This is Maktan! (on Tepai Pascual's awesome Maktan 1521)

This is Maktan

by rick olivares

There’s a moment when one of the local datus confronts Lapu Lapu. The chieftain of Maktan is on a short leash.

“Bakit tayong mga datu ay kailangan magbigay alay sa kanila,” Lapu Lapu angrily asks Zula. “Wala silang karapatan dito sa ating isla dahil sa atin ito. Itinayo pa ng ating mga ninuno para sa atin at hindi para sa mga dayuhan. Sinunog nila ang mga anito, tirahan at pati na rin ang mga tao. Pinatay nila si Pasla, ang mga babaylan at buong balangay nito. Sinaktan nila anak ko! Sa tingin mo ba… may lugar pa ba ang pakikipagkaibigan sa isip ko?”

I half expect Lapu Lapu to kick Zula into some bottomless pit and scream in defiance, “This is Maktan!”

My thoughts of Frank Miller’s 300 aside, Tepai Pascual’s highly romanticized retelling of Lapu Lapu’s heroic repelling of Spanish colonialism in Maktan 1521 is a milestone in Filipino komiks. It’s groundbreaking because there aren’t many local komiks that re-tell historical events. Right now there’s Steve Magay’s and Dax’s Kayaw that is a fictionalized story of Kalinga warriors fighting the Japanese occupation in the Mountain Province. But that’s it.

As a history buff, I highly appreciate Pascual’s work. While a lot of creators mine our country’s rich folklore and mythology, she chooses to delve into a pivotal moment in our country’s history. Well, technically, the Philippines wasn’t a country just yet. Nevertheless, the events that led to the Battle of Mactan are firmly entrenched as a crucial moment in Philippine history as it put into motion the gears for a more concerted colonization.

We all know how the story starts and how it will end. What Tepai does is provide a story in between. Remember… this isn’t a historical re-telling but a highly romanticized version so that means there’s some love in the air ala Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet in Titanic (Sawili and Mawo/Maya) and touch of Braveheart and the betrayal of Robert the Bruce (Paril and Sawili) as we can see how the arrival of the Spaniards creates tension that simmers and then boils into a conflagration.

Although recorded history shows us that Lapu Lapu’s forces learned the weakness of the Spaniards when they had to wade through the low tide under heavy armor (thus removing other metal parts that would only slow and drown them), Pascual depicts how an angry Sawili learns of this Achilles Heel when he attacks a squad of Spanish soldiers who just shot and killed Kino.

The first part of Maktan 1521 tells of entreaties to submit to the Spanish King and initial skirmishes. It ends with a pissed off Magallanes ready to put the stubborn natives to the sword.

Pascual’s pacing is good. Even while introducing new characters into this story, she doesn’t let it drag into non-essential stuff. As a result, it keeps you glued to the story and by the time you get to the last page you wonder when the conclusion is coming out.

Black and white art is an acquired taste. If you’ve been reading Filipino komiks for a while now, then Wasted and Trese should have opened up your taste buds already. Pascual’s Maktan 1512 is offers different fare in an increasingly delicious menu of storytelling fare.

And Tepai’s art is clean and save for a few panels where there’s too much shade/black that you take a few minutes to try and figure out what happened or what is being conveyed.

The wrap-around cover is in full color and teases at what Pascual can fully accomplish given the resources to produce a comic book.

Maktan 1521 is not only a feather in Tepai Pascual’s cap but for local komiks. If you are a fan of local komiks then this should be in your collection.

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You can find Maktan 1521 at Comics Odyssey in Robinson's Galleria!

Fabio Moon's & Gabriel Ba's Daytripper: Life or something like that

Daytripper: Life or something like that

by rick olivares

Welcome to your new personal Brazilian gurus not named Paulo Coehlo.

In the award-winning Daytripper from Vertigo comics, twins brothers Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba tell a deeply moving story about Bras de Oliva Domingos who wants to write about life but instead writes about death as an obituary writer for the Sao Paulo Journal.

Daytripper is a wonderful and different extrapolation of such a cliché-ish term about a character’s life and times and eventual death. For the most part of this 10-chapter story that is set in the twins’ native Brazil, it always ends with Bras’ death just when he comes to a late realization that he should acted rather than remain aloof.

Yet each succeeding chapter moves forward in time with Bras having finally done “the right thing” such as living in with a girl he met or pursuing this other girl he’s smitten with and so forth. It’s a subtle way of saying that life cannot be lived backward only forward.

Bras grows out of what was once a sedate life and goes where the tides take him to paraphrase Moon’s line from Chapter Two where he meets the exotic looking Olinda, “You could say the tides brought me here. Oh, you know. I’ve been going to different and exotic places, meeting interesting people. Just going with the flow.”

