Today I make a very difficult decision, a decision that could affect my life and career from now on. It is not by far one of the biggest decisions I could ever make, but it's still significant enough. As always, I cannot be specific. But I have to write something.

SICK....AGAIN! Oh, and Nude Models

Yeah, here I am, sick again. I'm so sick of it. The Monday after the signing, I fell sick with fever. Is still feel bad now, in fact, but ah what the heck.

And as I lay there in bed, my thoughts go back to Ochlocrat. Before I accepted the job, I asked Doug Miers, the writer, if he could make a story that didn't have a main FEMALE character in it because I was still having difficulty drawing women. Ok, the main character in the book was male, but it had a lot of women in it, plus a MAJOR supporting female character. AARRGH!

Have you seen the book? My women suck. And I ask myself why that is seriously now, specially that I'm doing more pencilling jobs than ever. Back when I was still a trainee at DAVID IMAGE comic book company based in Binondo, a manga comic book company, a certain day was set aside for figure drawing with a nude female model. To be honest, I've never seen a naked woman right in front of me at that time. Ok, we did go to Baguio many years earlier for a totally nude girlie show, but that was different. Then it was all flashing lights and stuff and it all seemed unreal. The idea of seeing a girl totally naked just like that in front of me scared the hell out of me. I did not report for training that day. And before that and since then, I've always been squeamish when I draw women, specially the more delicate parts.

This is perhaps the reason why I've never drew women well. It's just that I never drew them enough. I want to try drawing from a nude model, for real this time. I feel like I really need to improve this skill or I'm doomed. Thing is, I don't know WHERE to get a model. I suppose this is easy enough for other artists, but not for me, obviously. Anybody know anyone willing? Of course, this will be completely *cough* professional and the model will be compensated.

All right, it's back to bed and Kurosawa's Red Beard for the FOURTH time.

PICTURES!



From Left: Ilyn Florese, me, Arnold Arre and Cynthia Bauzon





From Left: Leinil Yu, me, Angela Paman, Edgar Tadeo




From Left: me, Pol Medina, and Arnold Arre

Pol Medina

Wow, I met the creator or Pugad Baboy yesterday, Pol Medina!! He was really cool! He was funny, jokey, down to earth, and he looks and acts pretty much like the characters in his strip. ha! ha! I had him sign my Pugad Baboy: Pirata graphic novel. I was amazed because he knew me and he knew my name. I was awestruck, star struck. Pol is only the most talented cartoonist to arrive in Philippine Komiks in the last couple of decades, you know? This guy's talent is unbelievable. Check out his site:
http://www.pmjunior.com.ph/

I'm continually amazed that he never runs out of jokes. I asked him about it and he said that he just doesn't make them up. He said that he gets his jokes from the everyday things that happen to him and around him. It must take some imagination to do that, really. Because I tried to make a comic strip once, and I lasted only 10 strips before I ran out of jokes.

There are some pictures of us (Leinil, Edgar Tadeo, Arnold Arre, Carlo Vergara etc) Meeting Pol. I'll post it up here and at my site when they arrive.

Wow, this Internet cafe I'm in Malate now is incredible! Surfing is unbelievably fast, the fastest I've ever used, it's amazing. It's the only reason I'm even considering updating my blogger from outside my home in San Pablo.

Ok, more Wasted shooting the past few days. Very tiring. Its still inimidating having to "act" in front of a lot of people who are surprised to see you there and would like to watch. After a while I stop to care really. Noel Lim is taking a lot of takes which really takes a lot out of me. I'm starting to understand why he chose ME for this role, aside from the fact that he can get me for fucking FREE since this is my story and I have some vested interest in it too. I think Noel is doing a movie with an "anti-movie hero hero". Meaning, he's going against the standard belief that movie heroes ought to be tall, good looking and attractive, having voices that is deep, beautiful and well articulated. Good, because I'm NONE of those. He's going against every possible cliche there is about action movies, trying to come up with something new and fresh. Good for him! I'm just along for the ride. Just let me sleep once in a while dammit!

I got a couple of comics yesterday from Robinson's Place. I got a couple of Alan Moore TPBs namely Tom Strong Book 1 and Promethea Book 3. I also got Neil Gaiman's Murder Mysteries as adapted into comics by P Craig Russel. Absolutely awesome book that has a twist at the end that's of the "Sixth Sense" caliber. Great job Neil, Craig! You guys are awesome!

How's the job, Jac? Ed, may atraso ka sa akin. You gonna pay, man. Chez and Paulo, kamusta? Lets rehearse! Ange, Ner, see you later! Ilyn....you still da best!

KOMIKERO.COM is UP!

My new site is finally up! I've been working on it on and off for the past month. It is still incomplete and there are still lots of things to do on it, but it's pretty workable now, and the art gallery is complete.

http://komikero.com

I wanted to upload it already because I just want it out there before I go back to Manila for the week. I'll work on it again when I get back on the weekend.

The images on the gallery are pretty big, most of them pushing 200K. I'm still trying to find a way of bringing them down without sacrificing the quality of the images.

NERVOUS

We'll be shooting some Wasted in the next couple of days and I must admit I'm a little nervous. I'm really not an actor so I can't act you know, but Noel Lim has gotten some crazy idea that I can. We've already shot a lot of scenes, but most of them were silent scenes wherein I just had to sit there and look pissed or walk here and there and stand there and shoot somebody. We really haven't shot anything where I'm actually talking.

