Sunday, August 31, 2003



It just occurred to me that our Komikero group celebrated it's one year anniversary this month. The Komikero group, which I didn't name by the way, as I just considered it a Laguna Artists' Group composed of people who visit the Komikero Message Board, has been meeting once a month, usually the last Sunday of the month. I guess that as an artist, I was just getting lonely here in San Pablo and I wanted to call up my artist friends so we can get together so we can talk about art, comics, movies, share artwork, check out each other's drawings, etc.

We had our first meeting August of last year and it turned out to be a really good idea because everyone who was there responded really well to it. Friends called up friends and pretty soon I, and everyone was meeting new artists not only from Laguna, but also from Manila, from Cebu and from Mindanao as well. I decided not to make the group formal with officers, a constitution or other stuff like that. I felt that it would rupture the easygoing and spontaneous spirit that I liked about our meetings. But I liked for us to be productive as well so I proposed a number of activities including making a "challenge" comic book that we will finish on the same day of our meeting. One member would write and draw one page of a comic, using characters and a story that he will come up with on the spot. It's up the the next member to continue the comic depending on what the first member has done. Each member would have an hour to finish his or her installment. We managed to pull it off effectively for two meetings.

Today I proposed that we bring our art materials and just draw for an entire day on the banks of Sampalok lake and just draw whatever we see. Here's what I did. :)



Just pen and ink on paper. Someone wanted to bring a loptop, but I discouraged it. I wanted people to experience art at it's most basic, at its barest. People are getting so used to doing things digitally, it would be nice to get down and dirty once in a while. I wanted everyone to draw from their surroundings, not only to practice their drawing, but to also practice their skills of observation. It all turned out well, and I think we'll do it again next month.

Saturday, August 23, 2003



Of course I'm always thankful that I've got this job doing comics. But I'm specially thankful during times like this because I can afford to buy something like THIS. I just got my Lord of the Rings: TWO TOWERS 2 Disc DVD (Widescreen) and I've done nothing nearly all day (apart from cooking some mean tongue burning chili) but watch the movie again, and watch all the documentary stuff. It's still playing as I write this entry. I mean, how cool is this trilogy? Once all three are done and are in the can, I have no doubt that they, as a whole, will be considered as one of the greatest, if not the greatest movie ever made.

This is actually the first DVD I've bought in a long time. There were lots of noteworth titles that have been released that I would have wanted to get like The Right Stuff: 2 Disc Special Edition and Black Hawk Down: 3 Disc Edition, but maybe one of these days when I got the money to spare.

I can't wait for November when THIS motherfucker gets released. I'd have to sacrifice a Superman page or two but what the hell. This DVD is mine. :)

Thursday, August 21, 2003







Siya ay hindi lang mukha sa limang daan
Walang takot lumaban sa diktador
Namatay para sa bayan.

Siya si Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino.
Bayani.
PILIPINO.

Wednesday, August 20, 2003



E-Main Problems 2

If any of you emailed me at gerry @ komikero.com in the last 24 to 48 hours and I didn't reply to you, please send your message again if it's allright. I had some tinkering done with the configuration of my email to prevent some spam messages from coming in. Unfortunately, it looked like it ate up all messages and not just spam. This would explain why those who emailed me did not receive a bounced message back. Lan, did you send the pages? Nil? Budjette thoughts on our script? Anybody? You can use the komikero email now, although my yahoo mail would be allright too.

Tuesday, August 19, 2003



E-Mail Problems

If any of you guys have been sending email to my work address gerry @ komikero.com and it bounces back to you or you haven't been receiving replies from me, write to gerryalanguilan @ yahoo.com. The spaces around the "@" are intentional for this blog so my address won't get harvested by those damned spam robots. Just remove the spaces and you can use that to email me... ;)


SUPERMAN: BIRTHRIGHT INTERVIEW PART 4

And now the man, himself, LEINIL FRANCIS YU gets interviewed by Arune Singh of the Comic Book Resources website. Thanks Arune! If you guys have been following the interviews, some of you may think that we're saying all these nice things about our co workers, and the comic itself simply to promote it. But truth be told, I'm really excited about this project. I'm not exaggerating or blowing smoke up anyone's ass when I say Mark, Leinil and Dave are doing terrific, tremendous work. Because they are. God bless em, they rock!


