Babbling Point

trese: The Choir Story by Budjette Tan Art by Elbert Or Hank had tended the bar of The Diabolical long enough to know that the one who just entered was another troubled soul. The typical patron of The Diabolical were the goth-girls and the vampire wanna-bes who dressed in leather and velvet despite the tropical weather of Manila. There were also the 24-hour party people, who danced to the ever-escalating electronic beats in the clubs next door, but who slipped into The Diabolical because their beer was cheaper. So, when the man in the denim jacket entered place and didn’t fit into the usual profile, Hank knew this was someone in a bad need of a drink. The man unbuttoned his jacket as he took three steps down to the main floor of the club. Before he could even reach the bar, Hank had already prepared a shot glass, poured the tequila and set the salt and lemon on a little plate. He then reached into the cooler, past the sea of ice cubes for a bottle of San Mig Light. The man sat on the

PROJ: EVERYWHERE Finally! I can upload this TV commercial and Flickr the pix from the shoot. Getting "kc" with KC The Harrison Communications Team with the very friendly, very beautiful KC Conception. Oh, and if you want to know more about this great new service, just go to: myGlobe IMevrywhere or text IM to 2222.

BATTLE CAT

The sun also shines… I am very happy and proud to announce that Harrison Communications won the following Award Values Awards: Gold Globe "SEA Games" TVC http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=of-Ay8u8vv8 Silver Philippine Daily Inquirer "Piggy" print series COPY: Recycling saves. Support the Philippine Daily Inquirer Newspaper Drive. Silver PDI "Puzzle" print series COPY: 64% of energy is saved through paper recycling. Puzzling but true. Support the Philippine Daily Inquirer Newspaper Drive. COPY: 41% of garbage is lessened through paper recycling. Puzzling but true. Support the Philippine Daily Inquirer Newspaper Drive. COPY: 35% of water pollution is cut through paper recyling. Puzzling but true. Support the Philippine Daily Inquirer Newspaper Drive. Silver Pioneer "Knock" print Silver Pioneer "Filing" print Bronze Gentxt "Buwan ng Wika" print ad

Once upon a time... Many years ago (maybe six or so years ago), I wanted to do a music video for The Jerks' song "Rage". The video would star the futuristic versions of Darna, Panday, and Zuma. These analog versions would battle mecha-powered Metrocom cops in an alternate reality where Martial Law was never lift. I imagined it would animated like how AKIRA was animated. Since I didn't have the funds or the resourcers to do that, I just thought I'd turn it to a comic book. So, I sent the script to one of the guys and got a couple of sketches in return. Arvie, the artist, loved the idea so much, he started to map out the whole history of the characters in the "music video". Anyway, our day-jobs got the better of us, and we never even got to do Page 1 of the project. I just thought of "giving birth" to it now, especially since we wanted to make that story of yet-another-unproduced-anthology called NOV30: A TIME FOR HEROES. Given the chance, I'

6 Steps to Oblivion by Bow Guerrero Story and art by Bow Gurerrero. Lay-out and graphic design by Ronnie Tres Reyes. (click on the links to read the story) Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9

And for a moment, the clouds parted and revealed... Skyworld is the creation of writer Mervin Ignacio and artist Ian Sta. Maria. If you happened to drop by the Alamat table at the Komikon, you would've seen the two full-color posters for this book. If you didn't get to see that, you can head on over to the SKYWORLD gallery (which is filed under Sgt.Digmaan's site, for some strange reason). SKYWORLD should be available early 2007.

RIDERS OF THE STORM I bought the very first STORMWATCH because I was Jim Lee fanboy. It had an interesting premise of a team of super-powered soldiers sanctioned by the United Nations. Of course, I was disappointed when I found out Jim Lee only did the cover and the inside art was nowhere near as good as Lee’s art style. The stories also felt like I was reading the rejected scripts of “Street Fighter the Movie”, where we just see costumed wrestlers fighting in different parts of the world. The next time I picked up STORMWATCH was their 37th issue , when Warren Ellis and Tom Raney took over the series and I was not disappointed with that run. Ellis made the team for ruthless and made them battle deadlier threats with delusions of bringing about a better world and inject a conspiracy angle that made you not trust Weatherman One, the commander of Stormwatch. Ellis eventually pushed the title towards the direction of the wide-screen, action-packed stories of THE AUTHORITY. The Stormwatch n

i hated yesterday. i hate today . maybe tomorrow will be better.

