Humanis Rex #6 Preview

Humanis Rex #6 Preview

A page from Humanis Rex for Fudge Magazine's September issue. The August issue should be out right about now.

Although I had been coloring my own stories since Pulp Magazine's early issues in 2000, this is the first time I'm doing it on a regular basis. I get such a creative buzz when I start out with a blank piece of paper in the morning and end up with a fully colored page 24 hours later.

Now there have been suggestions that I get someone else to ink my own work because of perceptions of flaws in my finished art. Let me say that I appreciate all suggestions, comments, complaints about what I do. If anyone is willing enough to be honest about their opinion, I certainly hope they give me the courtesy of being honest about who they are as well, just so they prove to me that they stand by their opinion, and believe in it enough to attach their name to it. Because you know, if you can't be honest about who you are, how can I be sure you are being honest about your opinion as well?

If you are a friend of mine, then I would appreciate you more as a friend for being straight with me.

That said, the comment about my art is something I would like to write about. I've already responded in the comments section, but I think I need to talk about it here as well.

As an artist, and not just a comics artist, I feel creatively fulfilled if I do my art all my own, without the benefit of another artist coming in to finish my work for me. If I get another inker to finish my work, I feel that would be an escape. I would be closing myself to learning and improving, and it would be an act that refuses to take responsibility for the quality of my work.

And to anyone who feels I should get someone else to finish my work, then you do me a great disservice, and must not respect me much as an artist because you feel I have no more room to improve. To tell me that I need to improve certain aspects of my art is very welcome, but to tell me to stop doing my work and hand it to another artist, instead asking me to improve it myself, is another thing entirely.

Any artist always has room to improve, and I am no exception. No artist is an exception, not the 50 year veteran, and certainly not the young unpublished punk who thinks he's better than everyone else. There are still plenty of things I need to work on, and even when I've tucked decades worth of training and experience under my belt, I would still feel that I still have much to learn.

Hazard #3

Inking Portfolio #10
Hazard #3
July 1996
Wildstorm Productions

A few lines into inking our 3rd issue of Hazard, I felt a sharp pain in my lower back. It was morning and I think Edgar Tadeo was up and working on his table. I thought I had pulled a muscle and I tried to stretch it out. I continued to ink but the pain seemed to get much worse. It became so bad that I couldn't work anymore. Edgar looked up as I got up and staggered to our room so I could lie down. I thought some rest would ease the pain a bit. After an hour of tossing and turning as the pain tore through my back, a pain that was quickly becoming excruciating, I thought that this was perhaps something serious. Whilce suggested I go home and within 30 minutes I was on the bus to San Pablo.

The pain was gone when I got home a couple of hours later, but we decided to go see a doctor anyway. After describing my symptoms to our family doctor, I was referred to a urologist, who, after a series of tests, determined I had stones in my kidney. The pain came from muscles in my lower back exerting effort to push a stone that's jammed in the tube between the kidney and the bladder. He suggested an operation, the sooner the better. Oh my God... an operation. I've never been operated on, and the thought of it scared the crap out of me.

The doctor described the procedure to me. It wasn't his intent yet to operate to get the stones out, but rather temporarily insert a tube that would be attached from my kidney to the bladder, bypassing the blocked tube. For a month I was advised to try and get rid of the stones via medication, diet, and water therapy. If I still had the stones at the end of that month, he'd perform a sonic operation that would shatter the stones.

I had the operation to insert the tube without cutting me, how they did that I'd rather not say. he.he. I was injected with something that made me sleepy and pretty soon I was unconscious. Apparently, the drugs weren't enough because I started to wake while they were still operating. I heard the doctor and the anesthesiologist talking about cars and stuff like that. I remember seeing a cool car advertised on the newspaper earlier and I said, hey, that new Toyota is cool. They suddenly realized I was waking up and gave me an additional injection to put me back in. Before I lost consciousness, I remember hearing the doctor tell one of the male nurses, who wasn't exactly straight, to leave my nuts alone. Whether it really happened or I was hearing things because of my drugged state I couldn't say.