The Restless Season

I had done some work for Fleshrot: Book of the Dead for Frightworld Studios not too long ago. It shows the half rotting face of a man in the rain. To be honest, that piece of work I did is ten years old. It was supposed to be a cover for Mass Media's Terror Comics. But it got rejected, not because it sucks (I happen to really like that drawing), but because someone else had turned in a very similar looking cover ahead of me, so they won't be able to use mine. So the drawing sat there for nearly 10 years and I didn't know what to do with it. When John Pearson contacted me about doing something for Fleshrot, I thought about giving this artwork to him for publication in the book.

When my complimentary copies arrived a few weeks ago, my eye was immediately drawn to a short story about a rat named Li-Gui rat and a bird named Fan-Chong bird. The story, entitled "The Restless Season", was written and painted by Socar Myles, a writer-artist I've not heard of before then. The art is really beautiful, even in black and white. It has a dreamy, ethereal kind of quality to it that seems out of place at first in a gore-filled zombie comics anthology. I was busy inking Superman at the time and as a deadline was looming, I knew I didn't have the time to read anything. But for some reason, there was something about this story that demanded my attention and that it just had to be read. So I just dropped everything and just sat to read it.

After I had finished the 10 page story, I thought that was one of the most moving, beautiful, poignant, albeit twisted stories I've read in a long time. It's quite haunting as well because images of Fan-Chong bird and Li-Gui rat danced in the back of my mind as I inked, as I ate, and as I took a bath. If this is truly the work of a newcomer in comics, then it's a remarkable piece of work. The artwork, beautiful as it is, is quite professionally done, and the writing poetic, lyrical and dreamlike.

I strongly recommend to anyone who reads this, buy Fleshrot! if only for this story alone. I guarrantee it's worth the whole book. I forsee great things in store for Socar Myles. This writer-artist has the potential to do great stories and the comics companies would be losing big if they pass this burgeoning talent by. Visit Socar Myles' site here.

The artwork above is from The Restless Season by Socar Myles.

Sunday, August 17, 2003



SUPERMAN BIRTHRIGHT INTERVIEW PART 3

Now it's our colorist DAVE McCAIG's turn to be interviewed. I've said it many times how impressed I am with Dave's work. And it's not just promo stuff I'm doing. I really truly am impressed with it. The last time I was wowed by the colors on a book I worked on was High Roads with Edgar Tadeo doing the colors.


Superman: Birthright #3, Page 14


Leinil's interview is set for Monday. I think I'll go collect all these interviews once they're done, print them out and put them in my Birthright folder. This is one series that I will remember fondly.

Saturday, August 16, 2003



Amazon.com

I've been buying on and off from Amazon books and DVDs for quite a while now. Whenever I need info on any particular book, CD, or DVD, I'd immediately look at Amazon to see if its already available, and if they are, I'll go see what features they have. Needless to say, Amazon has become one of my favorite sites to visit.

So it was with much surprise did I find a couple of books I had worked on listed there. My name actually listed on Amazon! It's so cool! :)

Friday, August 15, 2003



SUPERMAN BIRTHRIGHT INTERVIEW PART 2

My Interview is finally up! I can't believe it, but there it is. Thanks Arune! You're a swell guy. Thanks for helping us promote the book by interviewing Mark, Leinil, and myself about our project. Were you able to get in touch with Dave? And thanks also for letting me rant about the deal us inkers get a lot of the time. ha! ha! Thanks also for letting me shamelessly plug my other work.

Leinil says he will be sending a cover for me to ink really soon, with pages for the next issue to follow soon after that. I'm hoping to wrap up the Creation story as soon as I'm able. I may no longer have to time to color it myself. I may need to ask a friend of mine to do it for me. But I will of course continue to pencil, ink, and letter it myself. I'm very happy at how my art is turning out here. I think I may have finally nailed the style I have always been looking for. I'll post a page or two of it here soon.

I gotta go. I gotta start walking.

****

I'm back. Not only did I go around Sampalok lake, I also went walking into town to buy breakfast and then walk back home. I resolve to just walk to anywhere I need to go in San Pablo, just as long as its into town and nearby areas. I always feel tired afterwards, but I feel great!

