SUPERMAN: BIRTHRIGHT #1 (MAY030162), the debut issue
of the 12-issue maxiseries, has sold out at DC Comics
only nine days after its on-sale date of July 2. This
special issue features a 40-page story by Mark Waid,
Leinil Yu and Gerry Alanguilan at the regular-issue
cover price of $2.95.

"Superman, Leinil Yu, Gerry Alanguilan, Dave
McCaig...I feel like I'm playing in the greatest band
ever, and that retailers and fans have embraced
BIRTHRIGHT is just terrific," says Waid. "As for my
part, all I ever promised was that I'd show readers
who don't love Superman exactly why I do. I'm thrilled
they're enjoying the show, because it only gets
better."

"From the time we first heard that Mark was going to
write this project and Leinil was going to draw it, we
knew fans were going to have a strong response to this
series," says Bob Wayne, DC's VP - Sales & Marketing.
"Even with a significant overprint, we ran out faster
than expected. As always, we urge retailers to
increase their orders."

Well you say that you've made up your mind it's been such a long, long time since it's been good with us
And that somewhere back along the line you lost your love and I lost your trust
Now rooms that once were so bright
Are filled with the coming night

I don't wanna fade away
Oh I don't wanna fade away

I don't wanna be just another useless memory holding you tight
Or just some other ghost out on the street to whom you stop and politely speak when you pass by
Vanishing into the night
Left to vanish into the night

I don't wanna fade away
Oh I don't wanna fade away
Tell me what can I do, what can I say
'Cause darlin' I don't wanna fade away

****************
Sometimes it seems I'm the only one who likes Bruce Springsteen's music, at least in the circle I move in. I just heard this song again as I was turning the radio and I was quite surprised. Surprised that someone was playing a Bruce Springsteen song OTHER than Born In the USA, Dancing in the Drak or Glory Days and surprised that they were playing THIS song, one of my favorites which I'm sure 99% of you visitors to my journal have never heard of. But I have, many many times. And I just love this song to death.

I just got home from Leinil and Yai's wedding. All the old gang was there, Efren "Jay" Anacleto, Philip Tan, Edgar Tadeo, Gilbert Monsanto and Ryan Orosco. I hope to have some pictures up here soon. Damn, I really REALLY ought to get myself a digital camera. With those things I can upload pics with impunity almost immediately.

I'm so sleepy and tired...but I can't sleep yet. I have to work and finish this Bram Stoker page tonight and continue drawing it before I start inking Superman again. And then that is another tight deadline. Fun FUN July!! :)

Yes, to you DC Message board posters...That's really Leinil Yu and that's really me posting over there...:) Thanks for the feedback and support and we just want to let you know that for our part, we do listen to what you all have to say.

JUST ADDED!!

Click here to see pics of Leinil's wedding:
http://www.edgartadeo.com/duh/archives/00000080.shtml
Thanks to Edgar Tadeo!

:)

CONGRATS TO LEINIL and YAI!

My old pal Leinil Francis Yu, who just happens to be superstar artist of comics like Wolverine, X-Men, Highroads and now SUPERMAN: BIRTHRIGHT is getting married today to his longtime girlfriend Yai Maniquis. I'll be there doing the cord thing. The pic on the right is a sticker picture of them from around two years ago which got stuck in my sticker-laden art portfolio case. The surface of that case is rather glossy, so no matter what kind of sticker I stick on there it always comes off, at least most of them. But this Nil-Yai sticker always stayed and just refuses to come off. Just like Nil and Yai themselves. I'm pretty sure that they'll be stuck together for the rest of their lives. Congrats!!!

SUPERMAN: BIRTHRIGHT #1 by Mark Waid, Leinil Francis Yu, colored by Dave McCaig and inked by me has just been released. I'm relieved to finally see this book as we had been working on it since last year. I remember working on #1 back when I got married last December.

Working on Superman has been something else. I have inked on some high profile books in the past, even X-Men and other X-Books with writers like Chris Claremont, Warren Ellis and Grant Morrison. Amazingly talented people all...but there's just something about Superman. He's THE one. The one who started it all. Holding the issue in my hands and seeing my name on the cover...it's just simply unbelievable. And they even got my name right!

I received my complimentary copies today straight from Quebecor and I did something I rarely do with comics I had worked on. I sat down and read it. You see, I was a huge HUGE comics fan back before I started working in comics. In many ways, I'm STILL a fan, but it's not like it was before. When I worked on Wolverine or X-Men or X-Force, I couldn't bring myself to read those issues because I had been so involved in creation of the art that it was difficult to immerse myself in the story. I couldn't see Logan battling for his life or Sam punching through the ground from the sky or Scott blasting a building with his eyes. All I could see were the ink lines I had put down. Maybe it's got to do with working behind the scenes and knowing how the magic is done...that I lose the appreciation for the magic myself.

Not so with Superman. I sat down to read it and at the end of it, I completely forgot I had worked on it and just enjoyed it.



That's me and Ilyn at the Exotik Restaurant from a couple of months ago. I just got the picture from my mom and I really like this picture. I think it's the best picture of me and Ilyn together.

It's been a busy month, June was. I'm still desperately trying to finish The Judge's House for Graphics Classics. I'm running late and I also got Superman to ink. I manage to do both at the same time, but it leaves me with very little time for anything else. If I haven't been posting much to this blog it just means I had been working on those books.

My pal Leinil Francis Yu, artist on Superman, will be getting married this Sunday and I'm one of the secondary sponsors. With his marriage and a deadline in three weeks, I'm curious to see how he will pull it off. Actually, I'm curious how I will pull it off. Ha! ha! I'll let you all know how it goes...

