Babbling Point

"IT'S IN THE MAIL!" Manila Envelope 2 is now available in Fully Booked. Manila Envelope 2 contains photographs of Manila by the American musician and visual artist David Byrne ; an excerpt from the World War II diaries of Leon Ma. Guerrero; a piece on the British writer James Hamilton Paterson by David Guerrero ; an essay on philosophy and film by Ed Cabagnot; a graphic novella by Budjette Tan and Ka-Jo Baldisimo ; essays on contemporary film and culture by Jessica Zafra ; and photographs by Neal Oshima, Ivan Sarenas, Datu Arellano, At Maculangan, Antoni Abad, Jo-ann Bitagcol, Giempiero Gastaldi, and Cecile Zamora. Art direction is by Yodel Pe. The special section, Manila 2020 , features speculative fiction and essays by Uro Q. de la Cruz, R. Zamora Linmark, Gerry Parco, Guillermo Gonzalez-Ramos, and Jessica Zafra.

FLIP BOOK The latest edition of NOLI ME TANGERE and EL FILIBUSTERISMO. Cover designed by Brandie Tan . (naks!)

Avid's BEAR BEAR story This was supposed to be part of legendary, still mythical ALAMAT 10th Anniversary Anthology. You can now read it at: http://avidliongoren.multiply.com/photos/album/19

PROJECT: CYRANO I recently had the chance to work with Michael V aka Bitoy, when we were given the task to promote Globe's various texting and calling offers. The challenge was to come up with a situation that involved a whole lot of calling and texting that would some how involve Bitoy and his family. Reinard Santos, my Art Director, was the one who came up with the story of Bitoy helping out a cousin who didn't know what say to his very pretty date. Director Henry Frejas then took our idea, jumbled some scenes around, and made the story more streamlined. This is what finally aired on TV: Aside from the TV commercial, we also had to come up with a print ad that focused on the different offers. Since we wanted to show the benefit of each offer, we decided to make a series of print ads about them. Usually, in a tri-media campaign, the print ad is just an adaptation of the what one sees in the TV commercial. Working with my Art Director, Erwin Trivino, we decided to continue the ...

TRESE: A LITTLE KNOWN MURDER IN STUDIO 4 Story by Budjette Tan Art by Ka-jo Baldisimo Heather Evangeslista has been proclaimed by the showbiz press as the next big superstar. Her career quickly fades to black when she is found dead at the set of her latest movie. Also found at the scene-- the remains of a duwende. When crime takes a turn for the weird, the police call Alexandra Trese. Read the complete issue at: http://tresekomix.blogspot.com/2006/06/trese-5-complete-issue.html

SUPERFANBOY Just my luck, I ended up seated beside Mr. Superfanboy last night, at the 12 midnight screening of SUPERMAN RETURNS. As much as I'd like to empathize with the next geek, he was just overreacting to everything on the screen. (I also think he was trying to impress his date.) Mr. Superfanboy kept going, OOOHHH! AHHH! WHOA! WOW! WHOA! ASTEEEG! Now, I must admit, there were a lot of scenes that made me gasp and say, "Astig!', but Mr. Superfanboy kept yelping every 60-seconds. He also went into, what I usually call, the Pesky Samaritan-mode, where he started to try and help the characters in the movie. He said things like, "LOOK OUT! NO! DON'T DO THAT! OH NO! WHOA! THAT'S BIG! WHOA! THAT'S KRYPTONITE! WHOA!" And he kept squirming and jumping up and down in his seat. Oh. What. Fun. Anyway, talking about geeks that also watched and loved the film, Jessica Zafra posted 13 reasons why SUPERMAN RETURNS is super. From a comic book geek point of view...

