Komikero Comics Journal

Leinil and I had dinner with some DC brass last Thursday night. He came over to the Philippines for some family (he's Filipino) and business stuff. And part of that business is meeting with us and touch base. All in all a nice evening. Ilyn came with me and we spent the night at Leinil's place. I was so tired and sleepy that I wasn't able to work. When I woke up the following morning Nil was still at his desk drawing away. I really couldn't do that anymore, you know, working all through the night even if there is a deadline. I just gotta get some sleep each night or else I'm useless all throughout the day.

We passed by Megamall on the way home and got some books. I've been meaning to get a book on Albrecht Durer for a long time and I found one at National Book Store. He's one of my favorite illustrators/painters from long ago. I don't think I'll go into painting, but I am seriously going to continue drawing and illustration. And Durer's work is something I always turn to when I need inspiration.

I also got Conan #1, written by Kurt Busiek and art by Cary Nord, Tom Yeates and Dave Stewart. The story reminded me somewhat of Conan #1 by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor Smith. The art is actually pretty good in certain places. Personally, I would prefer more illustrative kind of drawing, but lately, specially due to the explosion of computer coloring, colors have moved more into center stage, taking more part in delineating forms and environments. As a result, artists (pencillers and inkers) have moved back by offering less detail and less sculpting (through hatching) and let the colorist do it. In some cases it works, specially in this issue of Conan because Dave Stewart is such a good artist himself. As is Dave McCaig who does the colors on our Superman: Birthright.

More often than not though, colors are just too bright, shiny and garish, resulting from less than stellar colorists weilding that Photoshop crazed and filter happy, sqeezing every bit of color it can muster. Some colorists need to have their computers taken away from them, and have them go back to school with their Prang kits.

Back to Conan #1, you can see a full page shot of a man getting beheaded by Conan in all its bloody glory. I find it funny that back during the original Conan run, Barry Windsor Smith had to be clever in depicting a beheading without being censored by the Comics Code. Barry was able to show a man being beheaded convincingly, without showing it actually being done, without splattering a single drop of blood. How times change!

I also got Swamp Thing #1 by Andy Diggle and Enrique Breccia. I'm a huge fan of the Swamp Thing character, having really enjoyed the original Len Wein-Berni Wrightson run and absolutely loving the Alan Moore run. I have a soft spot for the Nestor Redondo drawn issues, for obvious reasons, and I also liked Rick Veitch's stint, admirably stepping up the plate to deliver a magnificently demented take on Swamp Thing after Alan Moore left the book. Unfortunately, I didn't like Nancy Collins' take on Swampy, nor did I like Millar and Morrison's.

But Diggle's Swamp Thing has got me really interested. He's taken the character in a direction I feel is original and full of potential. Go Diggle, Go!

I met with PARC yesterday, to pick up the Schindler's List Gift Set I had ordered. Unfortunately for Parc, more than half of his shipment was damaged. Apparently, the gift set was packaged inside a plexiglass case, which seems to shatter easily. More than half of the gift sets had completely shattered cases. Mine has a couple of small cracks in it, but I thought it's not that much big of a deal so I took it. It's funny dealing with Parc sometimes because it almost always looks like drug deals. We'd go over surreptitiously to his car in the parking lot, open the trunk or back door, he'd hand me the stuff and I'd hand him a wad of bills. I'd involuntary look over my shoulder left and right to see if anyone was watching, paranoid for some reason.

Let's see...what else is new? Hmmm...it was on the top of my head a moment ago, but I can't remember. Boy, it's certainly HOT today.