Babbling Point

UP ICW ANNOUNCES BEST FIRST BOOK NOMINEES FOR 2009 by Arvin Abejo Mangohig The UP Institute of Creative Writing and the Madrigal-Gonzalez family are pleased to announce the nominees for the Madrigal-Gonzalez Best First Book Award for 2009. The nominees are: The Proxy Eros by Mookie Katigbak, Stories From Another Time by Benjamin Bautista, Antisipasyon by Victor Dennis T. Nierva , The El Bimbo Variations by Adam David , Girl Trouble by Alan Navarra, Trese: Murder on Balete Drive by Budjette Tan and Kajo Baldisimo , I Hate My Mother by Perpilili Vivienne Tiongson and Playing It Safe by Gerry T. Los Baños. This year's selection mirrors the changing landscape of Philippine literature as it includes the bestselling graphic novel Trese, a collaboration between Tan and Baldisimo—a possibly controversial inclusion among purist circles. READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE AT: http://panitikan.com.ph/newsarchive/monthly/november2009.htm#bestfirst

Q&A with comic writer Budjette Tan INTERVIEW BY: GELO GONZALES October 18, 2009 http://www.fhm.com.ph/entertainment/interviews/article/1797/ How did you start as a comic book writer? I started writing when I was a kid because I loved reading comics. I felt like I wanted to write my own, and write my own heroes. As a kid, I did a comic called Cosmic Man, who was like a Batman in space. He had a cosmic ship, a cosmic belt, and a cosmic ray gun. As I got older, I realized I couldn’t draw, so I just ended up writing more. I started to meet better artists in college, and we decided to collaborate with each other. It was in college when finally we decided that we should do a real series, and seriously make a comic book. I was graduating from college then, and for my grad gift what I asked was for my parents to send me to the San Diego Comicon. That was in '94. And I thought, if I'm going to go there, I wanted to be able to show stuff to editors. Because before the wonderful age o...

The 2008 National Book Awards was held last Saturday night at the Ayala Museum. TRESE: UNREPORTED MURDERS was the only nominee in its category. We did not win. We did not get the unanimous vote of the judges. We did get to bring home some nifty certificates of recognition that say TRESE is the Finalist for the Best Book in Graphic Literature category. Below: Kajo, my partner-in-crime; Nida, our publisher and willing accomplice; and me We keep on writing. We keep on drawing. We try again next year. thanks to Wella for the pictures and for being there

Last Friday, we attended the 40th Anniversary of KBS, the Kanlaon Broadcasting System, where my mom and dad once worked. I was still a baby when my dad worked there. I barely remember the people there. One of the first people to greet me was Lando, my dad's old driver. Him, I remember. As the story goes, when I was a baby, I could not pronounce his name and just started calling him "Agoong". Hence, he got that nickname and that's what everyone called him. I remember how we used to play chess while waiting for dad to finish work and how I always forced him to make me win. (Makes me wish I forced him to teach me how to play chess better and learn how to not win things so easily.) As expected, as my mom re-introduced me to her old office mates, they all looked surprised and delighted to see me. They would then immediately extend their hand, palm down, and show me how small I was when I first met them. Some would pretend to carry me and tell them they were the ones who ca...

I found an old journal entry, the year I turned 30, where I was sulking about how I wished that I was going to celebrate my birthday with a book launch – a comic book launch! Of 100-page comic book! In full-color! Which, of course, didn’t happen because I had not written a single page of said comic book. Which reminded me of the joke about the guy who kept going to mass every Sunday to pray to God to make him win the lotto. One Sunday, he was so frustrated, he yelled, “Dear God! Give me a break! Let me win the lotto! Please!” And God finally said, “Give ME a break and go buy a lotto ticket!” So, kids, the lesson here is you gotta go out and buy your own lotto ticket -- or maybe the better lesson here is -- you have work hard to make your own luck. On my bookshelf now sits the first three Trese books and a copy of Underpass . (I guess the universe heard my birthday wish and granted it seven years later and didn’t exactly get all the details right, but I’m not really complaining.) Aside...