I'll be at the 2nd Annual Toys and Collectibles Convention on the 5th Floor of SM Megamall this Saturday, June 21 from 1pm to 6pm. I'll be selling Wasted, as well as a Preview of my upcoming KOMIKERO Portfolio book. I'll be hanging out there with many other artists including ZsaZsa himself, Carlo Vergara, Ryan Orosco, Wilson Tortosa, Carlo Pagulayan, etc.

The KOMIKERO Portfolio book came about when I started to move house late last year. I cleaned out my room and in the process stumbled upon stacks of my old artwork, most of them have so far gone unpublished or have had only very limited release. I wanted to get this stuff out there somehow, so I put together what I can and put it into this book. It's interesting, at least for me, to see the various kinds of things that I have done over the past 10 years. I'm at least glad to say that I never got stuck to just one way of drawing.

Right now I'm not so sure when exactly I can release it. It really just depends on when I get my next checks. It will take a lot of money to publish my own book and once I get it I'll be setting aside part of it to get this printed.

I'm collecting toys for the first time in my life. A lot of people have asked if I collected toys, specially Noel Lim, but I've always said NO. I just didn't have the interest. But boy, did those McFarlane toys look cool or what? Still, no matter how great they looked, I just didn't feel like buying them. I feel I just don't have any use for them. Well I broke down and started buying action figures from the newest Star Trek series ENTERPRISE. The figures here are Weapons Officer Malcom Reed (Dominic Keating) and Chief Engineer Charles "Trip" Tucker (Connor Trinneer), two of my favorite characters in the show.

Why did I start buying now? I just happen to be totally NUTS about this series, as a previous blog entry would attest. My wife is a trekkie now because of ENTERPRISE. She liked it because one, she's a fan of Scott Bakula from the old Quantum Leap series, and two, she feels that ENTERPRISE is populated by more "human" characters than previous Treks. I tend to agree. I really like these characters. They tend to act and talk like someone I would know personally.

All of a sudden, having action figures around the house isn't so bad. All of a sudden I really want that McFarlane Alien action figure REALLY BAD.

Last week, I don't exactly remember when, me and Ilyn took our dog, Eugene, out for a walk. After a while Eugene smelled something inside a plastic bag along the sidewalk and when I tried to tug he woudn't budge. I looked at what he was smelling and Ilyn and I both saw a little kitten. It was probably the offspring of some person's cat and they didn't want it so they threw it away. Ilyn wanted to take it home but I didn't want to. It was too young to be on its own and without its mother, chances are very high that it will die. But after considering it a little bit more I decided to take it home after all. I thought that we'd give it our best shot at saving it. We called the little kitten Smeagol.

I scoured the town for a medicine dropper and bought some fresh milk. I tried to feed Smeagol a little every once in a while. I placed her in a huge box with lots of newspapers and used shirts so she could be warm. The little kitten was really loud. It cried all night and all day and all night again, looking for its mother. We tried to comfort her as much as we could. After a few days she seemed to grow stronger as her appetite for the milk grew. But her eyes were still closed. After a few more days, her meowing seemed to grow weaker. She still drank a lot of milk, but she seemed to grow weaker and weaker. This morning Smeagol died. There was nothing we could do. She had been just too young to be apart from her mother. I curse whoever left her on the sidewalk. They could have at least waited until she was strong enough to be on her own and we would gladly have taken her in.

It's going to be a very busy month. With 17 pages of pencils, inks and letters for a Bram Stoker story, 23 pages of Superman to ink, a Wasted movie to shoot, I doubt if I'll get much sleep before June is through. So I hope you all forgive me if I don't get to respond to emails right away or to post much at the message board. I'm sleepy. I think I'll go take a nap...in JULY!!

STAR TREK!!

I've been a Star Trek fan ever since I could remember. My very first Star Trek memory is watching a black and white Kirk on the bridge of the Enterprise being happy and victorious after capturing a comet (which episode was this?). I wasn't able to finish watching it because my parents forced me to go to bed and sleep. It was late they said. Kids shouldn't stay up late. I was so frustrated I still remember it some28 or so years later!

Now I'm 35 I've watched them all. I've seen all episodes of the original series, most of the Next Generation, some of Deep Space 9, some of Voyager, and half (so far) of Enterprise. While the original series will always be my favorite, I just love watching Enterprise now. I was disappointed to learn that it wasn't rating that good in the US. Which is baffling to me because I think it's one of the most imaginative, exciting and fun Star Trek so far. Maybe people are complaining that the Enterprise ship is too slow and weak, Scott Bakula is too bland, the stories boring. WHAT? Are we watching THE SAME show? I love Enterprise because they struggle with what the other Star Treks have taken for granted. The simple matter of transporting from the ship to a planet and back is a serious matter, being a new technology for them. Communication with alien species is more realistic because they don't speak english right off the bat. They need their communications officer to slowly decipher then translate the language. At last Enterprise has shown what the true potential of a communications officer really is, rather than just saying, "Hailing Frequencies open sir! Aye Sir! They are not responding sir!" There is no prime directive yet so they have to slowly discover the need for one. And the difference I'm most happy with is that they've gotten really REALLY good actors this time around. The characters seem more human, and lot less stiff than a lot of the characters in previous Treks. I can't wait to watch the next episode!!

And at last! I've finaly seen NEMESIS, the 10th Star Trek movie. And I'm puzzled. This is the least earning movie of the entire franchise. A lot of my friends think this movie sucks, and sucks even more for trying to do a Wrath of Khan. Again I ask...are we watching THE SAME movie? I thought NEMESIS was spectacular. I loved it! Nothing more I can say than that....