY, a series of seminars organized and conducted by the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
300 students from all over the Philippines attended the talks last Saturday at the Li Seng Giap Auditorium in the University of Asia and the Pacific.
Like I mentioned in my other blog entry, I was part of the panel that talked about "How young Filipino innovators and entrpreneurs are reshaping our country's business landscape".
I got lumped together with well-established entrepreneurs. I thought I'd be out of place. I was... kind of. But I'm glad I went. I had fun and felt really good, especially when a couple of the students came up to me and said they wanted to start writing again.
+ + + + + + +
When I was invited to give this talk, the email I got said that the objective of today’s event is: “To inspire the participants to harness their energy and idealism to initiate positive change in society by profiling young Filipinos who are leading the way in forging a modern, dynamic nation.”
So, I don’t really know why I’m here.
I am a storyteller.
My job in the ad agency lets me tell stories that are 30-seconds long. At the end of which, you will hopefully be compelled to buy a new cellphone.
I also write stories that appear as print ads in newspapers and after you read them you will hopefully be compelled to call up your loved ones abroad… using your cellphone.
But my favorite way to tell stories is through comic books.
THE IMPOSSIBLE TASK
There is a scene in Norton Juster’s children’s book "The Phantom Tollbooth", where the hero, Milo, having succeeded in a mighty quest is told the one piece of important information he was denied at the start of his journey.
He's told that the task he has just accomplished was impossible.
When he asks why they hadn't told him that before, it is pointed out to him that, had he known it was impossible, he wouldn't have done it.
And that’s how we ended up trying to do comic books here in the Philippines. Nobody told us it was going to be an impossible task.
COSMIC IDEA
I started making my own comic books back when I was in grade school. I only made one copy and sold it to my mom, then got it back and sold it to my dad.
The name of my character was COSMIC MAN! He rode on his Cosmic Ship, has a big Cosmic Gun, which fired a Cosmic Ray, and well… you get the big cosmic picture.
DEALING WITH REJECTION
When I was in high school and college, I submitted stories to several comic book companies. I collaborated with my friends who could draw and we submitted stories to Marvel and DC Comics. We also sent stories to Atlas comics. All of them got rejected.
It was Image Comics who gave us the idea of self-publishing-- that we didn’t have to work for some big comic book company to get our stories published.
Having worked on the newsletter back in college gave me some idea / knowledge of publishing.
So, we started to go around printing presses, showed them an American comic book and said, “We wanna do this!” Once I got the cost of making a comic book I went back to my mom and dad and tried to convince them to buy my comic book. Thankfully, they did.
My barkada formed CHEAP THRILLS STUDIOS and we published a grand total of one issue. It was called COMICS 101. A black and white comic book that was supposed to be a back to basics approach to comics. And it was also cheaper to print it in black and white. My objective was to bring COMICS 101 to the Annual San Diego Comic book and get a publisher for our stories.
Well, I didn’t find a publisher but that’s where I got to meet Whilce Portacio, Filipino artists of the UNCANNY X-MEN and, later on, in WETWORKS and STONE.
When Whilce came home in 1994, he found a very active comic book scene. Aside from Cheap Thrills, there were groups like Flashpoint, Memento Mori, Archon, Exodus, Pagan Press, Shadow Comics.
He called for a meeting and gave his sermon on the mount… well, it was more like his sermon in his condo.
His suggestion was simple: for all the comic book groups to band together and not compete with one another. To share resources and contacts. To have one logo which would be shared by all and that one logo would be the mark that it’s proudly made by Pinoys.
And so, we did just that.
Thus was born ALAMAT COMICS on November 3, 1994.
Mind you we were not a company or corporation. We were more like… a club… a guild of comic book creators. Some of us actually had full-blown studios! Complete with drafting tables and computers! While other people’s studios was the kitchen table (which could only be used after dinner). But that didn’t matter. All we wanted to do was make comic books!
ALAMAT COMICS still remains a network of comic book creators that share information and the occasional cup of coffee. We talk about reliable printing presses, new ways to scan or color comic books, where to buy good drawing materials, and, the most important info of all, what new comic book just arrived!
HIT OR MISS
So, do we have fun doing this? The answer is YES!
Do we make money doing this? Yes… well, kind of… maybe… not all the time.
In the past nine years, we’ve published titles like ARCHON, INDIGO VALLEY, PNOISE, SHADOW COMICS, BAYLANS, ONE NIGHT IN PURGATORY, ANGEL ACE, and BATCH72.
Just like a movie company, some titles will become a blockbuster hit and other’s will end up in the “buy one take one” bin.