Being induced to unconsciousness artificially was a unique experience. You're sort of happy, sort of dreamy, free from any sort of responsibility. I woke up in my hospital room with my mom, dad and brother hovering around. I said something and fell asleep again.

Well, after that water suddenly became my best friend. I drank ENORMOUS amounts of water, dieted, exercised and dutifully took my medications. I didn't want to have to take that sonic operation. I drank all the time and so much to the point of vomiting. Naturally, I pissed a lot, which was kind of the point.

A month later at the ultrasound clinic, I was told that the stones had gone. The operator there couldn't believe it. Well, I couldn't believe it myself. I didn't have to go through the operation. Imagine my relief! But then again, they *still* had to put me under to take out the tube that they had put in a month earlier. So there I was again, going under, but actually looking forward to the happy, dreamy feeling that the anesthesia would bring.

I took some time to rest and recover, and I had been gone from work for more than a month. As a result, Edgar pretty much did Hazard #3 entirely. I was able to do the cover, but that's only because we did the cover early so it could be used to solicit the book. But that's pretty much all I did for Hazard #3. What I did inside was practically negligible. That pretty much told me that they could easily do without me so I thought I had to kick ass inking Hazard #4 ...or else!

Bandwidth Exceeded

Bandwidth Limit Exceeded

Wow, for the first time ever, I've exceeded my bandwidth limit for Komikero.com! That means the traffic on my site for the past month had been so big that I've reached the amount of traffic my site can handle. The limit is actually pretty high as it is, so the traffic must have been quite extraordinary.

To get additional bandwidth at my current host would be a bit more expensive than I can afford. It's either I move to a less expensive host offering the same features (or more), or get an additional hosting elsewhere to supplement my current one.

I really can't do anything about it now as I'm really up to my neck in work, so the Komikero site, as well as the Online Museum shall be down until the end of the month, as my bandwidth will be reset to zero on September 1.

It's a good thing that Alanguilan.com, which hosts this blog, and Photobucket, which hosts most of the recent graphics, have pretty much unlimited bandwidth so they won't be going down anytime soon.

Hope you all come back when the site comes back up on September 1 with a lot of new updates!

Fred Carrillo, Hazard #2

Fred Carrillo

The above is a painting done by Fred Carrillo sent to me by Dell Barras. I don't know where this was from though. The photo below is also sent by Dell.


Fred is the one in the beige jacket sitting beside Romeo Tanghal.

Thanks Dell!

*******************************


Inking Portfolio #9
Hazard #2
June 1996
Wildstorm Productions

By this time we had settled in quite well in our Balete Drive studio. It was quite a big house with many rooms, an adjoining kitchen and even more rooms. It was an exciting time to be there. Whilce Portacio was by then starting with Iron Man and he was knocking us dead with the artwork he was creating. To earn extra money to support the studio, part of the big house was being used as practice venue for various entertainment people. We had bands in there like Eraserheads, Rivermaya, and Alamid, and we had the kids from Ang TV practicing their production numbers. It wouldn't be unnautral to see famous people walk in just as you're getting up from bed. Michael V would come once in a while to play Tekken with us. I was in a daze. I would be inking on my table and a few feet from me would be people dancing or perfoming. It was the craziest studio I ever been in.

One time we even had a mini-concert right on the driveway where a lot of bands perfomed, and the whole thing was broadcast on NU 107. I had a deadline though, so I had to escape and go home to San Pablo to ink as I listened to the whole thing on radio.

It was a great time. It wasn't the most conducive place to draw at times, but it was OK because there was lots to see.

Let me just say that I owe Whilce a lot for it was truly him that give me the breaks that led to my career in comics. Such breaks include invaluable training in how comics are done and the right approach to take in making them. Of course, that was "the" Whilce Portacio and it was just such an inspiration being there with him and just listen and watch him talk and draw.

