Babbling Point

HEROES It's 6:14pm. I'm in the office. I just clicked on Gerry's blog and found myself staring at this illustration posted. On the CD player, Aimee Mann is singing, "It's not going to stop, til you wise up." And just kept staring til the song came to an end. "I saw more than the usual number of people inside one of the largest comic book stores in the city- people were looking to get away from the tv and read about superheroes. Lastly, I saw a worker coming back from the tragic site - he was dusty and looked very tired- he was wearing a superman shirt. How appropriate." --Rafeal Kayanan New York, 13 September 2001 PRAYERS Before coming to the office, I was once again glued in front of the TV set. At the end of one CNN report, they started to show images from all over America, of the services held for those who died, and of the clean-up and rescue operations being conducted in WTC. And while the images were being show...

txt msgs frm new yrk Quark's in New York. I texted him on his Globe. There was no reponse from him til the next day. Sender: QUARK Sent: 12-Sept-2001 03:59:57 hell budj! its hell here, people are cussing, screaming, crying but im ok. get yr messages late tho. fuckn globe :) Sender: QUARK Sent: 12-Sept-2001 08:09:33 no naman, but i think two more buildings have collapse. whole fucking lower manhattans being evacd. still in my apt, hope things dont get too bad.

The Man Who Saw Tomorrow When I was a still in grade school, I watched on Betamax the documentary “ The Man Who Saw Tomorrow ”, which made me so afraid of the predicted events.It was narrated by Orson Wells which made it even more scary. They made it sound like it was really going to happen. And since I had an uncle who was into jetfighters and military technology, I was very much aware of the threat of ICBM’s and nuclear winter. It’s funny how every time some mad leader from the Middle East says something against the West and then actually does something about it, I’d think that “He must be the Anti-Christ!” And I’d check if he’d be seen wearing a blue turban, or blue cap, or blue beret, or a blue hat. Quaddafi, Saddam, and now Bin Laden. Will the real Anti-Christ please stand up. They are the modern day Boogey Men who hide bombs in our closets. It’s funny how people scramble to decipher the enigmatic writings of a Frenchman who supposedly predicted his own death, ...

AMERICA'S DARKEST DAY Yvette was the first one to text me that a plane crashed in to the World Trade Center. I shurgged it off. Through it was a some small prop plane that made the wrong turn. The texts came in that a second plane crash and that another one crash into the Pentagon. The whole team scrambled out of the office to go to the nearest place with CNN. We couldn't log-on to the web site. We still can't log-on to CNN.com. We ended up in McCann where the rest of the creatives who were doing O.T. were gathered around the TV set. We watched in awe and disbelief as the second tower of the World Trade Center collapsed into itself. After watch for a couple of more minutes, hunger set in, we hadn't had dinner, so we went to Chili's and got the table with the best view of the TV sets. Been trying to text/call Quark. No word. I just emailed my relatives/classmates in the States, just to check if they're ok. Roach's sister is okay. S...

BATCH 72 now available! (“New” Alamat Comic Book) BATCH72 No. 1 Story: Budjette Tan Art: Arnold Arre (of TALA STUDIOS) Inks: Ian Sta. Maria Ink Assists: Brandie Tan Letters: Ka-jo Baldisimo Cover: Arnold and Ka-jo 40 pages, black-and-white, P70.00 Hey classmates! It’s not a dream! Not a hoax! Not an imaginary story! BATCH72 #1 is now available at Comic Quest, Megamall! As in, if you go NOW, you will see copies on the counter and can actually buy a copy (or copies for you and your friends and family and loved ones)! (To be distributed in other outlets within the month) For the uninitiated, BATCH 72 tells the story of a college barkada who have super-powers. “Yeah? So?” you might grunt. Well, the thing is, Kupcake and her friends don’t want to be superheroes. They just want to be a rock band! They want their music to be heard and their friendship to last forever! But since they do have super powers, it means they get into a whole lot of s...

Yes! Yes Yo! It's the Bloody Amir! Mark will love this . :) To everyone who loves rap music and hate all those wanna-be-rap-poseurs, click here ! Enjoy!

Bwaahahhahahahahahaha Plan 9 from George Lucas I'm sure this is how he really pitched it.