Well, the scene that we're going to shoot next is me doing a LOT of talking AND screaming. And it's an outside scene in the middle of the street and there will be lots of people. And to be honest, it scares the hell out of me. I really haven't done anything like this before and to do it for the first time in front of a lot of people who think I'm a real actor who expect to see something good is really nerve-wracking. I think I may need a little drink before I start, which I haven't done in a long time.

I'm grateful for the typhoon today because the shoot was postponed, but sooner or later, I'm gonna have to face this. And I'm wondering how I'm going to deal with it. People say just shut the people out and just concentrate on what I have to do. I've been successful so far with shutting out the camera, so I guess I'll just extend it to everything else. I'll need a couple of beers to do it though. ha. ha.



For those who have read the book, the scene in question is the telephone scene, where Eric is "talking" to his ex, Jenny, on a pay phone. Eric starts out glad he's talking to her, but he slowly gets desperate and angry as he talks. And just as he is at his angriest, he catches a guy trying to slash his back pack.Eric transplants all that anger into the guy, repeatedly bashing his head right into the pay phone until the guy dies. A cop comes in and Eric scampers away.

LOTS OF THINGS

Bruce Springsteen's new CD has just come out and I've got a copy. ha! ha! As far as I know, it's hasn't been released locally yet. And it's absolutely terrific. Can't say anymore about it except that.

Finally finished the entirety of High Roads, all 6 issues of them. #5 has just been released. It's great relief to finally finished an entire project of this length where no fill in inkers were needed to do pages here and there. Every single page, except covers, was inked by me, and I'm really kinda proud of that because often times, in other projects, other inkers were called in to do 4 or 5 pages of an issue.

Well, that's INKING. I still wanna move on and do pencilling (and inking) full time. I know it will be difficult, but I gotta do it. I don't see myself just inking till Kingdom Come. Of course I don't mind inking, specially when I get to work on talented people like Whilce, Leinil Yu and Roy Allan Martinez, and I get to work on characters like Superman, Wolverine, X-Men, X-Force and Fantastic Four. But I gotta, I wanna move on. I see myself inking for at least just a couple more years, more or less depends on whether I get that pencilling job or not.

Anyway, I wanna rant about inking for a while. It's one of the most misunderstood jobs on the planet. Some inkers don't even know exactly what it is they're doing and why they're doing it. I wanna explode some idiotic fallacies associated with inking.

Penciller and inker work on Project X. People love the art. For Penciller's next project, Project Y, he is teamed up with a different inker. The art sucks or is not as good as the art on Project X. People blame inker, wish him unemployment, and curse his talentless ass into hell.

What's important to think about is THIS:

DID YOU SEE THE PENCILS BEFORE THEY WERE INKED?

If no, then you don't know what the FUCK you are talking about.

Let me explain. What you see on the printed page is, in fact, the inker's handiwork. No trace at all of the penciller's line work can be seen. So what basis can any person have, save for the editor, penciller and inker, to judge the inking on any objective manner? Previous work perhaps? The penciller is known to do this quality of work and all of a sudden in the hands of this inker, the penciller's work suddenly sucks. Yes, the inker may be at fault, but as a reader YOU CAN'T BE SURE. The penciller could be having a bad day. He could be sick, he could be in a hurry or he is just deliberately changing his style.

It has been observed that Leinil's art has suddenly become cleaner and simpler when I came aboard to ink him. They reminisce about the good old Wolverine days when Leinil's art was gritty and dark and so I should be butt kicked out the door and get his old inker back.

They forget that Leinil is an artist and that his art develops. It's developing with every page that he does. If his art is clear and simple today, it simply means that Leinil is drawing simply and clearly. It's got nothing to do with me. I'm just there to ink whatever line he draws down.

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Getting ready to go back to Wasted full time. I hope we finish a lot of stuff this August. As much as I enjoy doing the movie, I no longer wanna be still doing it by December. I think we've found our Jenny. She's very pretty, very nice, but she's taller then me. I can always stand on boxes dammit! We're still gonna test her to see if she can do it, but Noel Lim is a guy who I think can make an actor out of anybody. He's trying with me though. Not sure if he's succeeding. ha! ha!

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Got 3 Kurosawa DVDs yesterday. Ikiru, Drunken Angel, and The Throne of Blood They're not available in the US so I just bought Region 3 versions (the only versions available so far). While its cool to have these movies finally, I just wish they would get better translators because the subtitles absolutely SUCKS. I feel I may be missing a lot in the story simply because the dialogue wasn't translated very well. Makes me wish Criterion would handle all these titles as well.

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San Pablo Post Office get your act together dammit! A friend of mine mailed a letter off to me last Friday right here in San Pablo. It's Wednesday now and it's STILL NOT HERE. What the fuck?

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Augy, happy birthday! Jac, good luck! Nil, hey dude, when you coming back? Nakita mo lang si....nakalimutan mo na kami. :) Maggie, can't wait to meet you allright? Chez and Paolo...hello! Wala lang. Vernon, where's Wasted dude?

Ilyn....well, you drive me crazy. In a good way. :)