Rico Rival
Ang Matsing at ang Pagong Cover
Wakasan Komiks #79, Book 2
July 3, 1978
Mapalad Publishing Corporation
Val Pabulos gave me a stack of loose komiks pages with artwork from my father-in-law, Rudy Florese. Thanks Val! These pages consist of his work in Wakasan, Sweethearts, Precious, and other komiks from the late 70's and 80's. A page of his "...at sumanib ang Langis sa Tubig" written by Marty Gee Aragon in Wakasan came with that issue's cover as illustrated by Rico Rival.
I've been growing to like Rico Rival's work recently, specially after seeing his current work in Liwayway. This cover caught my eye and it's become one of my favorite works of his.
I liked it so much I decided to restore and recolor it. The original cover was printed on bad paper, and the artwork had a lot of logo, title and price paste-ups. I scanned it, removed the color and texts, and then recolored it on the computer, preserving the original colors as much as I can. With minor adjustments to the guy's skin tone and shoe, this is pretty much how the cover would have looked like had it been printed on good paper without the text paste-ups.
Check out a much larger version here.