Sticking to the schedule Finished sticking the corrections around 3am. Well, they did all the sticking and I did all of the cutting. Thank you Mark , Petite , Drake , Jojo, and Brandie! Special thanks for Yellow Cab Pizza and Coke for keeping us alive! We'd also like to thank... uhhh... I need more sleep. So, we're ready to roll! I plan to get to the book to Comic Quest, Megamall by tomorrow, or early Saturday if my tomorrow get screwed up. After that, every weekend I'll be spending in some school with the PULP campus tour. And now the hard part... selling the book... here we go! :)

Moving Day (part 2) Well, this time I just moved a couple of steps into my own cubicle. :) Now, I can go to sleep without the boss seeing. :) About that "slight delay" So, about those typos... the printing press has printed the corrected copy on sticker paper and they printed it out for free. So, now it's up to me (and anyone else willing to) stick all the corrections on all the copies. Hope to finish it before Friday. Copywriting 101 "Brevity is the soul of wit." Did I get that right? Ay naku... been trying to crack this headline since last night. Why can't I get it??????????????????????????????????????????? It's like learning how to write all over again. Just when you think you've got it, turns out you don't. bad trip And so, we go back to the keyboard and try again.

Cold start It’s 955am on my computer clock Need to write three things Well more than three things There are three J.O.’s on my desk Some small Some big Actually They’re all little jobs A sentence or two A headline A headline which you just can’t neglect Trying to find a new way to say that “it’s a new way!” Playing eheads PLAYGROUND in the background In inq7 today The list of the nominees for the national book awards Yup he got in Well, judging by the books that came out this year, there would be more compete next year I can already see ONE NIGHT IN PURGATORY, ISAW and THE LOST getting in Depends what else comes out in the next three months Ahhhhh Just trying to loosen and stretch the old typing fingers Crack Crack Jogging the grey matter to start thinking I’m still on auto pilot Still asleep This instant coffee just isn’t kicking in Damn I need that brewed stuff When I was parking Brandie cal...

Happy day Happy day :) Got it! Got the first sample copy! Looks great! Paper is better than I thought it would be. Thought it would be flimsy and that heavy inks will be seen on other side of paper... but it's not that bad. In fact, it's good. :) There are some typos... ooops...a name misspelled here and there and a word missing in my editorial... damn those Word-Gremlins! I could have sworn I fixed those typos. Of course, this blog isn't making sense... I'm happy I'm babbling the rest will be delivered next week and then the real work begins... selling it! SELL SELL SELL Still, I'm riding this "high" despite lacking sleep for 24hours happy :-) happy :0) happy :^)

Bagong Klaseng Komiks? K2K issue no.1 Story by: Mark Navarro Art by: Lan Medina Colors and lettering by: Gilbert Medina Published by Atlas. Price: P35.00 Full-color, 32pages Available at National Bookstore and wherever komiks are sold. A quick intro on the book’s cast: THE GOOD GUYS aka K2K aka KATIPUNAN 2000: Supremo , leader and strong guy, a “Captain America” in military gear. Sora , Chinese-looking sorceress. Ladino , the tech-guy, stays at the base to monitor everyone’s progress. Kalasag , an Am-boy, seems to the brawler of the group, has not yet displayed his superhuman abilities. Dilubyo , Chinese-looking martial artist, with the ability to generate whirlwinds. THE BAD GUYS: Guho , the big boss man in trench coat, sporting some Street Fighter-like punk hairstyle. From the looks of the cover, Guho has to ability to shapeshift into this Thing-like creature, except his rocks are purple. Latigo , Chinese martial artist, who c...

MOVING DAY We're moving to a bigger cubicle. Moving the cattle to a bigger pen. :) It's funny what you discover when you're packing and moving to a new place, even if it is just a few meters away. Documents, Xeroxed articles which you thought would be useful. Old ideas sketched on scratch paper which you thought would be THE idea that would be turned into THE print ad or TV commercial. Now all in the trash can. It's also somewhat sad to see all those print ads and TV commercials that we worked on overnight (and in some cases, worked on for several nights) and to see that they didn't push through, that they got cancelled for one reason or another, and they all now have to end up in the trash can. Anyway, as one of the writers here once again, "If you didn't miss it, then you don't need it." So, into the can goes so many things which I thought would be useful later on. It's nice to clear out your desk, to have a clean desk a...