Right outside our gate, a watermelon plant suddenly sprouted. The flooding of a few months ago most likely brought the seed and deposited it just outside. At first I thought, what the heck is that weird looking vine thing that's growing just outside the gate? I thought it was a weed, but it was so strange that I always watered it and saved it whenever we have our grass cut. It wasn't until someone said, "Hey, that's a Watermelon plant!" did I realize just what it was. And it's true! A couple of watermelons are actually growing out of the vine right now. One of them is still small, the size of a marble. but the other one is getting huge with each passing day. I mean, you look at it in the morning and in the afternoon you can swear it's larger. Right now it's as big as a softball. I just wish no one picks it up, at least before it's ripe.

Times like this I wish I had a digital camera. I'm tempted to say that as soon as I get some money I'll buy one. But I have to buy a dining room set first, have some cabinets built, me and Ilyn go on a much needed and much delayed vacation (although a camera would come in handy when we finally get to go). But I really want a camera like that. It's all Jun Dimaano's fault for sales talking me into it when he came over and showed me his Olympus and what that little damned thing can do.

Wednesday, August 13, 2003



SUPERMAN BIRTHRIGHT INTERVIEW Part 1

A fella from The Comic Book Resources website named Arune Singh got in touch with me about doing an interview for Superman: Birthright. This surprised me because very few inkers actually get to be interviewed. I hardly think of myself as newsworthy in this regard. And I don't say this out of false modesty mind you. I've been interviewed a couple of times some two years ago by similarly high profile websites and with all glee I answered all the questions given to me, taking at least half a day to answer them all properly. But at the back of my mind I kept thinking....do you really want to interview me? I'm pretty sure all your readers will be wondering who the hell this is. Maybe they want to talk to Whilce or Leinil. But I answered the questions anyway, believing that they really wanted to talk to me and really wanted me for their websites. I didn't refuse because they came to me in good faith and I thought I'd do the same. But the interviews never came out. Well I wasn't really surprised. Like I said, inkers aren't THAT newsworthy. At least they could have told me that it wasn't coming out. But I never heard from them after that. Except one time: one of those who interviewed me emailed again not too long ago, seemingly forgotten all about the interview I did, and requested that I tell them if I have any scoop on the projects I'm doing. I'm sorry, any emails coming from this person goes straight to the recycle bin from that time on. Maybe I'm in no position to act like this specially since I'm not really a "player" in the industry, I mean, I know my place and all, but shit, I gotta make a living and every minute is precious, so if you please, don't waste my fucking time!


2 page Spread from Superman Birthright #3


I'm glad to say that I can't say the same for Arune, who seems like a stand up guy, who genuinely wants to talk to me about the stuff I'm doing. And he's all set to come out with my interview at the Comic Book Resources website this week. Part One of the Interview has just come out, where he interviews Superman: Birthright writer Mark Waid.

***

People can be so uncivilized. I've been living in this rented house for more than half a year now, and I really have no complaints, aside from the people who live in the back. I don't know if they're just dumb, or simply just don't care. Once in a while they would gather up their trash right next to our wall and set fire to it. And I'm talking about a fire that is less than a meter from OUR HOUSE. Yes, there is a wall there, and the fire is behind this wall, but the wall is not that high, and the smoke gets EVERYWHERE and fills our house if we don't close the windows. Once in a while paper with burning embers fly up and land on us. Well, it wouldn't be too bad if paper was all they were burning. No, they're burning fabric, they're burning RUBBER, and they're burning PLASTIC. What the FUCK is wrong with these people? Don't they know that they're fucking with our health? Our environment? Our future? I went ballistic one day and went berserk on them to put the fucking fire out. I reported them to the Barangay Captain and I thought that would be the end of that. But it seems they're RELATED to the Barangay Captain and while no fires have been lit for a while. They're AT IT AGAIN RIGHT NOW. I can't believe how selfish people can be. All they think about this THEM, right NOW. They don't think or care about other people, they don't care about tomorrow.

