Fred Carrillo 1926-2005

Fred Carrillo, 1926-2005



Filipino comics illustrator Fred Carrillo passed away last week. His daughter Iris had previously informed me that he suffered from both lymphoma and Alzheimer's disease, and that he had come home to the Philippines from the United States this year.

Fred Carrillo was one of the pioneers of Philippine Comics, having worked on the earliest published comic books like Halakhak and Pilipino Komiks, first published after the end of World War 2.



In the United States, he worked on many titles including Phantom Stranger, Black Orchid, Captain Power, GI Combat, Ghosts, House of Mystery, Weird War Tales, Unknown Soldier and even an adaptation of William Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream.

Carrillo has a profile up at the museum which can be viewed here.

More to follow later...

Silent Dragon 2, Humanis Rex 5

Silent Dragon #2
Written by Andy Diggle
Pencilled by Leinil Francis Yu
Inked by Gerry Alanguilan
Colored by Dave Stewart
Lettered by Jared Fletcher
Edited by Ben Abernathy
Wildstorm/DC Comics

Silent Dragon #2, my current inking assignment, comes out sometime around this time. I don't know exactly when to be honest. For some reason, for the first time in my professional working career in comics, I get my copies before the issue comes out in stores. Other times my copies arrive a few weeks to a couple of months after the comics come in the stores. On rare occasions, I never got copies at all, but that's never happened with DC.

Anyway, a note about that cover... Leinil did that all himself, pencilling and straight to coloring. No inking at all involved, and it looks terrific. This is one of those few times when comics art without the benefit of an inker works. He has done stuff like this before, specially on the covers for High Roads and for Conan. I've told him that he doesn't really need me and if he does a whole comic book like this, it would seriously ROCK.

Anyway, below is a page from Silent Dragon #2, which I had inked.



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Humanis Rex #5

The latest installent of Humanis Rex #5 comes out this month!



This part sets up the return of a major character. I'm continuing the clean line art style I'm trying to develop for the entire series, as well as developing a personal coloring style I'll continue to improve in the coming months. I'm trying very hard to stick uncompromisingly to flat coloring, but I've been tempted to do shades, textures and grading on some panels, but for the most part I've managed to do what I set out to do. A few more months into this, I hope to finally nail the look I want.

Liwayway, Alex Niño

Liwayway, August 22, 2005

If you can, grab yourself a copy of this week's issue of Liwayway Magazine. It seems to be a major change of pace as showbiz stuff had been mostly done away with, replaced with features commemorating "Buwan ng Wika" (Language Month).



The cover features artwork by Jun Lofamia, reproduced uncropped inside. Other features include:

*Paggunita Kay Manuel Luis Quezon by Boy Silverio. A feature on the first Filipino president, born on August 19, 1878 ( Happy Birthday, sir!) and died August 1, 1944.

*Pahapyaw na Kasaysayan ng Wikang Pambansa ng Pilipinas. As the title indicates, a glancing view of the history of PILIPINO, the National Language of the Philippines.

*Features on prominent Filipino writers like Carlos Valdez Ronquillo and Efren R. Abueg.

*A feature on the Battle of Pinaglabanan

*A short history of Philippine Film, with spotlight on Charito Solis, Gloria Romero and Luis Gonzales.



*A short history of Liwayway Magazine. Interestingly, the magazine actually started out as a photo magazine called "Photo News" before transforming into Liwaway. Much mention has been made of the writers who gained prominence on the pages of the magazine, but it's disappointing that no mention at all of the remarkable comics and artists that regularly appeared on its pages since 1929.

Nevertheless, this issue features more of Jun Lofamia's gorgeous artwork, some of which are reproduced below.


Jun Lofamia
"Nadaya" written by Silvio Ruiz


Jun Lofamia
"Mga Mata ng Kaluluwa" written by Severino Reyes

Plus more watercolor comics from Hal Santiago, and other comics and illustrations by Nar Cantillo, Rod Lofamia, Pablo S. Gomez and Rico Rival, R.R. Marcelino and Abe Ocampo, Ricardo M. de Luna, Vic J. Poblete and Rudy Villanueva, Perry C. Mangilaya and Alfred C. Manuel and Mike de Leon.

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New Alex Niño Book

Alex Niño has a new book available available at Bud Plant's site, published by Stuart Ng.

ALEX NIÑO DRAWINGS
By Alex Niño.
A Catalogue of Original Art.
A collection of 63 pen & ink drawings, created spontaneously in a single sketchbook, which is reproduced here in its entirety. With just a few lines, Niño creates vivid characters--exotic women, monsters, warriors and strange beasts.

