Komikon 2006 Video Coverage
Whew! I spent most of the day putting this together, my longest video so far. Yesterday was incredibly hectic. I swear, this Komikon is far larger than the last one. Estimates (based on ticket sales plus exhibitors) count the crowd at around 900, which is 100 more than last year's. 900? I swear it must have been more than that. More like 10 thousand. Jeez.
I made a much more longer report for Newsarama so I wouldn't want to repeat myself here. I'll just link to the article when it comes out. I'll try to touch on some things I didn't go through much there in a short write up.
In this interview I conducted relatively long interviews with:
Carlo Vergara (Zsa Zsa Zaturnnah) on why he chose comics to express himself as an artist and asked him how he felt about seeing Zsa Zsa in other media. I really love his answers. Carlo also gave me some original art from Zsa Zsa which is... oh man...! just so great of him. I am, without a doubt, a huge fan of his work and to have some of the art is just fantastic. Thanks Carlo!
Gilbert Monsanto on forming his publishing company Sacred Mountain and where the name of it came from. I admire Gilbert's decision to pursue this goal. It's a huge risk, and it seems it's a risk that he faces fearlessly.
Budjette Tan on the genesis of his remarkable comic book Trese. Budje, I apologize if it seemed I was denigrating your past work. I really wasn't. I thought your earlier work was good, but none of them were as remarkable as Trese. This deserves to be compiled and printed into one book, or series of books! If only I had the money!
Jonas Diego on choosing a contest to look for talents for this animation company IAS. It's actually quite a clever solution for a talent search and I was unwittingly shangheid into being a nasty judge ala Simon Cowell after declining for so long.
Karen Kunawicz on being the editor in chief of Mango Jam, an all women comic book from staff to creators. It's something unique in comics, and not surprisingly, it's Mango Comics' best selling title. Congrats to Karen and Mango!
Noel Lim on why he made a comic book called SEX-MEN.
Marius Cornelius on what his bloody comic book is all about.
Co-organizers Syeri Baet and Ariel Atienza on why they and Artists Den decided to do a Komikon. I also asked Syeri about her own comic strip.
I had wanted to interview a lot more people, specially Randy Valiente on his unique graphic novel DIOSA HUBADERA and it's innovative PDF-burned into a CD format, Reno Maniquis and his involvement with the Mars Ravelo characters and his own Maskarado, and many others more, specially the veterans, but I decided it was probably not the right place to conduct long interviews in such a crazy noisy venue.
Tobie Abad gave me a really special gift... a chicken! And it's an fascinating chicken, to say the least. Seems a bit real from certain angles. I'll definitely take a photo of this and put it in ELMER #3. There's a photo of it with me at Tobie's blog.
Edgar Tadeo came up with his own video:
Here's a list of winners from the Komikon awards. I wasn't able to take notes of it during the event itself because I had been busy at my table, but here it is, courtesy of the Komikon organizers. I wasn't able to include this in my Newsarama report as I had to turn it in before I learned about the list.
Komikon Award Winners
Congratulations to the following winners of the first Komikon Awards 2006!
Best Comic Strip Compilation - Pugad Baboy
Best Comic Series - Fantasya
Komiks Legend Award - Alex Niño
Indie Impact of the Year - Kubori Kikiam
Komiks Character of the Year - Polgas
Comics Aid Award - Philippine Comics Art Museum
Best Weekly Webcomic - Kubori Strips for the Soul
Best Cover - Mythology Class
Humor Artist of the Year - Pol Medina
Coverage from various blogs have started to appear. Here's the ones I've seen so far:
Edgar Tadeo (with photos)
Marco Dimaano (with photos)
Tobie Abad (with photos)
Budjette Tan
Jonas Diego (with photos)
Carlo Pagulayan
Carlo Vergara
Henry Anima II
Reno Maniquis
Joel Chua (with an acoustics analysis)
John Becaro
Lyndon Gregorio (With Photos)
Elbert Or
The response has been overwhelmingly positive, although there are some who came away disappointed like this one.
Elmer sold really well. I think we moved 140 copies of the second issue, and 70 copies of the first. I'll be delivering to comics stores sometime this week.
As of this writing, I think Comics Odyssey already has copies because they got copies from me at the Komikon.
Forbidden Planet ordered 90 copies of Elmer #2, and 40 of #1 so I'll be sending that off to them as well.
