Just went to PULP to pester the people there about the release of WASTED: Final Edition. I saw printouts of the pages on one of the tables and a color proof of the cover. I was promised the book will come out February. I HOPE! Hanging out at Leinil Yu's place now waiting for Superman pages. I got a tight deadline in a week to finish this current issue. There was a Marvel convention here in the Philippines today. I didn't go but I wanted to. They didn't get in touch with the Filipino artists who worked for Marvel though, like Leinil, me, Edgar, Lan Medina and Philip Tan, all of whom live here within easy reach. Oh well...

Did some gardening today. Planted some wall crawling vines, flowers and carabao grass. I like planting. It feels kinda nice putting some ugly looking seeds in the ground and see the damn things sprout and grow. I also like watering plants so that and planting go well together. I'm also doing this so I can populate our front yard with all kinds of plants. When we moved in there was hardly anything there and I really want to have it overgrown by the time it reaches summer. My window in my work room overlooks the yard and the unpaved road beyond. By unpaved it means it's all dusty when its dry. And the dust just keeps on coming into my room and into my drawings. I hope the plants keep things cool and keeps the dust in check. Plus, I really like looking at green things when I'm working, not billowing sickly grey puffs of dust as the wind picks up.

Hey....this is my desktop. :)



Saw Lord of the Rings: Two Towers TWICE now on the big screen. It's really fucking awesome. Sam's speech towards the end made me wince though. The sentiments behind it were valid and true to the story, but I wish it was delivered differently. But that's a minor nit pick. The entire movie really blew me away. I'm currently reading THE HOBBIT and it's a really cute, fun story. I'm already halfway through and I'm having so much fun with it. I wish Peter Jackson would do this as a prequel of sorts, getting back all the original actors from LOTR to do it.

TIMAWA!



A page from a Timawa story I'm currently finishing. :)

This is a drawing I did which came out in Graphic Classics' H.P. Lovecraft book which came out late last year. The drawing in the book is black and white but I just played around with it in Photoshop and posted it here. It's an illustration from verses 17 and 18 of Lovecraft's poem Fungi From Yuggoth.

I've been hearing a lot about Lovecraft for a long time, specially in connection with Alan Moore, but I've never actually read any of his works until I received the poem, parts of which I was tasked to illustrate. I read some more when I got this book and read everything else the other contributors made. I thought Lovecraft himself was a fascinating subject and his work, truly magnificently grotesque.

It was a delight to see Richard Corben, Rick Geary, J.B. Bonivert and Mark A. Nelson adapt and illustrate what turns out to be one of Lovecraft's more popular creations, Herbert West: Re-Animator, which I saw years ago starring Jeffrey Combs. As part of the payment for the drawing, the publisher sent me the Millennium Edition of the DVD!! Thanks! It was fascinating to read the original version of Re-Animator, and as always, Richard Corben rocks!

This is the first illustration I did for Graphic Classics, and I'm glad to say that this isn't the last. I just finished another piece illustrating a scene from "Modern Duelling", a short story by Jack London, for a book spotlighting his life and works. I'm also currently researching for my 17 page adaption of The Judge's House, a short story by Bram Stoker. The Jack London book comes out in a few months, while the Bram Stoker book probably towards the end of the year.

I'm really glad I'm getting more and more pencilling and inking (and to an extent, writing) jobs as I'm ready to show more of my stuff aside from inking. I hope to do more and more of these as time goes on.

Get your copies here! :)
GRAPHIC CLASSICS: H.P. Lovecraft

I just read the New X-Men Hardcover and oh my GOD! The X-Men Rock! Grant Morrison RULZ!! Really! You know, I actually have the first TPB which collects half of this hardcover. I read it and for some reason it didn't go over too well with me. That was probably because I just had a LOT on my mind. The wedding, work, etc. Now I read issues 114 to 126 and man, these are some of the most fun, exciting X-men stories I've read in a long time. And I've been a fan since 1978 or thereabouts. I was supposed to be inking yesterday, but I spent most of the day in bed reading with Ilyn on back to go and ink. She was washing clothes and to trick me to probably drop the book was to tell me that she needs to wash the clothes I was wearing so I better go take a bath. Well, that didn't work with me. I took my clothes off and continued to read. ha! It was *that* good. he.he.

Well, the book did include the annual I had inked, but for some reason, I still can't bring myself to read it. I dunno. I guess I'm just too close to the material. I inked the lines I see on the page and it sorta ruins the magic and believability of it. Everytime I read it, I get distracted by the drawings, remembering how I inked them and what I was doing while inking them. I see all the errors I've made and its just too uncomfortable to look at. I don't know if any other artist feels this way, but I do and it's damn strange. I know the story must be good because the rest of the book is, but I really can't tell.

Wedding Pics, X-MEN!!

I've uploaded a new section of the site which includes 3 pages of pics from the wedding. Check it out at this address:

http://www.komikero.com/wedding


Marvel sent over a kick ass oversized hardcover of New Xmen which compiles the first dozen or so issues of New X-Men under writer Grant Morrison. It also includes the X-Men Annual 2001 that he wrote which Leinil Francis Yu pencilled and I inked. When I got the package, I knew what it was without opening it. I hadn't been doing any work for Marvel for a year or so now, and the last thing I did was that annual. So the thing in the huge package couldn't be anything else BUT this hard cover. I saw it at Comicquest and I KNEW I wanted it. I wanted it BAD. But being currently broke, I just stand there and gibber and drool. But now I have it! he.he. Thanks Marvel!