Niño has worked in comics since the 1970s. He has worked primarily in animation since the early 1990s on Disney films such as Mulan, Atlantis, and Treasure Planet.
Stuart Ng, 2005

5x8, 61pg, b&w, $15.00

Copies can be ordered at Bud Plant's Site Here.

Thanks to Zatrikon for the head's up!

Mar Amongo, Hazard #1

Mar Amongo
Pen and Ink Illustration, 1994

A biographical profile and a large gallery of Mar Amongo's work, a Filipino comics illustrator who passed away this month, has just been uploaded at the museum and can be found here.



The gallery includes artwork from Tagalog Klasiks, Romansa Komiks, House of Mystery (DC Comics) and various pen and ink illustrations from the early 90s.

Mar Amongo was laid to rest at Los Baños Cemetery in Los Baños, Laguna in the Philippines last Saturday, August 13.

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Inking Portfolio #8
Hazard #1, 1996
Wildstorm Productions

I was once again very grateful that RoyAllan Martinez allowed me to do the backgrounds on the first page of our new book, HAZARD, written by Jeff Mariotte. It was our first somewhat regular comics series, after serving as fill in artists on our past 2 assignments, Wetworks and Grifter. We were excited at the prospect of being at the start of a new comic book, being allowed to design the character and the environment in which he moved.

Roy's first design for Hazard was a huge ugly bruiser with a mohawk that looked mean enough to beat the shit out of LOBO. It was a great drawing by Roy and you can tell he was enjoying himself when he did it. Unfortunately, the design was passed on for a less over-the-top one. Nevertheless, we carried on, enthusiasm still intact.

Feeling perhaps that the story demanded it, Roy adapted his style to suit a more dark noirish one, evoking, as one of our editors mentioned, Jim Steranko. I don't think Roy was familiar at all with Steranko at the time, and I myself had seen his work only rarely.

I was happy that I was able to complete this whole issue on my own, without other inkers coming in. Not that I would want to deny Ed or anyone else work, but I felt much more creatively fulfilled if I was able to complete a project from start to finish.

The photo on the right is one taken of me during this time. I think it was Whilce Portacio himself who took this picture. Looking at it now, I can't believe that I ever had hair that long!

At about this same time, a trading card I had inked over Whilce, this time of one of the characters of Gen-13 for a Swimsuit set, has also come out. I don't have a copy of that card so I can't share an image.

A few pages into inking this issue, we moved studios from our Mandaluyong condo to a huge house along Balete Drive in Quezon City. It was a pretty big house and naturally there were concerns that the house may be haunted. It was after all, located on a street known infamously all over the Philippines as a very haunted street. The move wasn't painless, but it was always a bit hard for me whenever I move residences. I am thankful that a lot of people, including one Tim Yap, helped us with the move and made the transition a lot easier.

By this time, the studio crew had significatly grown, and not all of us were comic book people. It was the start of a short period of my life which is a bit difficult for me to talk about because it had been so eventful, exhilarating, disappointing, and exciting.

Mar Amongo Passes Away

Mar Amongo Passes Away

I just heard from a friend of the family that comic book illustrator Mar Amongo passed away Wednesday morning. The wake is being held at his home in Los Baños, Laguna.

Mar Amongo, a student of Nestor Redondo, was known for his realistic style of rendering, which he employed in numerous stories for Tagalog Klasiks and other publications. In the US, he worked on stories for Weird War Tales, Ghosts, All Out War and GI Combat.

He withdrew from comics to work as an artist in the Middle East for many years before returning home to work on various religious comics like "The Tiger's Fang" for Eckankar Books.

He was also a much sought after painter by the Philippine Government who had commisioned him to do a billboard of the Philippine Centennial in 2000.

We visited Mar at his home in Los Baños in 2004 and I wrote about it here.


Bruldo Grajo, illustrated by Mar Amongo
Tagalog Klasiks 427, May 26, 1967

More info soon...

Roy and Me

Roy and Me

Roy Allan Martinez, the first penciller I worked with on a regular basis in the 90's, really liked putting cameos of us on the pages of the comic books we were working on. The first time he did this was on Grifter #10:



Roy is the one holding the camera, while I'm in the background with the neo-Philippine flag on his shirt.