I got this in the mail a couple of weeks ago. It still feels great to receive snail mail; to see a package on your desk with stamps from far away countries, to wonder what might be inside the envelope and hope it's not a bomb or an ancient curse passed on to you. KARAVAN is literary magazine published in Sweden. One of their writers thought of doing a shirt review about Trese and here it is: Many thanks to Anna Gustafsson Chen, who originally reviewed TRESE in her blog: http://baodaobooks.blogspot.com/2009/08/trese-gothic-horror-fast-fran.html KARAVAN http://www.karavan.se/ a literary magazine that travels between cultures

It's somewhat strange yet wonderful to see Neil Gaiman on stage with Amanda Palmer and to see supers crawl on the bottom of the screen to explain to you that she's "Neil Gaiman's girlfriend". Which sounds like a high schoolish thing to do. Grade school, even. Also great to know how he keeps himself busy; how he seems to be moving from medium to medium, genre to genre (now that he's writing non-fiction). And how he looks so happy (and somewhat tired). Was fun to hang out with the Dream King again. Thanks to RAZOR.TV http://www.razor.tv/ for uploading all these videos! 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Welcome to Volume 1 of KOMIX 7107! This online comic book anthology features... The complete first issue of SKYWORLD. http://komix7107.blogspot.com/2009/11/skyworld-apocrypha.html Preview pages of THE FILIPINO HEROES LEAGUE. http://komix7107.blogspot.com/2009/11/filipino-heroes-league-preview-pages.html The complete story of THE LAST DATU, a project that me and Kajo worked on before Trese http://komix7107.blogspot.com/2009/11/last-datu-lawanas-story.html We have a lot of stories to tell. Give them a read. Tell us what you think. Come back for more! KOMIX 7107 is a launch pad We hope that the stories we tell in this site will take flight; that the creators of these stories be inspired to keep writing and drawing and that their works find new readers out there. We hope to tell, not just 1,001 stories, but to tell 7,107 tales. And just in case we do reach that seemingly impossible number, we’d like to tell 7,107 more. KOMIX 7107 is a laboratory This is also the placed where we’ll also try...

custom munny by JAN CALLEJA http://www.flickr.com/photos/30677525@N07/ These are one-of-a-kind customized dolls commissioned by Brandie. A sort of early birthday gift for me. :-) But don't you worry, we're now trying to figure out how to mass produce these babies.

As of this writing TRESE: MASS MURDERS is now available in Comic Odyssey. It will be available in bookstores and other comic book shops by next week and will be available nationwide by the end of November. While you wait for it to arrive in a store near you, here's a preview of the first chapter of the book. Enjoy! TRESE: MASS MURDERS 15-page preview More diabolical treats for you! TRESE: The Devil's Playground http://tresekomix.blogspot.com/2009/10/trese-devils-playground.html TRESE: Masquerade (preview pages) http://tresekomix.blogspot.com/2009/10/trese-gone-rogue.html More TRESE art from Kajo: http://exhibit13.blogspot.com/search/label/Kajo

PAGE 1 PAGE 2 PAGE 3 PAGE 4 Happy Halloween! This TRESE story was put together by the one-man production crew of Melvin Arciaga. I first met Melvin online at DeviantArt. He sent me a message, asking permission to cosplay Trese. I said yes and half-expected to see pictures of a girl wearing a trenchcoat taken in some dark alley. The pictures and scenes that Melvin later sent me just blew me away. (CLICK THIS LINK TO SEE THE PIX) Couple of months ago, Melvin told me he'd like to do a four-page fumetti story featuring TRESE. He also made one request: his nephew Prince, a big Trese fan, wanted to appear in the story as an aswang. How could I say no to, probably, Trese's youngest fan. (Actually, he's a fan of the Kambal, according to Melvin.) Anyway, this is just practice for Melvin, who's now gearing up to do a 200-page fumetti for his thesis. We've seen the preview art/pix and it looks great! Hope to eventually see that epic in some future Komikon! Photographed and pro...

