Babbling Point

Kookaburra This was my very first TV commercial. It aired in 1999. Even though I was credited as the writer of this material, I really just wrote one line here. (Back then, every time I saw the commercial on TV and heard that line said out loud, I felt so thrilled. “I wrote that! That’s my line!”) The entire script was actually written by my CD, Dadi Santos. The germ for the story came from a letter she received from her friend in Australia. The postage stamp was a kookaburra. During the shoot, I was so excited to finally see and be part of a TV commercial. Then it got boring when I realized that a two second scene in a commercial entails several takes, which translates to several hours. It also made me realize how every little nuance is important since we only have 30-seconds to tell a story. I remember walking around Megamall with my mom and we passed-by a Globe booth that was showing the commercial. She stopped and dragged me to the booth and we watched the TVC and she proudly told ...

June 19 please forgive me if i act a little strange for i know not what i do feels like lightning running through my veins every time i look at you every time i look at you help me out here all my words are falling short and theres so much i want to say i wanna tell you just how good it feels when you look at me that way when you look at me that way throw a stone and watch the ripples flow moving out across the bay like a stone i fall deep into your eyes deep into that mystery deep into some mystery Lyrics from David Grey's "PLEASE FORGIVE ME" Pics from Wella and Reg.

Friday the 13th THE DOLL Created by Kitty Almazan and Bonsai Fojas www.nooninoos.multiply.com THE PORTRAIT Art by Lady Gissele S. Bautista http://gizophrenia.deviantart.com/ THE PIN-UPS Art by Edgar Tadeo http://www.edgartadeo.com/ Art by Mark Torres http://mytymark.deviantart.com/ Art by Ivan Despi http://gaktikol.deviantart.com/gallery/ http://acidhousepost.multiply.com/ Art by Taga-Ilog http://tagailog.deviantart.com/ THE PREVIEW coming soon As I write this, there are just bare three hours left from this Friday the 13th. I was hoping to make this post early this morning, but work prevented me from sitting at my desk for most of the day. So, here you go, although it's a bit delayed... our little way of celebrating this particular Friday. Many thanks to all the people who contributed to EXHIBIT 13 . It always surprises me how people interpret Alexandra; but me and Kajo were most specially surprised with the Nooninoo TRESE doll by Kitty and Bonsai. Once again, thank you all! p.s. ...

The Flag Bearer I have always found it curious that in Philippine pop culture, there has never been a popular flag-bearing character. In United States, the obvious example would be Captain America; followed by Wonder Woman (with her red, white, blue and star-spangled outfit) and of course, Superman (whose costume follows the color motif of the American flag). They became symbols for the American people during World War II. In the days after 9/11, more New Yorkers were seen wearing their Superman and Captain America t-shirts. If we take a look at other countries, they didn’t seem to see the need to create such a character. Even when Marvel created characters like The Guardian (a Canadian super-hero) and Union Jack (a British super-hero), they didn’t seem to develop a big enough following and have comic book titles that reached the 100th issue or spin-off to become a TV or cartoon show. Here in the Philippines, popular characters like Darna and Panday are not “flag bearers”. I guess, ...

Agency work requires to expect that your work will get revised. Expect it to get revised a thousand times and be ready for the possibility that it won't get approved or that it might get approved, but for some reason it won't ever see the light of day. So, it is always a joy to work on a project that gets approval on the first pass and in every single stage of the project, client is just happy with the work and they say, "Ok! Go!" This is one such project. The team had a lot of fun working on this and the song is still stuck in our heads. :) PROJECT: DANCE DANCE PRODUCT: Chiz Curls CLIENT: Jack N Jill / URC AGENCY: Harrison Communications ECD: Alex Arellano, DECD: Budjette Tan, CD: Kevin Sabino Copywriter: Bow Guerrero, Art Director: Reinard Santos Accounts: Maricel Pangilinan-Arenas, Monday Gonzales, Sinta Rosales-Baguio, Eva Ocampo Producer: Barbie Leyba Music: Angelo Villegas (HIT Productions) Director: Vince del Rosario Production House: Holy Cow