I curl my toes to music downloaded from the net. The screen's the sunrise from the beach south of where I sit. My face is gray from typing, burnt from radiation. No need to leave the second floor to take a paid vacation. by Kris Lacaba, march 2003 I am back from my 10-day vacation. I had just great hopes to finish a lot of things. I thought I could finish writing all 13 issues of TRESE, but only got to write one. (I did get to plot out everything from #9 to 13. I now know where the Kambal came from and what really happened to Anton Trese. TRESE #7 is scheduled to be release mid-December. So, it might take time before the rest of you get to find out the mystery behind Papa Trese.) I ended up spending more because I tried to write in internet cafes and Starbucks. I should’ve stayed home. But whenever I did stay home, I just ended up sleeping. At least, I had a relatively stress-free birthday (compared to last year, when I was running back and forth to attend three differen

MY EDITOR-IN-CHIEF There is a military-grey filing cabinet in my room. It used to belong to my mom. It was placed in my room back when we moved to our house in La Vista in the mid-80s. Since it was in my room, I decided to remove all of my mom’s stuff and put in my stuff. It has seen become the time capsule of a whole lot of Alamat works. I opened up that clunky filing cabinet the other night and was looking for one of David’s stories, thinking of submitting it to Adarna. Instead, I found one of my sketch books, containing sketches and doodles, during the time I fooled myself that I could draw. One page contained a poster / pin-up for a comic book that was supposed to be called: BLASCO, Psychic Investigator. The page contained all sorts of creatures from Filipino folklore. BLASCO was a character I created for a scriptwriting contest for ABS-CBN during the early 90s. Blasco was a college professor who served as a consultant to the police whenever they were too stumped with a pa

PULIS BLOTTER !!! Ultracops !!! Now Available !!! ULTRACOPS Story and art by Ian Sta. Maria Script by Bow Guerrero (click to see the pages) Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 The clandestine Batch-Serum Experiment of 1972 resulted to the birth of hundreds of super-powered Filipinos. There were also hundreds of unaccounted test-subjects that died. Those that survived went underground and later resurfaced to become the country’s most wanted criminals. In the late-80s, Doktor Kamatayan instigated the infamous Mendiola Super-Hero Massacre. More would have died if not for the arrival of Digmaan, a veteran Filipino super-hero of World War II. Even though Doktor Kamatayan ripped off both of Digmaan’s arms during the fight, Digmaan managed to defeat the Doktor’s and his army of villains. The government funded Digmaan’s hospitalization and cyber-enhancements. In return, they requested for Digmaan to head the organization of a special division of the Philippine Nation

3:45 pm, 34 years ago. My face almost hit the floor. I came busting out of my mom (or so I've been told). Good thing Dr. Knight (or is it Dr. Night) caught me as I popped out into the world. So far, so good. Thanks to everyone. It was a pretty good year. It was better than most.

the dead-tree editions TRESE is now available in the following stores: COMICS ODYSSEY 3rd Floor Extension Mall Robinson's Galleria, Ortigas (near Red Ribbon) COMIC QUEST Basement, Bldg. A SM Megamall DRUID's KEEP 3rd Floor, Gateway Mall Magallanes, South Super Highway In case you don't see it on the shelves, just ask the friendly people behind the counter. Also available: THE LAST DATU Story by Kajo Baldisimo and Budjette Tan Script by Budjette Tan Art by Kajo Baldisimo (click to see the pages) Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Now, I can tell the strange and secret origin of this story. Around three years ago, Kajo sent me these pages and said he needed help in writing the script for it. I said, "Okay, so what's the story? Who are these characters?" He said, "Oh, I leave that up to you. I want this story to be 50% mine and 50% yours." At that point I had wished he had at least given 80%. Maybe even 75%. So, I got the pages and stared at them... for over