Tuesday, August 12, 2003



I've been playing a little bit with Painter, as I'm considering coloring my own pages for this story I'm doing for PSI COM. I did this little painting really quick and gave it to Ilyn. It was really fun to do! Once I'm able to come up with some pages, I'll try to color them this way.




This is actually a big step for me because I've always avoided anything digital when it comes to my art. Before this, all my colored work, with the exception of the cover of Crest Hut Butt Shop #2, have been done by hand. Actually, I really do have no problem with computer colors just as long as they're done well, and that they're not overdone. Edgar Tadeo was brilliant with his coloring on High Roads, as is Dave McCaig on Superman Birthright. But a lot of computer coloring I see today are just garishly colorful and overdone. I want to start and try coloring myself.

I had thought coloring would be where I draw the line, but I'm slowly becoming partial to computer lettering as well. I will attempt to computer letter that very same PSI COM story, but of course, I will be fully drawing it by hand. Pencilling and inking is that aspect of comic art that will forever remain handmade for me.

****

People are getting really nasty on the Internet. A few months ago, I came across a site that offered good advice with regards to originality in comics artists. I liked the advice so much that I wrote the author, saying I thought what he wrote was brilliant. He wrote back, biting my head off telling me:

"Um... I'm not sure how to take this. Are you being sincere, and saying you like
my phrasing? Or are you being frustrated and sarcastic...?


Of course, this surprised me a lot, wondering where the heck the cynicism came from, and why is this person was biting my head off for a totally innocent comment (and indeed praise). It happened again today on one of the message boards I visit. A discussion was going on where I felt a very imporant aspect of it was being left out which was important in resolving the discussion. I offered my opinion with all sincerity, but the owner of the forum itself replied, biting my head off, asking me if I was fucking with him. Needless to say, I feel as welcome there as decomposing roadkill so I guess it would be best to save them from my abhorrent presence from now on.

Of course, I am not beyond fucking with anyone, which I do with glee on my own message board (hey, Johnny, Ed!), but I only do so with people I know quite well.

***

I took a long walk today, as I have done for the past couple days. My health hasn't been the best in the past several years and I seriously need to excercise. My bad health has contributed in part to the reason why it has been difficult for me to continue doing the Wasted movie. On a couple of planned shoots, I came down with either high blood pressure, or the flu. Noel Lim, the director, must be totally pissed with me now, and I can't blame him if he gives up on me. And being a good 20 pounds heavier than the last time we shot, the difference will surely be evident. I wish I could reassure him that I haven't abandoned the project. I'm still hanging in there, trying to get fit enough to continue. I have been watching what I eat lately, and I've managed to lessen my want for pork and beef. But man, don't get between me and my chicken. I can give up eating a lot of things, but never chicken, not when I've stumbled on a new recipe for cooking awesome broiled chicken. I've cut down on softdrinks as well, reducing my quota to just one or two a week. I used to drink everyday. I don't smoke, drink alcohol rarely, and I don't do drugs, so I'm not really that awful, I think.


I've also been watching my finances. I haven't bought DVDs in a long time. I still buy comics, but only those I find in bargain bins that go for like 20 to 35 pesos each. But I guess I'll soon break my fast because the 2 Disc DVD set of Lord of the Rings: Two Towers is about to be released. Screw saving! I gotta my have my Lord of the Rings! he.he. Much of what I earn now goes to paying for the bills, groceries, rent, and other necessities. I have to budget my money well so I can come up with my own self published books. I have a comic story completely written, just waiting for the art to be finished. I've seen some art, liked what I see, and I can't wait to see it done.

***

Last movie I saw is still The Matrix Reloaded. I really haven't gotten the opportunity to go out to watch because of work, and because I have to go to Manila so I can watch a movie in the cinema properly. To me, I can no longer watch movies if its not in Greenbelt 3. I like the fact that I can reserve a particular seat, the patrons are civilized enough to shut their fucking phones off, and latecomers are not allowed in to mess up you view. It's getting so that the next movie I will see on the screen may well be Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.

