Babbling Point

. Mark's Strips Mark has recently decided that he don't need no stinkin' artist and has embarked on making his own comic strips thanks to some nifty cut-and-paste software. You can check out his latest creations here: Goth Chick and Chicklet Strip # 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 BRP Galunggong Strip # 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 . As Mark mentioned in his blog, "BRP Galunggong" is a comic strip about ‘da pers Pinoy submarine’. It was something we thought of many years ago, but never really got down on paper. Back then we also planned to do the first sitcom set in the Enterprise, but that didn't pan out as well. Maybe it's something we can do after Mark's done with the first season of "BRP Galunggong". Writer's El Nino Today (or make that yesterday) was the deadline for Dean's anthology and I missed it. The past couple of weeks have not been conducive to writing stories. Work (my favorite excuse for not getting any writing done) has been a rollercoaster ...

The League of Extraordinary Indios Pencils and inks by Piya Constantino Script and partial colours by Adam David . So, I was going through my usual list of bookmarked blogs and clicked on: http://indira.exultrade.com/elephant/ I scrolled down and to my surprise saw the illustration seen above with the heading: sample panel for 10-page RIZAL comic book for Alamat anthology, #1 . Which was a complete surprise to me because the so-called Alamat anthology is on some high shelf, somewhere in the Library of the Dreaming. Anyway, if it ever does get published, (and it's not happening this year, as far as I know) the 10-page Rizal story (tentatively called "The Amazing Adventures of Doc Rizal") is going to be a wild, historical ride. Chances are you'll get to read the whole 10-page story first in Adam's blog, so just keep clicking on that link for any possible updates.

There is a crucifix near the emergency room of the Makati Medical Center. The paint on its knees and legs have chipped and are almost gone. How long as it been hanging there? How many people have touched it with their hands and handkerchiefs and muttered a quick prayer? "Heal him." "Make her well." "Please don't let him die." "Thank God, my shift is over." "Give me steady hands for this operation." "Why couldn't I save him?" "Take care of her." "She's in your hands." "Thank you, Lord."

. Something wacky this way comes Something weird happened Thursday night. When I got home I found a dead cockroach in the pail of water we keep in the bathroom. So, I scooped out the cockroach, flushed it down the toilet and cleaned the pail and filled it with water. It happened again Friday night! Another dead cockroach in the blue pail. What would make these cockroaches climb up the pail, jump into the water and drown to death? Do they know something we don't? Could this be the effect of Bay-gon? Is it possible you just wasted a minute of your life reading this blog? Or could this strange story about suicidal cockroaches actually inspire you to write that award-winning story that will make your famous? Or you could use it as an icebreaker during a blind date and that will make the girl of your dreams fall for you? Or is it possible, you just wasted another minute of your life reading my babbling and we'll never, ever really know why those cockroaches jumped into the blue pail...

PROJECT: LIGHTNING (Art by Jonas . Colors by Laya Garcellano .) And heeeere's Ate Carol! She was originally supposed to be Kid Zeus' yaya (nanny), but later decided to make them brother and sister because I thought it would be easier for them to get on each other's nerves if they were siblings. They were also originally supposed to be called "KIDLAT AT KAROL", because I wanted that whole "thunder and lightning" motif. (If I did my research right, karol is "thunder" in one of the Filipino dialects.) And since somebody already owns the character "Kidlat" and "Kid-lat" is Peque Gallaga's character in the movie BATANG X, I had to give the kid a different super-hero name. So, I made a list of words that were electricty-related. "Zeus" came up and seemed to fit quite well with "kid". Hence, the title of the comic strip. So, visit Jonas' blog for more sketches and maybe even get to see the first page by...