Personally, I think Whilce is a really nice guy, a really great guy. Very humble too. I'd like to think that he'd become a good friend, specially during those early years in the first studio when it was often just him and me working together. Together with his then future wife Joann, they're one of the nicest couples I've met.

At the studio there were other people like Kate, Chris and Francis, not really comics people, but really nice people to hang out with.

That is not to say that there weren't any people there I didn't like. There were. Just so my comic book pals don't get paranoid, I don't mean any of you. Like I mentioned in my last inking portfolio, it was quite a disappointing, difficult time for me as well, and this particular person had a lot to do with it. I really didn't intend to talk about it because, after all, it was 10 long years ago. But I realize that I still carry quite bit of hurt and hard feelings about this person. I still don't fully understand why that person was in the studio, when Alex Manabat and his wife were already there taking care of things. I think this person meant well, but ended up being pretty hurtful, specially with a temper like that.

I was shouted at, as were the other guys, for reasons I think were petty, and for reasons that had NOTHING at all to do with our work. I walked off the studio extremely angry, wondering what the hell I was doing there, what this person was doing there, and entertained thoughts of moving back home and do my work there. I just wanted to be away from that person as much as I can.

****************

By this time, Roy Allan Martinez and I was already working on Hazard #2, and I remember the above cover very well. I wasn't too happy at how the cover came out in print. I probably didn't erase the pencils as well as I could have. If I had scanned it I might have been able to do something about it.

My work schedule differed quite a lot from the other guys. I was a morning person and I was awake as early as 7am and worked until around 11 or 12 midnight before turning in to sleep. But the other guys don't get up until around lunchtime or well after. And they work all night until the sun comes up. So when I go and turn in at 11pm, the day has just pretty much started for everyone else and they tease me mercilessly for it.

Sometimes I end up staying up with them, nodding off all the time, struggling to stay awake. Me and Roy would play Raiden or Tekken, or I'd watch the Indian channels and watch the song and dance numbers. That entertained me well enough to keep awake.

Fred Carrillo 1926-2005

Fred Carrillo, 1926-2005



Filipino comics illustrator Fred Carrillo passed away last week. His daughter Iris had previously informed me that he suffered from both lymphoma and Alzheimer's disease, and that he had come home to the Philippines from the United States this year.

Fred Carrillo was one of the pioneers of Philippine Comics, having worked on the earliest published comic books like Halakhak and Pilipino Komiks, first published after the end of World War 2.



In the United States, he worked on many titles including Phantom Stranger, Black Orchid, Captain Power, GI Combat, Ghosts, House of Mystery, Weird War Tales, Unknown Soldier and even an adaptation of William Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream.

Carrillo has a profile up at the museum which can be viewed here.

More to follow later...

Silent Dragon 2, Humanis Rex 5

Silent Dragon #2
Written by Andy Diggle
Pencilled by Leinil Francis Yu
Inked by Gerry Alanguilan
Colored by Dave Stewart
Lettered by Jared Fletcher
Edited by Ben Abernathy
Wildstorm/DC Comics

Silent Dragon #2, my current inking assignment, comes out sometime around this time. I don't know exactly when to be honest. For some reason, for the first time in my professional working career in comics, I get my copies before the issue comes out in stores. Other times my copies arrive a few weeks to a couple of months after the comics come in the stores. On rare occasions, I never got copies at all, but that's never happened with DC.

Anyway, a note about that cover... Leinil did that all himself, pencilling and straight to coloring. No inking at all involved, and it looks terrific. This is one of those few times when comics art without the benefit of an inker works. He has done stuff like this before, specially on the covers for High Roads and for Conan. I've told him that he doesn't really need me and if he does a whole comic book like this, it would seriously ROCK.

Anyway, below is a page from Silent Dragon #2, which I had inked.



