Babbling Point

“I hate comic books, by the way. I don’t read them. Not anymore. But somehow, it always comes to me, so I just do it. It is a job after all. But I got no love for it.” I was surprised to get this email from Mr M, who I’ve been trying to convince to do a comic book project. If you ever see this guy’s work, it will blow you away. He’s a great artist! Below is the rest of his email: “Hate comic books and that includes manga, by the way. LOL! As you know, doing comics isn’t very profitable for artists (unless you’re already working for big time companies), but if you’re working here in the Philippines, you don’t get much. You do a lot to finish a page and yet, you get so little. Before, I did it for fun. But I’ve been doing this ever since I was 16 and it’s now become a chore. So I guess that’s where my hate for comics comes from. Given a choice, I'd rather not work in an art-related industry. But still draw for fun. Drawing for work has become too tedious for me and maybe that’s why ...

"He puts down the pen, folds the sheet of paper, and slips it inside an envelope. He stands up, takes from his trunk a mahogany box, lifts the lid, lets the letter fall inside, open and unaddressed. In the box are hundreds of identical envelopes, open and unaddressed. He thinks that somewhere in the world he will meet a woman who has always been his woman. Every now and again he regrets that destiny has been so stubbornly determined to make him wait with such indelicate tenacity, but with time he has learned to consider the matter with great serenity. Almost every day, for years now, he has taken pen in hand to write to her. He has no names or addresses to put on the envelopes: but he has a life to recount. And to whom, if not to her? He thinks that when they meet it will be wonderful to place the mahogany box full of letters on her lap and say to her, 'I was waiting for you.' "She will open the box and slowly, when she so desires, read the letters one by one. As she...

Where Adam David writes about his Best Books of 2009 for the Philippine Free Press (January 10, 2009) TRESE By Budjette Tan and Kajo Baldisimo (Visprint) A series of slick done-in-one stories, exactly like CSI, only it’s steeped in traditional Pinoy monsters and mythologies and the main protagonist is a goth chick with guns and emo hair. It’s a working off of the more common vein of action horror comic books and once you really read into it there is certainly a formula to the construction of the stories themselves. But Trese manages to rise above it all above it all by simply resorting to the most obvious thing: it spins us a good yarn page in page out. Tan and Baldisimo show us what can be done with formula, why formula work, how formula can work for you, all the while not making it seem like formula. Komikero all over should not only read this for the words and art but also study it for its craft as there is certainly craft at work here. There are currently two books out, both utterl...