Babbling Point

August stood in front of the speakers as the DJ started to play that song -- the song they danced to that night in Boracay, the song that they asked the DJ to keep on playing because they loved it so much and the DJ didn't mind because they were the only customers in the bar that rainy, summer night. As the song reached its peak, August stood still and let every pore of his body absorb the music. For a split-second he had hoped that the sonic blast would be powerful enough to hurl him back to the beaches of Boracay; propel him through time to that very night when everything was all right. The rising beat, gave way to the female vocals that promised him an endless summer. And August just kept on dancing.

...then without rhyme or reason The two birds did rise up to fly And where the two birds were flying I swear I saw you and i I swear I saw you and i I walked out this morning It was like a veil had been removed from before my eyes For the first time I saw the work of heaven In the line where the hills had been married to the sky And all around me Every blade of singing grass Was calling out your name And that our love would always last And inside every turning leaf Is the pattern of an older tree The shape of our future The shape of all our history I was brought to my senses I was blind but now that I can see Every signpost in nature Said you belong to me lyrics by Sting

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OM3DF1Az-Q Client : Unilab / Neozep Agency: Harrison Communications ECD: Alex Arellano Creatives: Bow Guerrero, Ronnie Tres Reyes, Budjette Tan Accounts: Maricel Pangilinan-Arenas, Monday Gonzales, Jello Tan-Goloy, Ethel Dino

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFUI4iTyNfs Client : Jack N Jill, URC Agency : Harrison Communications Creatives: Bow Guerrero, Ronnie Tres Reyes, Budjette Tan Accounts: Maricel Pangilinan-Arenas, Monday Gonzales, Jello Tan-Goloy, Ethel Dino Producer: Datu Gallaga Music/song: Digitrax Animation: Holy Cow Director: Vince del Rosario

http://www.amazon.com/Fifty-Dangerous-Things-Should-Children/dp/0984296107 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-VacaaN75o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvHViFc0ekw (Thanks to Mark for the link)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPoINPWLXm0 Client: Globe Product: Globe Tattoo Broadband Agency: Harrison Communications ECD: Alex Arellano , CD: JB Tapia , Art Director: Reinard Santos Accounts: Maricel Pangilinan-Arenas, Monday Gonzalez, Jello Tan-Goloy, AR Riparip III Strat: Viboy Palilio Producer: Jho Moya Director: Adrian Calumpang ProdHouse: Provill PostHouse: Roadrunner

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ye54tvRSx0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5unOu12MXg Client : URC / Jack n Jill Agency : Harrison Communications Creatives : JB "Taps" Tapia, Reinard Santos, Budjette Tan Accounts : Maricel Pangilinan-Arenas, Monday Gonzales, Jello Tan-Goloy, Ethel Dino Director: Henry Frejas Producer: JhoMoya

Thanks to everyone that made 2009 such a great year for TRESE. The latest unofficial count is we’ve already sold over 5,000 copies of Books 1 and 2. We hope that Book 3 will sell as much. Thanks to everyone who got copies --who got copies and gave them away as gifts (we’d get the occasional email from people abroad about how they got copies of Trese from their relatives over here). Thanks to everyone who reviewed it on their blogs, Twitter, Plurk, Facebook, Friendster, and Multiply. It’s just amazing how these reviews range from the simple thank you's to lengthly, complex analysis that reads like a thesis paper. Thank you very taking the time to say all those wonderful things about Trese. By the way, there is now a Trese Facebook page which you can now join: http://tinyurl.com/tresefacebook This January, me and Kajo start working on the next Trese case. We hope to finish a new book just in time for the Komikon in October/November. And just so that you get your Trese-fix a bit earl...

Yvette Tan, author of the horror anthology WAKING THE DEAD , has started a new segment in her blog, where she interviews people about their beliefs and encounters with the supernatural and paranormal. I am honored to be her first victim. Click on the link below to read about the time we lived in a haunted house, the time we got caught between two warring tribes of duwende, and the time we tried to look for the 13th house on 13 Street. From Yvette's blog : This is the first post in an experiment I am conducting where twice a month (hopefully), I post a short interview of a person whose work have a tinge or more of darkness about them (although I may branch out later), not about their work (because you can easily google those), but about their beliefs and experiences in the supernatural. I am honored to have Budjette Tan, one of the country’s best known comic book writers and whose well-crafted works of dark fantasy I admire. CLICK THE LINK TO READ THE COMPLETE INTERVIEW: http://yvet...