Sunday, August 10, 2003



I've been inking comics for nearly eight years now. Inking is that part of the process of drawing comics wherein the inker goes over in ink what another artist has already drawn in pencils. To the casual observer, it may well be considered Tracing, but a lot more things go into it than that. It would be difficult to explain exactly what I mean, as I myself was unsure of what the inker was supposed to do even during my first professional year as an inker. A perfect demonstration would be to take a pencil drawing and have a non-artist ink it, and then have a copy of the pencils inked by a professional, say like Tim Townsend, Jerry Ordway or John Beatty. Results should immediately be obvious. Inkers SHOULD be artists in their own right themselves, as only they can fully know what is going on in a penciller's mind and have the sufficient talent and skill to bring the artwork up to its full potential.

For a site that will give you all you need to know about inking, check out Larry Dempsey's Inking Survey Site. Larry has been able to interview and amazing array of artists from many places in the industry on the subject of inking.

That said, I think I've done everything I can possibly do with just inking, and want to move on to drawing. And by drawing I mean both pencilling and inking my work. To me, pencilling and inking is a single step in a process, a step that has been split in two in many American comics. Here in the Philippines, artists have always been trained to take pencilling and inking a single step. When you are asked to draw comics, that really meant both pencilling and inking. My correspondence with this amazing artist Socar Myles, who specializes in painted work both digital and manual, has reinforced my wish to return to drawing comics full time. I'm 35, and I'm not getting any younger. If I'm to make that step, I have to do it now.

Actually, I have been doing it on the side for quite some time. In 2002, I did both City of Light for Unbound Comics, and Ochlocrat for Comics Conspiracy. While I didn't get much feedback for City of Light, feedback for Ochlocrat had been plentiful. Looking at the work, I have to agree with a lot of the critiques my art has gotten and I tried hard to have it help my work. Hopefully, the results can be seen in The Judge's House, a 16-page adaptation of Bram Stoker's short story which I pencilled, inked, and lettered. It should be out in a Graphic Classics book spotlighting Bram Stoker in September. I'm still not fully happy with my work here, as it seems like a mutant between evolutions. In certain pages you would probably notice that I can't fully decide what direction to go, intricate, or simple. I'll be continuing to improve my work with a Creations story I'm doing for PSICOM. More info about that soon.

I think I'll do a little bit more inking after Birthright, but after that, I'll take the plunge and make the best of it. I know I'll never be a Jim Lee or even a Leinil Yu, as my comic book aspirations are completely different. When I draw, I tend not to draw Superheroes, but when I need to, I can draw them, but they would look different. I see myself doing stuff like Berlin rather than Captain America, Gemma Bovery rather than Green Lantern. I'd be tickled pink to do Wolverine though, as it has always been a dream of mine.

This year all throughout next year, I'll try really hard to get more into drawing comics, and possibly writing as well. Wasted, Dead Heart and Crest Hut gave me the confidence that I can do it . A lot of people have also suggested I do more writing, and I guess I just might as well do it.

Wednesday, August 06, 2003



DEAD HEART #2: BLOOD BROTHERS

Web comics seems to be the huge thing a few years ago and many have speculated that it will soon replace print comics. Being the tradionalist, I'd rather see my work in print. But I didn't want to knock it before I had tried it so I placed my "Last Meow" online, and accepted an online web gig for Unbound Comics where I drew a section of Antony Johnston's City of Light. I didn't make anything at all from the latter gig, but it's all right, as I did not join them for the money but for the experience. At least I can say that I at least have worked with up and coming comics superstar Antony Johnston. Watch out for him...he's gonna be huge!

While I still prefer to see my work in print at this point, I just couldn't refuse when a friend of mine, Jason Banico, asked if he could include one of my minicomics in his web comic site at Dynatica.



Jason wanted the first issue of Crest Hut Butt Shop, but I thought it would be much better to give him Dead Heart #2, which includes Blood Brothers, an 11 page story that I wrote, and Leinil Francis Yu pencilled and inked, just a short while before he started working for Marvel with Wolverine. I had been inking HAZARD for Wildstorm at the time, and Leinil was training under Whilce's at his studio with us. Seeing as he was hanging around the studio with nothing much to do, I asked if he could draw Blood Brothers for me. I had always thought that Leinil was a terrific artist and I'm glad he had agreed to do something for me so early in his career.

The issue also includes the very first Stupid Chicken Stories!, which was what eventually evolved into Crest Hut Butt Shop later on.