i d o r u Last Saturday, at the Mangaholix event , we were lucky enough to be placed on the same side as Alodia Gosiengfiao ’s booth. (I think Kajo had plans of leaving after our interview on stage, but when he went back to the booth, he decided to stay.) For the uninitiated, Alodia has won numerous cosplay events in the past couple of years. She maintains a website that gets thousand of hits every time she uploads a new set of photos. Most of the time at Mangaholix, the people at the booth were Alodia’s sister Ashley and her DeviantArt/cosplay friends Tricia and Crissey . Some family and friends were also there and they were selling posters and prints of Alodia. (And they were selling faster than copies of TRESE. Hmmm… must re-think marketing plan!) I’ve heard of Alodia before and have been linked to her DeviantArt site since last year, but I never knew she THAT FAMOUS. Alodia was one of the judges of the cosplay, so she didn’t really spend a lot of time at the booth. Every time sh...

MangaOverload Thanks to Emman, Xavier, Ian and the rest of the Mangaholix Crew for inviting us to their event last Saturday. Thank you for letting us hang out at that one corner of your booth and for allowing us to sell TRESE. When Emman invited us and said we were going to their “guest stars”, I assumed there would be other “guests”. (Well, there were musical guests, lots of bands played before the cosplay event-- which was what everyone was waiting for). I just thought there would other comic book creators would also be on stage and we’d all talk about making comic books. As it turned out we were it. Just me and Kajo on stage with the hosts. I looked out into the crowd and thought, “99.99% percent of these people are here for the cosplay and anime and manga. Will they really be interested in our book which isn’t really manga?” Thankfully, the hosts had some questions at hand and that prevented us from having any dead air. Then there were the four very nice people also went up to the...

This Saturday, you will find us lurking around: Mangaholix Manga Mania '08 May 31, 2008, Saturday SMX Convention Center Seashell Drive, Mall of Asia Complex, Pasay City, Philippines I think they have plans of dragging us up on stage to talk about Trese and the Kambal. TRESE: MURDER ON BALETE DRIVE will also be available at the Mangaholix table. (We might come in costume. I will be the Fat Kambal and Kajo will be the Thin Kambal.) Hope to see you there!

i'm back at work i'm back at work i'm back at work i'm back at work? i'm back at work! i'm... i'm... where was i? i'm back at work i'm back at work i'm back at work pic by reg

9-in-1 VPE Kolektib Intelidyens 9 of VPE’s great page masters will come together in this 1 sizzling event. The three-hour meet and greet event will showcase our published books, upcoming titles, and the people behind them. A short talk by the editor and some extraordinary presentations will highlight the program. featuring : carlo vergara david hontiveros manix abrera freely abrigo eros atalia alan navarra budjette tan kajo baldisimo carlos malvar Avid readers, fans and followers, publishing partners, writers aspiring to get published under the VPE name, and curious cats are all invited to grace the event. See you on Saturday! 9-in-1 VPE Kolektib Intelidyens May 24, 2008 3pm Shop 33, Cubao Expo

kick-ass copy If there was ever an award for Best Copy on Packaging, I'd give it to Glaceau's vitaminwater. I was standing in line at Krispy Kreme when I saw these multi-colored bottles. I picked up one, read the first line and was hooked. I stood there for a good five minutes, read all the copy on the all the bottles, and laughed at every punch line. The people behind me didn't seem all that amused. Anyway, here are the ones that I liked. You can read the rest at: http://vitaminwater.com/ ESSENTIAL: orange-orange (c+calcium) ah, orange juice commercials. funny stuff, mom cheerily prepares some huge breakfast while the rest of her family sleeps. sure, this could happen, but every morning? please. maybe if mom were heavily medicated, in which case, we wouldn’t condone operating a stove or any electrical appliance. for those of us who don’t live in an orange juice commercials, there’s still a way to get your morning nutrition. this product has calcium and lots of vitamin c, ...

