Classic Komiks Reprints
Francisco V. Coching's Lapu Lapu
Aside from collecting material for the Philippine Komiks Art book and museum, one of the things being planned are reprints of some classic komiks "novels". A regular visitor to this site, Dennis Villegas, has some concrete plans for such reprints, the first being a reprint of what may well be the very first comic book ever published in the Philippines. And no, it's not Halakhak, but a compilation of Kenkoy strips by Tony Velasquez that was printed in 1938, a full 8 years before Halakhak. This is an extremely rare comic book that is currently being reprinted and should be available in the next few months to the general public. This has been done with the permission and full cooperation from Tony Velasquez's widow, who had provided much of the material that will be reprinted.
Dennis has other exciting plans for other properties which I will announce here when the time comes. The opportunity has come my way to be able to do something similar with the works of other creators, and the creator whose work I most want to reprint would be Francisco V. Coching. And of his works, those that immediately jump to me are Lapu Lapu, El Indio and Sabas: Ang Barbaro.
If I do manage to get permission for it (which Dennis assures me won't be too difficult), this is certainly one of things that I want to do. At this point, I would like to hear some suggestions from visitors of this blog about what they would like to see in such a reprint book. Would you like to see it colored? And by colored I mean how they would color it back then if they had the means and the money. What supplements would you like to see? In what format would you like to read it? Do you like it to be translated in English or would you prefer it to remain Tagalog? Let me know. Thanks!