These two stories, as well as covers, editorials, and ads, can be downloaded from Jason's DYNATICA site. There you can also download other Alamat comics including Batch 72 by Budjette Tan and Arnold Arre, Agent Gousse by Battle of the Planets artist Wilson Tortosa, etc.

Monday, August 04, 2003



All this mistaken identity on TV would be funny, and in some ways it is, but in some ways, also a little frustrating. I went out of the house today to the bank to conduct some business when the Assistant Manager saw me at the door and excitedly came up to me saying, hey, I saw you on TV! But why did you use a different name? This is the same feedback I get from a couple of other people. They think I did it on PURPOSE. Trying to be COOL. How can that mistake happen in the first place? The footage was taken from PIPOL, where my name was slapped in the interview several times. How on earth can they mistake me for someone else? Argh, this is stupid. I won't talk about it here again.

Sunday, August 03, 2003



I didn't see it myself, but I was told that I was on TV early this morning on Magandang Umaga Bayan. I know Ryan, Az and the other guys will be there, but I didn't know I would be. I mean, the ABS-CBN guys never talked to me. Apparently, they used the footage from my PIPOL interview, but mistakenly named me Leroy Lagdameo, Beerkada Cartoonist. I don't understand how they can make that mistake, since it's so perfectly obvious even to the casual layman how much MUCH more handsome, how much MUCH more of a manly man I am than this Leroy fella. This is an outrage, an OUTRAGE I tell you!! Heads will roll! I'll SUE!!!!

Now here, HERE is the damning evidence!! Thanks Azrael for the pic!



History of my Blogging

I've been writing my thoughts on a kind of online diary every since 1998, long before I became aware of BLOGGER or any other web based journal writing aids. I think I got the idea after visiting Mark Gatela's site, who had a kind of online journal himself at the time. Unfortunately, my earliest entries are now lost, and I can no longer recover them, even with the help of the Internet Archive.

However, I was able to find 3 months of previously missing archives from Feb 2001 to April 2001. I also found another 3 months worth of archives from my old komikero.blogspot blog, the first time I ever used blogger. With the help of the Internet Archive, I was able to find even older entries from my old site when I used to manually write and code my diary entries. I found entries as early as 1999, but nothing goes further back than that. The links are now added on the left. I had just a little breather lately and I thought I'd work all these out, but I got to get cracking again on those inks.

Things I have to do:

Finish inking this current Superman issue. I have a few pages left to go.
Finish pencilling, inking and lettering an 8 page story for PSICOM comics.
Finish layouting my KOMIKERO Portfolio book.
Start doing stories for my Komikero Comics Anthology for December.
Continue doing the Wasted Movie.
Actively look for more small pencilling gigs.

DELUBYO

It almost seemed like the end of the world yesterday afternoon. It started getting dark around 2:30pm and by 3, it was so dark it almost seemed like near evening. Then it started to rain. And boy, it started raining very hard. As in VERY hard. So hard in fact, that I believe it to be the hardest rain I've ever seen in my life. Not only that, lightning started and it almost seemed like it was happening right overhead because I could actually hear the lightning itself, crackling in the air. Our dog Eugene was in near panic. The road outside was immediately flooded. In fact, water started to flow inside the house of our next door neighbor. If we hadn't put up this little dike in front of our garage right after we moved in, water would have gone inside our house too. It went on raining like that for the next hour. It was quite something to experience.

Friday, August 01, 2003



NEW RELEASES!



A couple of new releases this week! The first one is Superman: Birthright #2 written by Mark Waid, pencilled by Leinil Francis Yu, inked by me, and colored by Dave McCaig. I'm really glad at the generally positive response this book as gotten. I've been visiting several message boards about the book and the feedback to it has been encouraging, even if the feedback isn't so good. Which is just allright. The general complaint of those who didn't like it were more along the lines of continuity issues with the rest of the current Superman books.

The 2nd is Book One of FLESHROT: Tales From The Dead, a publication of Frightworld Studios out of Culver City, California. It's a 132 page anthology of zombies, walking dead, monsters and other despicably disgusting creatures for which I contributed an illustration. It even has a way cool foreword by legendary horror meister George A. Romero.