******************************************
Humanis Rex #5

The latest installent of Humanis Rex #5 comes out this month!



This part sets up the return of a major character. I'm continuing the clean line art style I'm trying to develop for the entire series, as well as developing a personal coloring style I'll continue to improve in the coming months. I'm trying very hard to stick uncompromisingly to flat coloring, but I've been tempted to do shades, textures and grading on some panels, but for the most part I've managed to do what I set out to do. A few more months into this, I hope to finally nail the look I want.

Liwayway, Alex Niño

Liwayway, August 22, 2005

If you can, grab yourself a copy of this week's issue of Liwayway Magazine. It seems to be a major change of pace as showbiz stuff had been mostly done away with, replaced with features commemorating "Buwan ng Wika" (Language Month).



The cover features artwork by Jun Lofamia, reproduced uncropped inside. Other features include:

*Paggunita Kay Manuel Luis Quezon by Boy Silverio. A feature on the first Filipino president, born on August 19, 1878 ( Happy Birthday, sir!) and died August 1, 1944.

*Pahapyaw na Kasaysayan ng Wikang Pambansa ng Pilipinas. As the title indicates, a glancing view of the history of PILIPINO, the National Language of the Philippines.

*Features on prominent Filipino writers like Carlos Valdez Ronquillo and Efren R. Abueg.

*A feature on the Battle of Pinaglabanan

*A short history of Philippine Film, with spotlight on Charito Solis, Gloria Romero and Luis Gonzales.



*A short history of Liwayway Magazine. Interestingly, the magazine actually started out as a photo magazine called "Photo News" before transforming into Liwaway. Much mention has been made of the writers who gained prominence on the pages of the magazine, but it's disappointing that no mention at all of the remarkable comics and artists that regularly appeared on its pages since 1929.

Nevertheless, this issue features more of Jun Lofamia's gorgeous artwork, some of which are reproduced below.


Jun Lofamia
"Nadaya" written by Silvio Ruiz


Jun Lofamia
"Mga Mata ng Kaluluwa" written by Severino Reyes

Plus more watercolor comics from Hal Santiago, and other comics and illustrations by Nar Cantillo, Rod Lofamia, Pablo S. Gomez and Rico Rival, R.R. Marcelino and Abe Ocampo, Ricardo M. de Luna, Vic J. Poblete and Rudy Villanueva, Perry C. Mangilaya and Alfred C. Manuel and Mike de Leon.

*********************

New Alex Niño Book

Alex Niño has a new book available available at Bud Plant's site, published by Stuart Ng.

ALEX NIÑO DRAWINGS
By Alex Niño.
A Catalogue of Original Art.
A collection of 63 pen & ink drawings, created spontaneously in a single sketchbook, which is reproduced here in its entirety. With just a few lines, Niño creates vivid characters--exotic women, monsters, warriors and strange beasts.

Niño has worked in comics since the 1970s. He has worked primarily in animation since the early 1990s on Disney films such as Mulan, Atlantis, and Treasure Planet.
Stuart Ng, 2005

5x8, 61pg, b&w, $15.00

Copies can be ordered at Bud Plant's Site Here.

Thanks to Zatrikon for the head's up!

Mar Amongo, Hazard #1

Mar Amongo
Pen and Ink Illustration, 1994

A biographical profile and a large gallery of Mar Amongo's work, a Filipino comics illustrator who passed away this month, has just been uploaded at the museum and can be found here.



The gallery includes artwork from Tagalog Klasiks, Romansa Komiks, House of Mystery (DC Comics) and various pen and ink illustrations from the early 90s.

Mar Amongo was laid to rest at Los Baños Cemetery in Los Baños, Laguna in the Philippines last Saturday, August 13.