The next time Roy drew us was in Hazard #1 (Wildstorm):



There we are enjoying the sights of Las Vegas (although we've never actually been there.) Roy is the one with the Fear Factory shirt, I'm the one with the Alamat Comics shirt. Wow, I really must have been very thin back then for Roy to draw me that way.

Next, Roy not only drew the both of us, but he drew Gilbert Monsanto and Edgar Tadeo as well in Wildstorm Spotlight #2 Featuring Steven Grant's LONER:



From left, it's Roy, me, Gilbert and Edgar. Roy gave me a haircut for some reason.

Other artists like Whilce liked to draw in cameos of people he knew as well. I just might feature that too later on. :)

Francisco Reyes. Hermoso Pancho

Francisco Reyes
Joe Safari
written by Clodualdo del Mundo
Pinoy Klasiks #61, August 6, 1966
Graphic Arts Service, Inc.

Francisco Reyes is one of the grand old men of Philippine komiks and is regarded as the King of the Philippine Jungle-lord school of komik-strip writing. A mild-mannered bespectacled man, Reyes created KULAFU in 1933, one of the earliest adventure comics strips in the country in the pages of Liwayway Magazine. A huge success, Kulafu was the first colored adventure strip in Philippine komiks, and was even translated into Spanish for a South American magazine.



Kulafu was discontinued at the outbreak of World War 2, but Reyes nevertheless did not continue the strip at the end fo the war. He created other strips like Talahib (1946), Kilabot (1947), Buhawi (1947), Mahiwagang Sinulid (1949), and collaborated with writer Clodualdo Del Mundo on Joe Safari (1966), Dagong (1967), Sphinx (1969), and Ogganda (1964).

Kulafu appeared on a stamp in 2004, honoring Francisco Reyes as one of the great achievers in Philippine Art.


Hermoso D. Pancho
Kamay Na Bakal
written by Merdinio A. Abella
Hiwaga Komiks #341, March 12, 1965
C. Reyes Publishing Corp.

I know very little about Hermoso D. Pancho except to say that I've always been impressed by his work, and he is amazingly *still* active in local komiks today, illustrating stories for ATLAS Publications. If anyone has any info on Hermoso Pancho, or has any contact information on him, please let me know. I would love to feature his art more extensively at this site.

Grifter #10

Inking Portfolio #7
Grifter #10, March 1996
Wildstorm Productions

Roy Allan Martinez and I next worked on one of the spin-off characters from Wildcats. I remember inking this very well because of the long days and nights we both put into putting the art together. It was in this comic book I realized that comics was indeed *hard work*. The euphoria of working in comics was still there, but a reality had set in in which we really had to hunker down and *do* the work.

I remember waking up very early and working well into the night straight, my only break was when I ate and when I went to the bathroom. I was hardly outside anymore and my eyes were constantly red. I remember going, Oh my God... is this what it takes to do comics? After a week or so of this kind of work I started to wear down. I broke off once in a while to take a walk in Megamall nearby and just relax. I just wanted to be in an environment where there wasn't any comics at all. But quite soon, I started missing the work and I always head back before long.

A separate department in the studio was being put up, an advertising studio, which accepted local jobs. One of the first being doing artwork for CD covers for local bands. I was being asked to work on these projects more, specially on the TRIP album of Rivermaya. Members of the band, specially Rico Blanco would stay up late with us in putting the cover and interior art together. One time Rico fell asleep and the other people in the studio had fun with him by writing and drawing all over his arm and face and it was so funny because Rico slept so deeply that he didn't wake up. When he did, he good naturedly vowed revenge.

Andrew E. also came over to visit often as well. He was a comics fan and I think it thrilled him to meet Whilce. I remember inking some of Whilce's artwork with some dogs on it for a CD of one of Andrew E's groups, but it was never used. Andrew made a really cool rap message for Whilce's answering machine and sometimes people would call up the studio just to listen to it.

It was cool meeting these famous people because seeing them really fascinated me. The work was new and fun and my recent training in Photoshop served me well. It became stressful at times specially when the computer crashed while Whilce was in the US and I was left to start the work all over.

Fun as it all was, I was getting concerned that I was doing less comics than I wanted, and comics was the reason I was in the studio in the first place. I became even more concerned specially when I fell behind on inking Grifter and Edgar Tadeo was once again brought in to ink and this time he got to do 3 pages. I made my concerns known that it was comics I wanted to do. I could still do the ocassional advertising stuff, but comics will remain my priority.