The Letter That Was Never Sent November 1994 Dear ___________ Greetings! In view of the growing number of FILIPINO comic book creators, we find it encouraging and hopeful that this might be the start of a new era in the Filipino comic book industry. But most of the comic book buyers are not aware of our creations due to the lack of exposure / advertisements and we are fighting for shelf space among hundreds of foreign comic books. Furthermore, we end up competing among ourselves instead of helping each other, which is only detrimental to the growth of the industry. In order to address this situation, we propose the gathering of all our titles under a UNIFYING BANNER under this banner the creators would retain autonomy over all direction and copyright of their creations; free ad space will be provided to ALL our comic books to promote the others’ creations; the name of your printer / publisher will still be retained if you want. We invite you to a meeting to discuss this

happy halloween Some online treats for all who dare to pass-by this dark way: TRESE: The Outpost on Kalayaan Street is now online. The idea for this issue came from staring out the window too much. One of our brainstorm rooms faces that part of Makati where the Manila South Cemetery is located. That day, they had just painted some of the tombstones with bright, white paint, so you could see it peeking through the treetops. My uncle used to be the parish priest of the nearby church and he told me about the families that lived in the cemetery. Which just made me wonder what life was like in that place. Last Holy Week, I took a walk around the Manila South Cemetery and took referrence photos for Kajo. Here are some of them: By the way, more evidence have been collected for Exhibit 13 . Scene of the Crime Officers Tobie Abad, Joel Chua, Adam David, Reno Maniquis, Elbert Or, Isha Pimentel, Argem Vinuya, and Leinil Francis Yu have some disturbing (and cute) illustrations to present to you.

13,000 THANK YOU’s Friday afternoon, me, Kajo, and Ian were walking to the Copylandia to get our books reproduced. Kajo asked me how many copies of TRESE did I make. I said I had 30 copies of #1 to #4 and 40 copies of #5 and #6. “Dude, I think you need to make more,” he said. I said we had enough. I thought, since we sold only 40 copies in the last Komikon, I had enough. Cut-to: Saturday, day of the Komikon, 3:13pm I had no more copies of TRESE. It was a sad / happy situation to be in. I had to apologize to the people who wanted to buy the whole set. Some people opted to buy THE LAST DATU / THE DATU’S DAUGHTER, which was another book made by me and Kajo. (Hope you also liked that as much as you liked TRESE.) It was also interesting to meet people who had read the TRESE stories online, but still wanted to have a copy. Me and Kajo have discussed the problems of uploading complete issues online; that people might just settle for that and not buy the printed versions when we do release the

Kita-kits sa KOMIKON What: KOMIKON 2006: The 2nd Philippine Komiks Convention Where: UP Bahay ng Alumni, UP Diliman, Q.C. When: October 21, 2006; 10 am – 8 pm More info at: http://komikon.blogspot.com/ Be there for the launch of TRESE # 1 to 6 Story by Budjette Tan Art by Kajo Baldisimo (click to see the pages) Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 & 7 ULTRACOPS Story and art by Ian Sta. Maria Script by Bow Guerrero (click to see the pages) Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 ARTIFACT Story by Ryan Zamora and Rafael Urbina Art by Kajo Baldisimo (click to see the pages) Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 THE DATU'S DAUGHTER Story by Kajo Baldisimo and Budjette Tan Script by Budjette Tan Art by Kajo Baldisimo (click to see the pages) Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 KADILIMAN (Preview Book) Story by David Hontiveros Art by Edgar Tadeo (click to see the pages) Page 1 Page 2 Page 6 Page 7 Page 9 Isn't this exciting? Well, I'm definitely excited! Gerry'

Ladies and gentlemen, we now present to you Exhibit 13. A collection of evidence found and documented by Manila’s finest Scene of the Crime Officers (SOCO). All cases are part of Alexandra Trese’s ongoing investigation of Manila’s underworld. http://exhibit13.blogspot.com/ Roll call of Exhibit 13’s SOCOs: Andrew Drilon, Rey Villegas, Ian Sta. Maria, Ronnie Tres Reyes, Marco Dimaano, Carlo Vergara, Hai Ibardoloza, Chester Ocampo, Jac Ting Lim, Reinard Santos, Leigh Reyes, Bong Leal, Oliver Pulumbarit, and of course, Kajo Balidisimo. Many thanks to these brave "police sketch artists" for collecting and illustrating these strange occurences in the metro.