Disturb us, O Lord when our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little; when we have arrived in safety because we sailed too close to the shore. Disturb us, O Lord, to dare more boldly, to venture on wider seas, where storms shall show Thy mastery, where losing sight of land we shall find the stars. In the Name of Him who pushed back the horizons of our hopes and invited the brave to follow him. Amen. update : I found this prayer years ago in a magazine (or was it a newspaper?) and clipped it out. I tried to find out the original author of it, but only found different versions of the prayer. Well, it seems like Ma-an's Google powers are more powerful and here's what she found... It is attributed to Sir Francis Drake 1577, the year he set out to circumnavigate the world. He was the first Englishman to successfully do this. He was a pirate and a knight at the same time. Here's the complete prayer: Disturb us, O Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves when o...

If they asked me I could write a book about the way you walk and whisper and look I could write the preface on how we met so the world would never forget And the simple secret of the plot is just to tell them that I love you a lot Then the world discovers as my book ends how to make two lovers of friends

This is our contribution to the Renaissance project -- the benefit project organized by Whilce Portacio, Philip Tan, and Ernest Hernandez of Hobbylink. Whilce recently did an interview with USA TODAY about the project / event which will happen on January 9, 2010 at the Megatrade Hall: Whilce said, "We're working on an event right now called Renaissance. It's a charity auction that's going to be held on Jan. 9 that will provide money to some of these artists who have fallen on tough times. I got the top Filipino artists together to create pieces for this auction. Their mission was to create a Filipino superhero. I told them, 'You're world-class artists, make a character that kids in the Philippines can look up to, can be inspired by.' I want these kids to see artists creating heroes that look like them and that live and interact in local places that they recognize. It's a key part of establishing that sense of history, pride and legacy. If we can do that...

You can now order the complete set of TRESE at http://powerbooks.com.ph Just click on the links below: TRESE: MURDER ON BALETE DRIVE http://powerbooks.com.ph/webinternal/products.asp?product_id=4204 TRESE: UNREPORTED MURDERS http://powerbooks.com.ph/webinternal/products.asp?product_id=4770 TRESE: MASS MURDERS http://powerbooks.com.ph/webinternal/products.asp?product_id=5049

A pedestrian walkway. A SIM card. A beauty clinic. These and other ordinary things become more than what they seem in “Underpass”, a full-color graphic novel recently launched by Summit Media. “Underpass” brings together such established names in the local comic book industry like Gerry Alanguilan, David Hontiveros, Oliver Pulumbarit, Ian Sta. Maria, Budjette Tan, and Kajo Baldisimo, who come up with urban legend for a new generation in stories like “The Sim”, “Katumbas”, “Judas Kiss”, and “The Clinic”. “In a strange and twisted way, I hope it’ll bring back some wonder and sense of the fantastic in their lives,” Tan adds. “Technology has made the stuff of science fiction a reality. It’s not fantastic anymore. It’s just common place. We don’t see haunted-looking houses these days. We are surrounded by condos and high rises. Maybe we can take such things and make them mysterious.” READ THE COMPLETE INTERVIEW AT: http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/233564/a-sense-fantastic

Read the complete TRESE: MASQUERADE at http://rogue.ph/features/entry/trese_masquerade/

I got this text : Hey budj!! I'm in Bohol airport,sitting beside a pink-studded tweener. She's reading Trese instead of Twilight. And that just made my day. But I do wonder how Trese's younger readers are liking the book. Most of the people who email and blog about it are already in college or are already working. Last Christmas, my boss bought TRESE for her nephews and nieces. The day after Christmas, she started getting text messages from her sister, saying, "Why did you give my kids this comic book? It's scary and violent!" Couple of months ago, a similar thing happened. A friend got his kids copies of TRESE and I got a text about how his two boys were now sleeping in the same because they got scared after reading the book. It took that as a compliment. At the recent comic book conventions, a 12-year old girl approached the table and asked for our autographs. Her mom was standing right behind her. The girl looked nervous. Her mom was smiling. I wasn't ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ip2OaZNZogI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxe4QYpjCAg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlTpQP4Sb0Q Client: URC, Granny Goose Product: Tortillas Agency: Harrison Communications Production House: EURO ASIA

Winner! Bronze Award, Digital Banner category We're happy that we didn't go home empty-handed from this year's Araw Awards. Thanks to our partners at Yehey! and to Bea for reminding us to enter this banner ad. Agency: Harrison Communications Client: UN World Food Programme DECD: Budjette Tan Writer: Shirley Tan Art Director: Gisselle Bautista Accounts : Maricel Pangilinan-Arenas, Bea Atienza Traffic: Yolly Liban See the winners of the ARAW AWARDS at 2009 Philippine Ad Congress http://www.adobomagazine.com/global/module.php?LM=creativeshowcase

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