Building Stories Last week, me and the Eheads (the Executive Heads, not the rock band) went to Pampanga to plan to the future --the FUTURE, Conan?-- yes, the future of the agency. As most "planning sessions" go, you go to some place with a really great view but spend the next three days inside some hotel conference room. So, Maricel made it a point that we get to see the place and try out the food in the area. When we got there, we walked around a nearby wet market, went to the Rivera's farm, then had lunch at Cely's carinderia (where I got to taste camaro /locusts for the first time). We had dessert at Claude Tayag's house or more popularly known as Claude Tayag's Bale Dutung . The story of how the house was built fascinated me. People's usual reaction to the house would be, "How wonderful that you've restored this old house!" And Claude would usually reply, "Oh, it's not an old house. It's a newly built house." As it tur...

Post this on your wall for your own protection We'll be giving away this diabolical TRESE poster during FREE COMIC BOOK DAY, May 3. Buy a copy of TRESE: MURDER ON BALETE DRIVE and get a free poster. It's that simple! It'll definitely be available at Comic Odyssey, Robinsons Galleria . I'll update you guys if we'll make the poster available at other comic book stores. Please check my Twitter page on Saturday morning for updates: http://twitter.com/Budjette (If you already bought a copy, don't worry because we're putting together a plan so you can also get the free TRESE poster. More details about that soon!) One more thing, if you see two suspicious looking individuals lurking around Comic Odyssey, Galleria and Comic Quest, Megamall during FREE COMIC BOOK DAY, that's probably me and Kajo. :)

That clown from Stephen King’s “IT” freaked us out. Me and Brandie borrowed the LaserDisc of that movie way back in the early 90s. It promptly gave us nightmares and inspired our first comic book collaboration: PAYASO. Brandie was a big fan of Dave McKean, Bill Sienkiewicz, and Duncan Fegredo’s art in ENIGMA. He even managed to hunt down the works of McKean’s mentor: Barron Storey. So, when we decided to do that short story for COMICS 101, he was clearly playing tribute to his comic book idols. The next time we collaborated was for our contribution in the short-lived literary anthology CHIMERA. Once again, I wrote the story and he did the art. Of course, I already told you about the time we published our own newspaper and the time we worked on his Great Taste campaign . Now that we’re working for our respective agencies, we don’t get to collaborate much, but that doesn’t stop him from giving me advice on how to make my work better. Maybe the opportunity will eventually come that we’l...

13 days to go book 1 the front and back cover By the end of the month TRESE: MURDER ON BALETE DRIVE should already be in several bookstores. (We'll be giving you a complete list as soon as they are delivered.) This book compiles the first four cases of Trese, has an introduction from Gerry Alanguilan, an afterword from me-- where I talk about the beginnings and influences of TRESE, a bonus section in the back-- with sketches and character designs from Kajo. TRESE: MURDER ON BALETE DRIVE Published by Visual Print Enterprises Written by Budjette Tan, Art by Kajo Baldisimo Format: Black&White, 104 pages Cover price: P140.00 the sneak preview

I finally found a copy of SINDAK! in Filbars. This was scheduled to come out a little after Holy Week, but its great that it was made available this week, since it comes close to the release of TRESE: BOOK 1 (more about that in the next couple of days). So, if you’d like to know more about the origins of Trese, is there or isn’t there a “Trese movie” in the works, do we have anyone in mind for the casting of Trese, who was the mysterious Frenchman who called up Comic Quest, then all the answers can be found in SINDAK! #1 !!! Of course, other reasons to pick up this horror-thriller magazine are the comic book stories by Gerry Alanguilan, Randy Valiente, KC Cordero, Novo Malgapo, Ner Perdina, and the rest of the Sindak! Team. Many thanks to KC Cordero, Athena Fregillana, Paul del Rosario for featuring me and Kajo (and TRESE) in their first issue.

escape into a book One of my favorite campaigns won big time in the recent ADFEST. Click on the images to see larger version. Gold Single Press Lotus - Penguin Books "Train" Saatchi & Saatchi Singapore Silver Single Press Lotus - Penguin Books "Bus stop" Saatchi & Saatchi Singapore Gold Campaign Press Lotus - Penguin Books "Bus-Stop/Train/Airport" Saatchi & Saatchi Singapore See the rest of the ADFEST winners at: Adobo Magazine (Would be nice to do a campaign promoting comic books, yes?)