“Hit the brakes if you’ve already heard this before.” I had a 1pm meeting today. So, we had to leave the office at 12 noon. Meaning, I was attending a meeting with an empty stomach. Which meant I was going to be very grumpy. We hailed a cab and all got in. I sat in the passenger seat, gave instructions to the driver and closed my eyes, hoping to get a bit of rest before we got to the meeting. The driver started to make comments about the traffic and the cops and the billboards and the government and I wasn’t in the mood to converse. He then asked me, “Narinig niyo po na namatay na si Steve Irwin, yung Crocodile Hunter? Sayang, di ba? Mag do-donate dapat siya sa bansa natin. Alam niya kasi na dito mahahanap ang pinakamalaking crocodile sa buong mundo. “May zoo nga siya kung saan mahahanap ang pinakamalaking Japanese crocodile. Tapos, nandoon din ang pinakamalaking Australian crocodile-- at mas malaki nga! “Tapos, dun sa kulungan ng Philippine crocodile, walang laman. Kaya nagtapon siya

M u r d e r b y G o o g l e I'm currently working on the script of TRESE #7 and needed to find out what kind of acid can be used to dissolve an entire human body. So, I went to Google and typed in: acid dissove human flesh and found this: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=717344 Google rocks!!!

L.S.S. We recently had to put together a reel of Harrison Communications latest works. We included this radio spot for Biogesic, written by Maki Maquiling. Reinard, who was editing the reel, decided to do this animated short to accompany the radio. If you like it, you can check out more of Reinard's works at: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=ReinardSantos

let's begin I am proud to share with all of you the latest TV commercial made by Harrison Communications. Last February, Harrison participated in a pitch for the Institutional TVC of the Bank of the Philippine Islands. We won the pitch, but that was just going to be the beginning of many months of revising and re-crafting the idea. It was eventually shot during a very rainy weekend last July and it finally aired this month. It is rare that we get to do a TV commercial like it and great that we got to do it for an institution like BPI. We hope people like it. PROJ: LIGHTHOUSE CLIENT: Bank of the Philippine Islands AGENCY: Harrison Communications EXECUTIVE CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Teeny Gonzales CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Budjette Tan WRITERS: Teeny Gonzales (Assisted by Budjette Tan, Reinard Santos, Biba Cabuquit) ART DIRECTORS: Reinard Santos (Assisted by Argem Vinuya, Erwin Trivino) ACCOUNTS: Manny Martinez, Madel Palman, Abby Nicolas PRODUCERS: Chona Bustamante, Cris Dy Liaco, Netnet Valencia

Page One, Panel 1 Many months ago Hai and Jac emailed/texted me about writing a story that they can work on. I have yet to begin on those stories. My apologies. Tomorrow, maybe, hopefully I can get started on those stories. Art by Jac Ting Lim Art by Hai Ibardazola I also owe Kajo the script for TRESE #7. In the meantime, here’s a sneak peek on TRESE 6: THE OUTPOST ON KALAYAAN STREET. Art by Kajo Badisimo

kittylitter My mother has decided to keep Legaspi the Lost Cat. She now calls her Leggy (because Legaspi is just too long to say). Since day-one, Leggy has been doing her business in my bathroom. Even though we leave her in the garden after she eats her meals, she still comes in my bathroom to to do #1 and #2. So, that's where Brandie and Tin decided to set-up her kittylitter box-- right beside my toilet. The weird thing is, every night I come home and I go to the bathroom and sit down at the toilet, Leggy comes in and would do her thing in her litterbox. Then she starts playing around with my towel or tries to hide herself in the newspaper I've thrown on the floor. Or sometimes, she just stares at me. Which is very, very annoying. There are also times when she tries stand on her hindlegs and tries to look into the toilet bowl, as if search for something to fish out. Ugh! If all great writers really kept cats as pets... then I'm still waiting for inspiration to hit. I have

Tribute II Print Ad Credits: Client: Bato Balani Foundation Agency: Harrison Communcations ECD: Teeny Gonzales/ Emily Abrera DECD: Alex Arellano ACD/Copy: JB Tapia Art: BJ Galinato, Ian Sta. Maria, Argem Vinuya Account: Wella Balagtas Print Production: Femar Integrated, Inc. (with the help of Meo Remalante) Photographer: Jeanne Young (with the help of Yolly Liban)