While you're all patiently waiting for TRESE: MASS MURDERS and UNDERPASS to be delivered to a bookstore near you, might I direct your attention to the lady black. In the month's issue of ROGUE (with the bewitching Ornus Cadness on the cover) you will find a brand new, 6-page TRESE mystery. Kajo was busy working on Book3 and The Clinic when we got this assignment, so I was lucky enough to track down and dig up Mark Torres from his underground lair and convinced him to do this story with him. Mark had done a Trese pin-up before and we collaborated on another horror story (which has yet to see print), so I thought I already knew what kind of pages to expect from him. You can image how blown away I was when he started to email me these pages featuring his new art style. Aside from the Trese story, the issue also feature six haunted spots in Manila, as well as more pictures of Ms.Cadness. The October issue of ROGUE is now available in bookstores and magazine shops everywhere. See...

During the 2005 Komikon, we launched the very first issue of TRESE. We sold that Xeroxed edition of TRESE: AT THE INTERSECTION OF BALETE AND 13TH STREET for P30. Six hours after the gates of the Komikon had opened, we had already sold out all the copies of TRESE. I excitedly texted family and friends that my comic book was sold out. Great! Wonderful! Congrats! How many copies did you sell?, they all asked. I replied : 50 copies! In the recently concluded 2009 Komikon, we launched TRESE: MASS MURDERS. Two hours after the gates had opened, we had already sold all the copies. I leaned over to Ella of Visprint to ask how many copies did they bring. 180 copies, she replied. That did not even include all the copies of TRESE Book1 & 2 that were sold. So, if my 2009-version traveled back to talk to my 2005-version and told him we’d sell almost 1,000 copies in a single day, I would’ve probably told him he was insane! Which would not have been surprising considering this whole TRESE experie...

It's going to be a bloody Sunday at the Komikon! Join us for the launch of TRESE: MASS MURDERS at the Komikon 2009, Oct 18, Sunday, Megatrade Hall . 12 midnight at Metro Manila. Try to remain calm if you suddenly spot a tikbalang speeding down EDSA or a manananggal swooping across the Makati skyline. While partying at the Fort, never ever let the enkanto at the bar buy you a drink. Yet, there are deadlier things than walk the streets of this city. One of them now demands blood and sacrifice. When crime takes a turn for a weird, the police call Trese. TRESE: MASS MURDERS contains the following: Case 9: A Private Retaliation Case 10: Patient 414 in Mandaluyong Case 11: The Fort Bonifacio Massacre Case 12: The Baptism of Alexandra Trese Case 13: An Act of War This book has an introduction by Mark Gatela, who was my co-writer in that horror radio show "The World of the Unknown". Mark was the one who thought of the name Anton Trese, so I thought it was only appropriate for Mar...

The Universe was created in seven days. It took Ian and Mervin two years to finish this corner of Skyworld. Let us all pray to Bathala that it doesn’t take them another two years to finish the third and last book of this epic tale. I must emphasize that the creation of this tome required the summoning of god-like powers; wherein time was carved out of their impossibly busy workdays. Like heroes on some noble quest, there were days (and nights) when they had to forego sleep just to reach their destination. And I must say, the two years was worth the wait. And let us all pray to Bathala that … oh wait, I already said that. Of course, this issue holds a special place in my heart since this is the first time Trese and the Kambal crossed-over to another graphic novel. As kids, we’d have a geekgasm whenever superheroes from different teams would team-up. And our heads would just explode when Marvel and DC finally started doing company-wide-cross-overs. So, it was during one of those drunken ...

You are invited to take a trip to the other side and come face to face with your most horrible nightmares, your deepest secrets, your greatest fears. Follow the path down to the Underpass. THE SIM by Gerry Alanguilan What do you do when you find a cellphone SIM card? Do you try to find out who used to own and try to return it? Do you keep it and use it for your own? What do you do when you start receiving mysterious messages from the previous owner? KATUMBAS by David Hontiveros and Ian Sta. Maria When lost souls and wayward demons wreak havoc in our world, the Goddess of Death send her immortal warrior to set things right. His name is Kadasig. JUDAS KISS by David Hontiveros, Budjette Tan, and Oliver Pulumbarit In a secluded house in the hills of Antipolo, Peter hides a secret. He has murdered his wife and brother and buried them in the garden. Peter is about to discover that the phantoms of his past hold an even more terrible secret. THE CLINIC by Budjette Tan and Kajo Baldisimo Up-and...