BAD BOYS! BAD BOYS! WHAT YOU GONNA DO WHAT YOU GONNA DO WHEN DIGMAAN COMES FOR YOU?! ULTRACOPS was supposed to be one of the super-secret projects that was going to be launched in this year's Komikon, but Ian got a bit excited and uploaded a whole bunch of art from the book. The story and plot is all Ian. Bow's helping out with the script and I'm... I'm just standing back, smiling, very happy to see Digmaan and his boys (and girl) kick super-human butt. View the de-classified art at: http://iantoyz.multiply.com/photos/album/16

WE HAVE SUCH SITES TO SHOW YOU Pinoy Ad Agency people that have recently started blogging: http://brandietan.blogspot.com/ Yup, that’s THE Brandie Tan. Full-time Art Director at JWT. Part-time teacher at the Academy of Arts, San Francisco. (He teleports to get to class on time.) http://www.cannesjudge.blogspot.com/ David Guerrero’s blog when he was a judge at Cannes. http://hesaidhesaidshow.blogspot.com/ “Meet Ramon and Pepito. They're two ad agency rejects who believe that it's the industry's loss that they were never hired--simply because to them, they are the best ad critics on the planet. In their quest to make the advertising industry a better place, Ramon and Pepito have decided to put together their own show that puts many award-winning ads in a different light.” These two guys just started video-blogging. They’re the Beavis and Butthead of advertising. Quick, somebody in ETC give them a time slot at 3am! http://leighpod.multiply.com/photos/album/13 If you have frien...

trese : coming soon Pin-up by IAN STA. MARIA Hey kids, this is actually the back cover of TRESE #5. It's supposed to come out this month, but I haven't had the time to do all the paperwork needed to get TRESE back in Comic Quest. Will really try to fast track that in July. I don't know if I'll be able to get a table in the New Worlds event. If ever I do, then you can be sure to get TRESE #1 to 5 during that time. So sorry for the delay.

CHAMPIONS I did not have a weekend. Spend the past three days shooting a new TV commercial. After I uploaded our PDI "Freedom" ad last week, I was planning to blog about how we were able to put that together in record time. (Although, maybe I shouldn't say how fast we did that because client might read this entry and say, "Hey! Why can't you do that for our ads?!") Anyway, will delay that entry for something else... a story I suddenly remember because we found out today that we lost the Tuseran pitch. That was the other project we were working on for the past two weeks. We really felt that we had a really great campaign and that client would like it. Well, they didn't. This is the second time we're lost a Unilab account in a pitch. Last year, we lost Enervon. So, on the cab ride back to the office I remembered something my friend Rog once told me. (By the way, it was Rog's birthday last Sunday, so maybe that's the reason my brain clicked that...

BASTA PINOY, POSIBLE! Posible Performed by Rivermaya Lyrics by Russell Molina Music by Rivermaya

HAPPY BDAY KAJO!!! Just wanted to greet my partner-in-crime and in the dark arts Ka-jo Baldisimo a happy new year. (That's not really Kajo's pic up there, but that was his initial design for Trese.) Considering it's his birthday today, I promise not to bug him about the lettered pages of TRESE #5. (Hopefully, he won't remember that I'm also late in submitting the script of TRESE #6) It was almost a year ago when Kajo texted me, asking if I'd want to do a monthly, 20-page comic book. He said, if I could write it, he'd devote an hour a day to make one page. (At that time, I thought it would impossible to do considering the workload we both faced everyday.) So, we did a little test. I went away from my desk, away from the AEs that were bugging me to finish some print ad, and wrote down a little fight scene. I emailed it to Kajo, who emailed me back after an hour or so. And this is what I received: Yup, originally, Trese was supposed to be a man, a cop named Ant...

Somewhat connected to my last post, here's a speech that was given by Emily Abrera, McCann-Erickson's Chairman-Emeritus about work in the ad agency and creativity in general. THE VALUE OF THE INTANGIBLE by EMILY ABRERA Albert Einstein said, " Imagination is more important than knowledge." Prophetic, even visionary words from a great scientist. Come to think of it, the greatest scientists were so because they had the ability to generate theories… and what are those, if not imagined outcomes? By now, the second day of this forum, and after the tremendous inputs from Mr. Richard Glover, Professor Desmond Hui, and Mr. Baey Yam Keng, I am sure that everyone appreciates and agrees that especially today, creativity drives value. As the world zoomed past the industrial age and entered the Knowledge Era (also called the age of technology and communication), companies soon discovered that technology itself, easy to replicate and prone to early obsolescence, was not the point. ...