So, let’s just talk about the books that have become blockbuster hits.
Quite recently Carlo Vergara’s ZSAZSA ZATURNNAH not only sold-out, it also won the National Book Awards for Best Comic Book of the Year, and is being developed into a movie by Regal Films.
Gerry Alanguilan’s WASTED seems to be always sold out in whatever format it comes out it. Gerry first released WASTED as a Xeroxed comic book, each issue running 8 to 12 pages. When he finally finished the story, it was finally compiled and published. That sold out in less than a year. It was later serialized in the music magazine PULP. And just last year, PULP reprinted WASTED in a bigger format and glossier paper. It continues to a best-seller in the comic book stores.
So, when you go to the comic book store these days, you’ll get to see Alamat Comics as well as a whole lot of other comic book titles and projects.
It is encouraging and exciting to see new local comic book titles on the shelves, even if some of them are out selling you by a thousand copies. Aside from Alamat, there are now comic book publishers like QUEST VENTURES, KESTREL STUDIOS, CULTURE CRASH, PSI-COM, MANGO COMICS (publishers from the modernized DARNA). There are also a whole lot of Xeroxed comics, going through the route of WASTED and maybe one day, they’ll find publishers as well.
Atlas, the last of the great komiks companies, is dying a slow and painful death. At least, that’s how I see it. They have recently attempted to cash in on the market tapped by Summit Magazine’s WITCH by releasing a comic book called CHARM, also featuring five girls with supernatural powers. Is WITCH the new Zagu? The new lechon manok? Wait and see! Two big publishing companies are supposedly planning their own WITCH-type books. Good luck!
So, with all these things happening I’d like to declare that the Filipino comic book scene is in good health. Come one! Come all! But it is not for the feint of heart.
READY TO MAKE YOUR COMIC BOOK?
So, you ready to make a comic book?
Do you already have a story?
Do you already have an artist? Or will you draw it yourself?
What will be the format of your comic book?
How big or small? (because this will affect your printing cost)
Will it be in color or black and white?
How will you distribute your comic book?
You can do it by yourself, if you choose to (which is what most of the Alamat guys do), so you only have to worry about gas money and parking fees.
Or you can hire a distribution company. If you do, then be ready to give them 30-40% of your cover price. Of course, the comic book store and magazine shops also take 20-30% of your cover price as well.
Will you get sponsor / advertising for your comic book?
Or will it be a pure graphic novel, like book, with no ads whatsoever.
Once it’s out there, how will you market / promote your comic book? Since Alamat doesn’t the advertising money of big companies, then you tend to get creative on how you promote your comic book. You make a deal with a radio station—give them an ad in your comic book and they’ll promote your book launch.
Make a website! Email people about it. Make sure your website has lots of art work and preview pages of the comic book.
Photocopy the first eight pages of your comic book and give it away at the comic book store.
Who do you think will like your comic book? Can you give away your comic book preview at school fairs or at some club in Malate? Should you have a booth at the toy convention or at the book fair in the Megatrade Hall?
Send free copies to newspapers and magazines with a press release. And if you get lucky and they really like your comic book, they’ll write a review and interview you. Same goes with sending copies to TV talk shows or the news department who are looking for material on a slow news day. Send copies of the hosts of those radio talk shows and maybe they’ll invite you to talk about your comic book.
GAIMAN ON CREATING COMICS
So, what comic book story are you going to do?
Let me end with these words from Neil Gaiman, one of my favorite comic book writers. It is advice to the comic book creator, which I guess, can also apply to any sort of art or business you want to get into.
Gaiman said : As a writer, or as a storyteller, try to tell the stories that only you can tell. Try to tell the stories that you cannot help but tell, the stories you would be telling yourself if you had no audience to listen. The ones that reveal a little too much about you to the world. It’s the point I think of writing as walking naked down the street: it has nothing to do with style, or with genre, it has to do with honesty. Honesty to yourself and to whatever you’re doing.
Don’t worry about trying to develop a style. Style is what you can’t help doing. If you write enough, you draw enough, you’ll have a style, whether you want it or not. Don’t worry about whether you’re “commercial”. Tell your own stories, draw your own pictures. Let other people follow you.
If you believe in it, do it. If there’s a comic or a project you’ve always wanted to do, go out there and give it a try. If you fail, you’ll have given it a shot. If you succeed, then you succeeded with what you wanted to do.
We are creators. When we begin, separately or together, there’s a blank piece of paper. When we are done, we are giving people dreams and magic and journeys into minds and lives that they have never lived. And we must not forget that.