*********************************


Inking Portfolio #8
Hazard #1, 1996
Wildstorm Productions

I was once again very grateful that RoyAllan Martinez allowed me to do the backgrounds on the first page of our new book, HAZARD, written by Jeff Mariotte. It was our first somewhat regular comics series, after serving as fill in artists on our past 2 assignments, Wetworks and Grifter. We were excited at the prospect of being at the start of a new comic book, being allowed to design the character and the environment in which he moved.

Roy's first design for Hazard was a huge ugly bruiser with a mohawk that looked mean enough to beat the shit out of LOBO. It was a great drawing by Roy and you can tell he was enjoying himself when he did it. Unfortunately, the design was passed on for a less over-the-top one. Nevertheless, we carried on, enthusiasm still intact.

Feeling perhaps that the story demanded it, Roy adapted his style to suit a more dark noirish one, evoking, as one of our editors mentioned, Jim Steranko. I don't think Roy was familiar at all with Steranko at the time, and I myself had seen his work only rarely.

I was happy that I was able to complete this whole issue on my own, without other inkers coming in. Not that I would want to deny Ed or anyone else work, but I felt much more creatively fulfilled if I was able to complete a project from start to finish.

The photo on the right is one taken of me during this time. I think it was Whilce Portacio himself who took this picture. Looking at it now, I can't believe that I ever had hair that long!

At about this same time, a trading card I had inked over Whilce, this time of one of the characters of Gen-13 for a Swimsuit set, has also come out. I don't have a copy of that card so I can't share an image.

A few pages into inking this issue, we moved studios from our Mandaluyong condo to a huge house along Balete Drive in Quezon City. It was a pretty big house and naturally there were concerns that the house may be haunted. It was after all, located on a street known infamously all over the Philippines as a very haunted street. The move wasn't painless, but it was always a bit hard for me whenever I move residences. I am thankful that a lot of people, including one Tim Yap, helped us with the move and made the transition a lot easier.

By this time, the studio crew had significatly grown, and not all of us were comic book people. It was the start of a short period of my life which is a bit difficult for me to talk about because it had been so eventful, exhilarating, disappointing, and exciting.

Mar Amongo Passes Away

Mar Amongo Passes Away

I just heard from a friend of the family that comic book illustrator Mar Amongo passed away Wednesday morning. The wake is being held at his home in Los Baños, Laguna.

Mar Amongo, a student of Nestor Redondo, was known for his realistic style of rendering, which he employed in numerous stories for Tagalog Klasiks and other publications. In the US, he worked on stories for Weird War Tales, Ghosts, All Out War and GI Combat.

He withdrew from comics to work as an artist in the Middle East for many years before returning home to work on various religious comics like "The Tiger's Fang" for Eckankar Books.

He was also a much sought after painter by the Philippine Government who had commisioned him to do a billboard of the Philippine Centennial in 2000.

We visited Mar at his home in Los Baños in 2004 and I wrote about it here.


Bruldo Grajo, illustrated by Mar Amongo
Tagalog Klasiks 427, May 26, 1967

More info soon...

Roy and Me

Roy and Me

Roy Allan Martinez, the first penciller I worked with on a regular basis in the 90's, really liked putting cameos of us on the pages of the comic books we were working on. The first time he did this was on Grifter #10:



Roy is the one holding the camera, while I'm in the background with the neo-Philippine flag on his shirt.

The next time Roy drew us was in Hazard #1 (Wildstorm):



There we are enjoying the sights of Las Vegas (although we've never actually been there.) Roy is the one with the Fear Factory shirt, I'm the one with the Alamat Comics shirt. Wow, I really must have been very thin back then for Roy to draw me that way.

Next, Roy not only drew the both of us, but he drew Gilbert Monsanto and Edgar Tadeo as well in Wildstorm Spotlight #2 Featuring Steven Grant's LONER:



From left, it's Roy, me, Gilbert and Edgar. Roy gave me a haircut for some reason.

Other artists like Whilce liked to draw in cameos of people he knew as well. I just might feature that too later on. :)