UPDATE! Call for comic book ghost stories New ghost story anthology open for comic book submissions Danton Remoto is editing a new anthology of ghost stories in English. Aside from prose, writers may also submit comic book scripts, 8 to 12 pages long. Your story needs to be approved first before you can start drawing it or before you pass it on to your artist. The writer can choose his artist, but the artist should first send one or two sample pages so that publishers can check if art style fits the book’s editorial slant. (Black&white artwork only.) The writer and the artist will get P2,000 each. Deadline for stories and script: September 30, 2005 (Deadline for artwork will be set after your script gets approved. ) Submissions can be sent to: dremoto (at) ateneo (dot) edu Danton Remoto English Department Ateneo de Manila University Loyola Heights, Quezon City 1108

New blog about Pinoy Komix Found this new site set-up by "Aklas Isip". http://pinoykomixbiz.blogspot.com/ He said the blog is: A candid and personal examination of the Philippine comics scene from a social, cultural, economic and business point of view. In his first blog entry, he posted: "Aklas isip here from Manila, Philippines. In this blog, data on the history and business of comics publishing will be collated. It will serve as a guidepost for personal reflection. If any of you out there share the same interests and aspirations appearing on this blog, your posts are most welcome. Thank you. " Glad there's an additional site out there that chronicles and comments about the Philippine komix scene.

. "Healing America by beating people up" Wouldn't you be curious and pick up a comic book with that kind of a tagline? Yup, that's the promo line for Marvel's new comic book NEXTWAVE. Of course, having Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen guarantees that I'll pick up issue #1. I've always been a sucker for new team books. Right now, the only series that I'm buying are NEW AVENGERS, YOUNG AVENGERS, and THE ULIMATES (which is still about the Avengers). I usually subscribe to the "Chris Claremont School of How to Put Together a Super Team". You must have the leader guy, the wild/rebel with claw guy, the strong guy, the mature leading lady type, the naive school girl who's just discovering her powers, the comic relief guy, and that guy who'll get killed at the start of the series. Which is why it surprised me when I saw Bendis' roster for the NEW AVENGERS. Two Spider-people? A strong guy? Another super strong guy? The leader guy and the t...

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PROJECT: LIGHTNING Since Jonas already announced it on his blog , might as well talk a bit about this upcoming project from me and him. Thanks to his invitation to do an online comic book story, I dug up these two characters from the back of my college notebook. (Well, right now, you can only see the drawing of one of the characters from the story.) We should be seeing more character sketches in Jonas' blog soon. (I hope!) I'm really excited to see these characters finally come to life.

. if it doesn't come bursting out of you in spite of everything, don't do it. unless it comes unasked out of your heart and your mind and your mouth and your gut, don't do it. if you have to sit for hours staring at your computer screen or hunched over your typewriter searching for words, don't do it. if you're doing it for money or fame, don't do it. if you're doing it because you want women in your bed, don't do it. if you have to sit there and rewrite it again and again, don't do it. if it's hard work just thinking about doing it, don't do it. if you're trying to write like somebody else, forget about it. if you have to wait for it to roar out of you, then wait patiently. if it never does roar out of you, do something else. if you first have to read it to your wife or your girlfriend or your boyfriend or your parents or to anybody at all, you're not ready. don't be like so many writers, don't be like so many thousands of pe...

New sites to click-click: New online comic book stories by Filipinos: http://www.agimat.net/ The Journey that was Culture Crash: http://tagailog.deviantart.com/ "Mortality Bus Stop and Grille" a new comic book with art by Bong Abad: http://www.mortalitycomic.com/

Wow Wawi yeah... yeah... bad pun... but anyway... More photos of Wawi, this time taken by Eddieboy Escudero at: http://www.photo.net.ph/thumbnails.php?album=252 http://www.filphoto.com/displayimage.php?album=61&pos=34 Enjoy!

pumping scenes Photographer Eddieboy Escudero covered the launch of PUMP magazine . He said he had a lot of fun. If you want to see why, go to his site: http://www.filphoto.com/thumbnails.php?album=155 Talking about photos... I noticed that some people end up at my blog because they Googled "Wawi Navarroza". Well, if you'd like to see The Late Isabel's haunting vocalist you can head on over to Mr. Oz Mendoza's DeviantArt page at: http://strangenchanted.deviantart.com/gallery/

This a (cleaned-up, clearer) pic of me kneeling before the Dream King. (Thanks, Gerry!) I didn't even realize it until Andre texted me: "Did you just kneel down in front of Gaiman?!" And Cecille took this picture as proof. I don't know why I did it. It just felt the right thing to do. Felt like the repectful thing to do rather than just talk to the top of his head. Four days after our last encounter with Mr. Gaiman, people are still in that dream-like state. Fully Booked's "Neil Gaiman in Manila" mailing list has been very active with people's complaints and thanks. Blogs and phlogs and Flickr albums and LJs all curently detail people's meeting with the Maker of Morpheus. So, did anyone get to record / remember the Gaiman Q&A at The Gathering? I remember that Jordan Pinzon from the mailing list got to ask him this question: "Some people say that in order to gain something, you must sacrifice something in return. What did you sacrifice th...