BROKE

Well, that says it all. My High Roads money took care of everything I needed the past few months including the wedding, the bills for the house, getting a new apartment and fixing it up. I thought I'd have quite a bit left over before checks for the next project started coming in, but I was wrong. My next check won't be around till probably March and until then I only have exactly $600 to tide me and Ilyn over. Aw man. OLD WOMEN made sure I spent my last penny on the wedding and it's my resistance to OLD WOMEN that made me spend much more.

For those of you who just recently visited, "Old Women" is my term for tradition, mostly oral tradition handed down by grandmothers to their children and so on. Most of it is NONSENSE in my opinion. Tradition like not traveling long distances immediately before the wedding because something "might" happen. Idiotic. Anything can happen ANYTIME. I believe that if it's your time to die, then you WILL DIE, wherever you may be, whatever you may be doing. Be it in a plane, or in a car, or on a mountain, or sleeping in your bed, huddling in the corner of your basement afraid of doomsday. Whatever. YOU WILL DIE. And when you do and your mind is finally filled with the truths of the universe your puny human mind cannot comprehend while you were alive, then you will feel stupid you've been stupid most of your life for following OLD WOMEN.

Old Women demanded I had a wedding as big as it was, although Ilyn and I tried really hard to make it as intimate as we could make it. I can't really complain on this part because everything went really well and it was terrific seeing all my friends there.

Old women is hinting I stay at home with my parents WITH MY WIFE, take my old room and make it our room as I save up to build our own house. BULLSHIT. Other people may find nothing wrong with this and others may find it even practical. I got no beef with that. Live your life the way you want to. But don't force ME to do it they way you do. I love my parents of course, but now that I'm married, I gotta build my OWN family on MY OWN two feet. How can you propose to take care of your own family when you can't even leave your own parents house? It will be tough, but so what, it's part of life. So I won't buy much comics (except League of Extraordinary Gentlemen he.he.), so I won't buy DVDs or eat at nice places or buy nice gadgets for the time being. I can live with that. I can live on noodles for a week or even a month if need be. It's tough, but at least I'm standing on my own. I may be broke now but so what, I'm not lazy. I'm working and working hard. We'll get through this in time. And when I do I'll be the happiest person in the world because I know it was because I did myself (and with Ilyn of course), without leaning on anybody. Old women kiss my ass!

Some pics from the big day!



In there somewhere: Gilbert and Glenda Monsanto, Jim Jimenez, Ryan Orosco, Augy De Lara, Budjette and Brandie Tan, Leinil Yu, Ed Tadeo, Mang Alex Manabat and family, Jonas Diego, Jac Ting Lim, college classmates and architect buddies.



From Left: Brandie Tan, Jim Jimenez, Ed Tadeo, Budjette Tan, Francis, Karen Kunawicz, Jac Ting Lim, Glenda and Gilbert Monsanto, Augy De Lara, Ryan Orosco.


Hopefully more pics soon. Very busy with deadlines and fixing up the house. Honeymoon postponed but we'll get there eventually....:)

Hey, so this is how it is like to be married? It's really cool. Ilyn and I fixed the house up really nice and now it seems like such a great place to live in. When I first saw it, it was all dark dirty, but it did look promising. With a little paint, a little carpentry here and there, a little floor tiling on the rooms, a lot of cleaning, and arranging all our stuff including all the gifts our friends and relatives gave us, makes for a really nice home. It feels great having a place of your own. It's not all perfect yet as the phone has not yet been transferred from my old house to the new one so my computer is still here at the old house, dependent on the phone for Internet. PLDT is on strike so if that goes on, I just may have Digitel installed at the house. They've got fast dial up (56K) and they've got DSL (although a little too expensive for me at this point). The pic on the left was taken by Ilyn's dress designer at her house the night of the wedding. We won't be getting the photos back from our professional photographer for a week so I won't be able to post those till much later.

As for being married itself, it's not as jarring as I had expected it to be. I seem to have slipped into the role of husband quite easily. It's really great being married to Ilyn because we complement each other so well. We're both artists and thankfully enough, we have similar sensibilities when it comes to art so we don't creatively clash too often. And when we do, I often just give way because there's nothing more gratifying to me than to see Ilyn happy.

The wedding itself went great. I felt like I was gonna die a couple of times when things threatened to screw up, but things worked out fine in the end. Thanks to all who came and those who helped out. The wedding won't have gone through as fine without all you guys and gals. I was happy to see the FLIM at the wedding, but I was mortified when he suddenly smiled mischievously and whipped out THE CAMERA and started shooting like a madman all over the little church like he was shooting WASTED. I can't believe how he whirled around and swayed back and forth just inches away from the head of the priest, the commentators, my dad, ME. Oh man. It was so ridiculous looking just I just can't help but laugh to myself. Can't stop him though. He does what he does. Still I'm grateful he did shoot some footage after telling me shooting a wedding was beneath his undeniably considerable prowess and luminous talents as a director.

In the middle of all this I had an end of the year deadline for one page illustration for a Jack London book for Graphic Classics. After Ilyn and I had fixed up the house and settled down a bit, I went straight to Ilyn's drawing table ( as mine here at the old house is simply too big to fit through the door of our new house) and started drawing this one page illustration depicting a scene from Jack London's "Modern Duelling". This is just a small detail from the drawing as I can't show all of it yet. I finished it a couple of hours after New Years Eve here in the Philippines, scanned it and sent it, hopefully making the deadline. Now it's back to Superman, and I think we'll throw in the honeymoon in there somewhere. :)