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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

THEY WERE HOPING FOR PEOPLE POWER

The crisis is over. The rebels have surrendered and have been returned to their barracks. But hours before that, their spokesman,Lt. Sg Antonio Trillanes was talking about exactly why they were doing what they were doing.

For a long time Trillanes and many of his peers have been frustrated by the corruption in the government and the Military. They tried to do something about the corruption within the law and when that did not work out, in desperation, they seized OAKWOOD hotel in Makati, planted bombs in the perimeter and in the hotel itself, and demanded that GMA and the AFP leadership step down. Did they take hostages and threaten to kill one every hour until their demands are met? No, they let all the people who were staying at the hotel, as well as the employees go. Were they threatening to send a missile or blow up some installation somewhere if their demands are not met? No, all the explosives they had were set around the perimeter for their own protection.

They have let go people, including some dignitaries from foreign nations, which they could have used as bargaining chips to both prevent the military from rushing in, and for their demands to be met. And yet they have not done that.

They have refused any negotiation, and repeatedly threw the ball at the people. It's up to the people who to believe, the corrupt military and government, or them, who they insist are the good guys. They took over the hotel without harming anyone, without firing a single bullet. And they said that the first shot will not come from them, and will fire only in their defense.

If they wanted our attention, they certainly got it. And when they did, they told us just what was on their minds. They said that the military is selling bullets and ammunitions to the very same Communist and Moslem rebels they are fighting against. Apparently, when they clash with insurgents and capture their camps, they discover ammunition and weapons that came from the military itself. They claim that the military was responsible for the bombing of the airport and wharf terminals in Davao. They claim that the military was responsible for the bombing of Moslem mosques. They should know, a number of them were ordered to throw grenades at the mosques but they had refused. I have no doubt that they believe all these with all their hearts. They believe it enough that they are willing to risk their own lives for it. They believe all this was done with the permission of GMA because Trillanes himself approached GMA about it and nothing was done. What else could he have concluded except to believe GMA was part of it? Although this leap in logic is somewhat hard for me to swallow personally, I could readily believe their other allegations. But what I confidently believe about them is this: That they are not acting under the orders of some higher power, that they truly believe in their cause, and that they would die for it.

Believing that the President herself is part of the corruption, they could no longer trust any institution within the government to air their grievances. Left with no recourse, they captured OAKWOOD, exposed the corruption within the government to the public, and hoped against hope that the people will believe them and rally with them, as the people rallied with Gringo Honasan, Juan Ponce Enrile and Fidel Ramos against Marcos back in 1986. They were hoping that the people would be so indignant of the lies and corruption that they would flock in the millions to protect them and oust GMA from power.

But that didn't happen. The day ended with the rebels' surrender, and Trillanes' disappointment that the corruption will go unabated, the guilty parties not judged, and that the people wanted it that way.

Trillanes and his people risked their lives and careers to expose the truth about the corruption in government, but he feels that the people will not hear of it, and worse, not care. He will go on believing this, and with the exception of thwarted love, there is no pain greater than knowing you fought for what you believed was right and then lose in the end.

I fear that a seed has been planted in the minds of these young officers and soldiers, a seed that tells them that the people don't know what's good for them, that they are blind to corruption, that the people are no longer worthy to place their trust in. I fear that the time will come when the choice will be taken away from us, that in order to set this country straight, they will no longer trust us to do the right thing, but rather impose it on us through force.

Military Rebellion In Makati

I was woken up at 4am today by a phone call from my mom, telling me to open the TV and watch the news. Still very sleepy after having been up all night inking Superman and turning in at around 1am, I groggily opened the TV. In the back of my mind I knew it had something to do with the rumors of coup d'etat in the news for the past week. I wasn't wrong.

I was immediately awake. On the TV were a group of very young soldiers airing their grievances against the governent, among them the allegation that the military sells weapons and ammunition to the very Communist and Moslem rebels that they are fighting against to elongate the war to the benefit of certain people/businesses, that Martial Law will be declalred by the government in August to keep it in power, that the President and the military themselves were responsible for the bombing in Davao so they could gain US aid in defeating the rebels.

Strange that the first allegation and the 3rd actually contradict themselves. Why on earth would the governent ask for US aid in defeating the rebels if they really want to elongate the war by providing weapons and ammunition to them?

In any case, I think I can believe the notion that the rebels would be in possession of weapons and ammunition from the goverment, but I seriously doubt that the President, the governent, and the Military is doing this consciously and as a matter of course. I would more readily believe in a very ingrained corruption within the ranks who sell these weapons to the rebels. And I really don't believe that GMA would be responsible for the deaths of innocent people in Davao for whatever reason.

But I think these Military rebels do have legitimate grievances, and I really hope that GMA and the government don't dismiss them as crackpots who just want to destabilize the country. The question they have to ask is WHY IS THIS HAPPENING? Why do these soldiers feel like they have to DO THIS. They have to find this out before they move on.

To all our friends abroad, I really doubt you guys have anything to worry about. It's business as usual here. I'm still inking, and I expect to be fedexing pages in a couple of days. The malls are still open (with the exception of Glorietta, Rustan, SM and other commercial establishments in the Makati Commercial center which the rebels have taken over. But they are restricting themselves to those places, nothing more. Foreigners caught in the hotels, including an ambassador, are in the process of being let go, and the rebels assure the public that violence will not start with them.

Hopefully, this will be resolved peacefully....but this better not be swept under the rug and dismissed just like that.

Larry Alcala

THE JUDGE'S HOUSE

I ran really late on finishing this story, 17 pages where I pencilled, inked, and lettered everything. It was so late, the story was very nearly given to someone else. I had to hunker down and just do it, ignoring literally everything else (aside from Superman) just to finish it. So if there is anyone out there who is feeling ignored, and I know there's at least a couple of you out there, this is the reason. What can I say? I wish God gave us 36 hours in one day so I can at least attend to other things aside from this, but as it was I really had no alternative. If I didn't do it, I'd lose it. I also couldn't ignore Superman because that is what's keeping this roof over my head. So aside from drawing The Judge's House, I was also inking Superman, working like crazy for nearly 18 hours a day everyday including Sunday.

I've finally done with the Judge, and I'm happy with the results. I would have rushed it, but I really couldn't. Check it out when it's released along with Graphic Classics: Bram Stoker out in a few months. One would think I could get a short breather, but I can't afford to. I'm back to inking Superman full time with another deadline that's looming very close.

I'm glad for the jobs because I earn from it, but there are projects put on hold because I've had to prioritize. This is not to say that those other projects are not important to me, as a couple of you who feel ignored feel I'm not giving due importance to our projects. All of these projects are important. I've already invested TOO MUCH on those other projects for to just forget it just like that. It would be stupid. It's just that I had to prioritize which I needed to do first. I will attend to all these projects eventually...but at this point, I'll be busy with Superman for the next couple of weeks.