. It's already Tuesday and I'm still tired, drained, and a bit disturbed by the whole Neil Gaiman experience. So, in the meantime, I point you to friends (and friends of friends) who have filed their reports like "embedded reporters" in the Dreaming. Adel "Little David" Gabot got exclusive photos and an interview: http://www.livejournal.com/users/agabot/ Turns out Karen Kunawicz already has a blog and I'm the last one to know about it. Anyway, she stalked Gaiman for all three days and you can read her stalkings here: http://www.livejournal.com/users/nazgulqueen/ Az was lucky enough to get close and chummy with The Sandman: http://www.azraelsmerryland.blogspot.com/ Quark, another lucky bastard, got to interview Gaiman. Let us all collectively bug him to upload the interview in his blog. http://www.livejournal.com/users/intrigero/ Gerry and Ilyn was part of that long line outside Fully Booked, Promonade: http://www.alanguilan.com/sanpablo/wbnormal.html Joe...

. I don't know where our country's going, but I know where I'll be tomorrow: at the Neil Gaiman event at Rockwell!!! Anyway, here's an excerpt from a speech that Gaiman gave at the 1997 PRO/con in Oakland: We are creators. When we begin, separately or together, there’s a blank piece of paper. When we are done, we are giving people dreams and magic and journeys into minds and lives that they have never lived. And we must not forget that. I don’t want to sound like an inspirational speaker here. “Be you.” be the best you that you can be.” But this is really important. It’s something that we mostly lose track of when we starts, because when we start in comics, we’re kids, and we have no idea who we are or what our voices, as artists or as writers. Young artists want to be Rob Leifeld, or Bernie Wrightson, or Frank Miller, just as young writers want to be Alan Moore, or Chris Claremont or, well, Frank Miller. You’ve seen their portfolios. You’ve read the scripts. We all swi...

. Below is an article I wrote for Karen's column about my trip to the San Diego Comic-Con and my report on the Neil Gaiman talk. I even got him to autograph my copy of "Sandman: Seasons of Mists". My only regret was that I wasn't able to attend the midnight reading of his story because I fell asleep. At least this time, the Gaiman talk will happen in the afternoon and I'll surely be there. Check out the part where he talks about his projects. Interesting to note how some of the titles have changed and how some books never pushed through. Maybe we can ask him about it this Saturday. See you in The Dreaming. Hanging Out with the Dream King by Budjette Tan (Published in Karen Kunawicz’s ON THE VERGE, Mirror Weekly, September 18, 1995) Over two hundred people, including myself, packed that room in the San Diego Convention Center last July 28. As we filled up the place up, we immediately saw the man we came to see and hear. As expected, he was dressed in black from hea...

. Bronze Boy Brandie's print ads for IMDOIUM can now be viewed in Adverblog: http://www.adverblog.com/archives/001641.htm#more The ads recently won the bronze at Thailand's Adman Awards. Another ad-blog is: http://eschenck.typepad.com/ Before starting his blog, Ernie Schenck used to (and still does) write a column for Communcation Arts. Hmmm... a blog about Pinoy ads.

. The Best Policy Did any of you get to watch that episode of IMBESTIGADOR on GMA? They conducted an experiment to test the honesty of the Filipino. They had a teen-age girl walk around in the different parts of the city and they had her drop her wallet. She sometimes dropped her wallet in front of someone or a group of people. Sometimes she'd just leave the wallet even if no one was looking. Inside the wallet was two hundred pesos and a note that said, in case the wallet was found to please call her number. If I remember correctly, 65 people returned the wallet. 15 people didn't. As pointed out by a UP Psych-teacher, some of the 15 people who didn't return the money were really poor might have felt they needed the money more, some didn't own cellphones and wouldn't have a way to call the owner, and some might have just considered it too much of a bother to return it. Later on, the IMBESTIGADOR team interviewed some of the people who returned the wallet. It was enco...