Last Tuesday, February 25, me and Ilyn went mountain climbing. It wasn't really a mountain, but a very tall hill which is part of my family's property in Sta Catalina. I can't believe our family actually owns this awesome looking hill full of really huge boulders near the top. Part of it actually looks like a stone cliff face, and I'm really challenged to climb it one day. Tuesday though, Ilyn and I took the easy way up, which is a winding pathway along the side of the hill right to the top.
Below this hill is a cute little house built by my parents. And when I say cute it really is cute. Its no larger than 5meters by 5meters, but it has everything including living room, dining area, bedroom, kitchen and a really nice bathroom. Crap! This bathroom looks a whole lot better than the one we have right here in my apartment. In fact, that's one of the best looking bathrooms I've seen. I'm really going to enjoy shitting there.
I haven't been to this place in a long time and I'm glad I went because it was so peaceful, so cool, and it really made me want to draw. Good thing I brought my sketchbook with me. Ilyn and my mom went the easy way up along the path. Feeling Daredevil me wanted to find a much more fun way going up, and I nearly fell because of it too. If I hadn't grabbed hold really tight of a mahogany tree near the top I would have rolled down that hill and would not have stopped till I reached the very bottom. See that landscape behind Ilyn? That's WAAAY steeper than it looks. She didn't look down because she's afraid of heights. Well, I am too, but at least I have things there I can grab on to.
Right at the very top there is a long seat fashioned from one of the protruding stones. We sat there a bit as I sketched a dead branch. The breeze was soft and cool, the birds were singing and the bamboo trees were groaning against each other. It sounds as if they're about to collapse but that's just the way they sound in the wind, I guess.
We went back down after a while and hung out at the cute little house. The place didn't have electricity, but I think I could live there if I really wanted to.
We went back home as I still had a lot of work to do. I went back to inking Superman: Birthright and the deadline was so tight it was driving me nuts. It was a good thing I had a little mountain break as the deadline was really killing me. But I finished the issue with the help of Ilyn and I can't help but feel good about it because I think Leinil and I did some really cool stuff with the book.
Later in the week Leinil and I reviewed the inked pages and he seemed really happy with the pages. There are some revisions here and in the next issue, but it's OK.
Ryan Orosco, me, and Leinil Yu and his girlfriend Yai went to Mango Comics's launch of DARNA #1 the other night and it was a blast! The book wasn't getting much good reviews, but damn, this launch was really fun. There were lots of bands, a dancing Darna, pyrotechnics, souvenirs, food (where?), and lots of friends. I did meet some philosophical
opponents like James Palabay of Culture Crash. He seems like an OK guy and I'm pretty sure he is. I just hope we do stick with the work and leave the personal stuff alone. It was really cool meeting the people who had worked on the book. Ryan of course, was the star of the night, next to Darna of course. He drew the first issue and people lined up for autographs and photographs. Aside from Ryan, the other people who worked on the book includes Gilbert Monsanto, Hugo Yonzon and Bart the colorist.
Ely Buendia and his new band MONGOLS was there. Pretty sneaky of Ely to call his new band Mongols, which is a popular brand of pencil which has an.....eraser head? ha! ha! ha! I also met Genie Ranada, one of the rabid Wasted letter writers back when I was still working on it. She had designed the CD cover to Sugar Free's album, another really great band to perform that night.
A pleasant surprise was the band NARDA. I saw them play and they were really cool. I liked their music right away. Later in the night, Ryan introduced me to the lead singer of the band. It turns out she really REALLY liked Wasted. Wow, that was sooo cool. There I was really happy to meet her and here she was talking about my book. It was really very flattering.