MAKING MAGIC Hello Kids! Just wanted to take you behind the scenes on the making of one of our recent TV Commercials was made. The brand is URC's MAGIC CREAMS. We were tasked to communicate to tweens this particular Jack `N Jill snack. One of the insights we had about tweens is that, being in that in-between age, they want to already show the world they're ready for bigger things. They want to be treated like adults, but still want to have fun. They want to do grown-up things, but still don't have that teen-age angst. So, we came up different storylines that followed this insight. We showed our boss several ideas, which got cut down to three ideas, which we still had to revised based on new ways on how to make the stories funnier or more interesting. We had a story of a 10-year old kid trying to impress an 18-year old girl. We also had this story of a boy and girl who always met online in a Ragnarok-type game. Then, there was this one story which was inspired by the Two Chi...

Overheard at Fully Booked, Powerplant This 30-something geek guy with his female companion were looking at some graphic novels. He picked up one of the books and started to lecture his girlfriend. MR. GEEK: See this? This is Iron Man. See the jet boosters on his feet. That's how he flies. He doesn't really have any powers, but he wears this armor. And when he flies into outer space, he turns into a rocket ship. I wanted to pick up the heaviest book in the store and throw it at Mr.Geek and yell at the top of my voice, "Shut up! JUST SHUT UP! You're giving comic book geeks a bad name!!!"

monday / 10:30am / near the entrance of a 7-11 branch There she stood, facing the cement column, cellphone in one hand, a white handerkerchief in the other. She used the white patch of cloth to cover her mouth as she spoke into the phone and also used it to dry her tears. I was rushing to work but I wondered what it was all about. Some piece of news that couldn't wait. Some words that just needed to be said. Some tears that just needed to be shed.

and the band played on Art by REINARD SANTOS For the uninitiated (a phrase I picked up from Chris Claremont), Reinard is the creator / artist of SUPER BUBOY. He has also illustrated several childnren's books which has been a constant on the shelves of bookstores. Reinard is also one of our art directors here at Harrison Communications and co-created the Globe Gizmo kids, along with Ian Sta. Maria. Quite recently Reinard has decided to flex his artistic muscles and has started to draw something non-ad related everyday. It's his little exercise of doing, doodling something quick, something that he wants to do, something that wasn't dictated by a Job Order. The Batch72 pin-up you see above was something he did the other day. It would really be great to see a B72 adventure drawn by Reinard, as well as other adventures that might be drawn by Ian and Kajo. It's just that the band hasn't been talking to me for quite sometime time. These days, it's Alexandra Trese who t...

sweet, smelly nothings We see a Guy and Girl coming out of Misson:Impossible 3. Girl leans against Guy, holds his hand and says, "Honey, can I go to your place and take a dump?" Guy looks at Girl, not so sure how to reply to her request. Guy finally says, "Wow. That's got to be the most romantic thing you've ever told me." (overheard at the Greenbelt 3 movie theater last Sunday)

LET'S BURN THE MAPS. Let's get lost. Let's turn right when we should turn left. Let's read fewer car ads and more travel ads. Let's not be back in ten minutes. Let's hold out until the next rest stop. Let's eat when hungry. Let's drink when thirsty. Let's break routines, but not make a routine of it. LET'S MOTOR.™ This is the copy for the MINI “Let’s Motor” campaign. The creatives who created this campaign said they weren’t just writing copy on how great it would be to own a Mini, they were writing a manifesto, a way of life for people who drive a Mini. I just love how the copy has rhythm, how it just flows and rolls off the tongue, how it just wants you to go out and drive and just keep driving. Makes me also wish I could write copy like that. More wonderful copy ads can be found at: http://www.libraryofmotoring.info/miniprintads.html