Grifter writer Steven T. Seagle had sent in descriptions of a kind of SEAWATCH facility which will be featured prominently in a two page spread at the start of the issue. He had sent in a fax of a sketch of what he felt the building would look like. The building looked pretty standard to my eyes, and the architect in me suddenly leapt and took over.

I drew up plans of what I thought would be a much cooler Seawatch facility. I drew a top view and elevation view of a circular building that evoked a beached sea urchin/starfish and faxed it over to Steve, c/o Wildstorm. I had concerns that Steve would blow his top and slap me around for messing up his work and I was prepared to hide under the sink until I'm forgiven. The great thing is, Steve was actualy happy he's working with creators who actually care about the work that was being done. And he gave the go-signal to do my Seawatch facility design.



I'm grateful to Roy that he allowed me to take over the 2 page spread, pencilling and inking the entire complex with Roy handling all the people, statues and birds. I'm very grateful Roy allowed me to do it even though I know now that Roy most likely would have done a far better job of it. I was just glad to have been allowed to do it.

Roy drew us in the last panel of this 2 page spread. Roy is the one holding the camera and I'm the one in the far background with the long hair. I was thinner back then.

Wetworks #14

Inking Portfolio #6
Wetworks #14
February 1996

It would be a couple more months after inking Whilce on the trading cards before I worked on my first comic book after Aster #2. In this time I do remember inking Whilce on several pages of Wetworks pages. I distinctly remember inking a 2 page spread with a HUGE mutated Dozer letting loose in an undergound chamber with a community and huts and scrambling monsters. I remember doing pencilling on it, specially on the backgrounds, and I was pretty happy how it turned out. For some reason or another, those pages were never published.

I was then paired with Roy Allan Martinez and I inked a Wetworks werewolf pinup over his pencils as a "test". Roy observed that my inking "cleaned" his art, an observation shared by some of his friends who offered the same opinion to me directly. I interpreted that to mean that some of the nice grittiness inherent in Roy's art had been reduced. I adjusted my inking to try and maintain more of Roy's grittiness in an unused Wetworks cover, but to my eyes, it still looked a little too clean. It frustrated me a little bit, but it didn't stop me from continuing to try.

To this day, I maintain that nobody can really ink Roy as well as he does. His own inking has a wonderful spontaneity to it that looks effortless and instinctive. Even then, I ended up inking Roy again on almost 10 full comic books for Wildstorm.

What I liked about inking Roy was I was allowed to pencil in backgrounds, textures and other detail from time to time. The panel above is an example of my inking over Roy's pencils, but at the same time I pencilled and inked in some of the tech details on the various platforms.

I worked long hours inking this issue because I wanted to make it look as good as I can make it. There were some pages where I added an inordinate amount of detail in an effort to impress perhaps. Maybe I had something to prove. Maybe I wanted Whilce and people at Wildstorm to see that we take the job seriously, and I didn't want them to regret giving us the job.

Edgar Tadeo was brought in to ink 2 pages when we became pressed for time. I felt a little bit threatened, specially because Ed is a very *very* good inker and I was concerned that they might do away with me and get Ed instead on a regular basis. That pretty much drove me even more to do a good job. Ever since then, and I think Ed might not even admit to it, but I think an unspoken rivalry between us was born from it. It was a friendly rivalry of course, which manifested itself in jokes threatening to break each other's hands.

I was so excited when this issue finally hit the stands because it's the first one that carried my name on the cover. It was such a thrill going to a store and seeing your name on the cover of a comic book. My excitement probably got the better of me because I pointed to the comic book in the store, bragging to the salesgirl, "That's me! That's my name! I did that!" That was the first and last time I did anything like that, but the thrill of getting something published and seeing your name on it has never diminished.

Jose Calaug, Delando Niño

J.C. Caluag (also known as Jose Caluag)
Olivadame
written by Pablo S. Gomez
Tagalog Klasiks #113, October 1953
ACE Publications

As requested, I'm featuring two more artists I'm featuring for the first time in the site. I know very little of J.C. Caluag aside from seeing his work on many early Philippine Komiks. Olivadame, as written by Pablo S. Gomez, seems to be a good representative of the quality of Caluag's work from this period.


Delando Niño
Love Among The Ruins!
written by Bill DuBay and Timothy Moriarty
1994 #22, December 1981
Warren Publications

Delando Niño is of course, Alex Niño's brother, who seems to display a unique talent on his own. I've rarely seen his work in local comics though, perhaps just one or two stories that still seemed rough compared to what he has done for Warren Magazines.