P A N D A Y 1 0 1 Below is an email sent to Alamat mailing list by Elsa Bibat, answering queries about PANDAY, the komiks and movie character. I was surprised that someone actually knew all these things about the character... even more surprised that it seems like her family knew such interesting pieces of information. Enjoy! ==================== Being part of the "Panday" fanatics of the family, I can probably supply most of the answers to the question. First of all, the sword was not a sword! It was a simple dagger made from metal from the flaming meteor as prophesied in the "Aklat na Itim". Following the intstructions as deciphered by Tatang, Flavio, "Ang Panday" of the title crafts a blade to fight the oppression of Lizardo(shades of Buckaroo Banzai twenty years before the film was made!!^_^). It had all these weird properties: it would hum a particular vibration when drawn or in the presence of evil, it radiated a light that...

Welcome to DAY 5 of our "slight delay." I think I'll just stop talking about the books release... just in case I'm am jinxing it by talking too much about it. We are fixing the problem and everything should be rolling by next week. I'll just formalling announce the availability of the book when it's already in my hands. Raining again today. I feel like the weather. The NU107 Rockology at St.Scho was cancelled due to weather conditions. That was the main reason I went on leave today, so that I could promote B72 at that event. Rain Rain Go away Come again Another day ... I just want my comic book printed... geezz... I wonder if Gaiman goes through these things... On Gaiman's blog , he was talking about seeing his son off to college and bringing his youngest daughter to meet her new grade school teacher. Just makes me wonder what it's like growing up in the Gaiman household. What stories does he tell his kids? Are...

Funny thing about these oracles, they're never really specific... and so our "slight delay" has reached DAY 4. Heavy rains again. Streets flooded. Traffic in most parts of the city. Had to revised some pages of the B72 because the printing press use PCs and we assemble the book in a MAC. So... the revised pages are still with me. Don't know if we'll still meet the Aug.31 release date. Ay naku... The petinent man... the petinent man... the petinent man... Anyway, after I deliver this disc tomorrow morning, everything SHOULD be fine. Read somewhere, if you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans. Funny guy, that God of ours. So, after tomorrow... count 14 days after that and we should have the books in the stores by then... or at least in Comic Quest, Megamall. ...on a holding pattern...

It has been delivered! The book is at the press and should be availble by the end of next week. Hopefully, I can get it to the stores as early as August 31. I'll be at St.Scho on the 24th, promoting the book, distributing flyers. It'll be the third and last leg of NU107's Rockology campus tour. After that I'll be joing the PULP Campus Tour. Will probably post the tour sched here and in the Alamat mailing list as soon as things are finalized. Keeping fingers (and toes) crossed that everything will go well.

Last week, I "consulted" my I-Ching cards on what will happen to B72 and the cards said, expect a slight delay, but don't worry, the project will push through. Well, of course, that's just my interpretation of what the card said, but essentially, that was the message. Today, due to Typhoon Jolina, B72 is slightly delayed. Will be bringing it to the printing press on Monday. Already had a chat with the press and they said it can be ready in two weeks. God bless these slight delays. "The color of the sky as far as I can see is coal grey. What a cold and rainy day. Where on earth is the sun hid away." --10,000 Maniacs

It's 3:07 am. Am at Brandie's office. He's now doing the final lay-out of BATCH 72 #1. Will be bringing this to the printing press later today. And if all goes well, we should have printed copies by next week! Brandie said that he got teary-eyed after he read Mark's article. Hate to admit it, but I got teary-eyed too. (And you'll have to buy the book if you want to know what Mark wrote... he he he) Here we go, kids... six years after it was conceptualized, three years after the first issue saw print, it's all finally happening! And it's all good! "These are the days you'll remember. These are the days you might fill with laughter until you break. And when you do you'll know how it was meant to be. See the signs and know their meaning. It's true, you'll know how it was meant to be. Hear the signs and know they're speaking to you, to you." --10,00 Maniacs

Alamat is now in myGlobe! Text ALAMAT to 2355 and you’ll get the latest news about Alamat Comics! Right now, you’ll just get a text about our titles that are currently in the stores, and you should have bought all of them by now. The program that makes this possible is still being beta-tested, so there will still be some glitches. Just in case you’re wondering, Alamat did not make some multi-million dollar deal with Globe. This new service is open to everyone with a Globe Handyphone. It’s called Text Site and anyone can make their own T-Site. Just log-on to: www.myglobe.com.ph and click on MyServices. From there, you’ll go to a page where you can select “Text Group and Text Site.” You can then begin to set-up your T-Site. Note: for some reason, it takes Globe two days to approve the “domain name” of your Text Site. Fee: you only pay an annual fee of P300.00. (And no, you don’t get one peso for every person that texts your site.) The myGlobe site is still a bi...