This is reinforced later on when over lunch with his father who bares an anecdote in his relationship with Bras’ mother, “I told her I wanted to be a writer and that I knew a great romance was waiting for me to write it. She smiled and said she hoped a great romance was waiting for me to live it.”

However, as Bras soon learns, not everything turns out the way he expected it to be and with every flow there is the eventual ebb. The once steamy relationship he found himself in with Olinda has degenerated into one were hurtful words are used liberally and fights are routine. Obviously, love is out of the window and Bras finds himself alone once more. In the meantime though, tough as it may be, life has to go on.

Like most failed relationships, Bras rebounds and finds his wife but not after combatting his initial shyness. Wasn’t that the whole point – to go for it and leave no regret?

And yet, for all of Bras’ search for love and life with Ana (the girl he meets inside steals his heart and eventually marries), his parents continue to play an even larger role. All the words of advice they imparted that perhaps having entered through one ear only to exit through the other have come true. And in his father’s final message to his son via a letter, the singular truth about Daytripper is revealed: “Only when you accept that one day you’ll die can you let go and make the best out of life.”

Moon, who wrote this story, drops so many nuggets of wisdom that he gives Mitch Albom a run for his money. But don’t take them out of context at the risk of sounding sappy.

For all the beauty of Moon’s prose, Gabriel Ba’s artwork on Daytripper makes it a visual masterpiece. If those photos of Rio and Copacabana haven’t been enough to entice you then welcome to the Lonely Planet’s version of comics. Ba’s Brazil only adds to the exotic look and gives you a glimpse beyond the favelas and football stadia. There’s Rio Vermelho on Iemanja’s Day and the rural life of Acemira and the countryside.

The true beauty of Daytripper is that it can be interpreted in so many ways – an awakening, a journey, finding one’s place in the word, living life to the fullest, living not only for today but also for tomorrow. It will leave you thinking with the lush illustrations firmly imprinted in your mind like a postcard of a good memory from some beautiful far-flung place. And isn’t that the way a good story should be?

After reading Fabio Moon’s and Gabriel Ba’s Daytripper, you’ll hug your wife/girlfriend/boyfriend/husband/child/dog, make a phone call to your parents and tell them that you love them, or you’ll finally follow that childhood dream that you abandoned because life got in the way.

Or you can tell a dear friend that they should read Fabio Moon’s and Gabriel Ba’s Daytripper. And watch as it affects them just as much as it affected you.

Notes: Daytripper is available in trade paperback and deluxe edition format. I wholeheartedly recommend the deluxe edition because of the better paper and the additional sketches.

Happiness is a Funny Animal

The title of the article is a homage to Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts book, Happiness is a Warm Puppy.

Happiness is a Funny Animal

by rick olivares

“Learn to laugh at your troubles and you'll never run out of things to laugh at.”

The late Walt Kelly wrote that in the pages of Pogo, that satirical comic strip of modern day living as told through the eyes of its anthropomorphic funny animal characters. And for as long as people have done comics, this art form has stayed with us in one form or another.

And the sons and daughters of Pogo, Peanuts, and Calvin and Hobbes are alive and well in the pages of Philippine comics today.

There’s Robert Magnuson’s Hero Kitten, Elbert Or’s Bakemono High, and Carlo San Juan’s Callous Comics to name a few. It would be easy to dismiss funny animal strips as “kids’ stuff” or “whimsical” but Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart wrote in How to Read Donald Duck (published in 1971) that cartoon animals are “exempt from the vicissitudes of history and politics and are a convenient symbol of a world beyond socio-economic realities. And the animal characters can represent ordinary humans.”

However, not all comic strips like that present slices of life. Sometimes, they are what they are – merely children’s stories. Meant to entertain or even teach and communicate good values.

These stories make the local comic scene well rounded because superhero, horror, or romance fare isn’t for everyone.

Here’s a sampling of some of the good stuff out there.

Hero Kitten (OMF Literature/Hiyas)

Good Morning Dog’s world is rocked when Professor Flores brings home a wandering kitten from the rain-soaked streets of Marikina. Who said that man cannot have two best friends? It’s a story of friendship and youthful mischief. Did curiosity kill the cat? Nope, it just got Hero Kitten into more adventures.

What I look forward in Magnuson’s work is how – as of the cliffhanger ending to “A Sinking Feeling”, the free comic given away during Free Comic Book Day – is how this story could be moving into unchartered country with the scheming eyes of one kontrabida kat in the house next door. I don’t expect Magnuson to go into Ren and Stimpy country because that would greatly change the tone of Hero Kitten but I look forward to a little light-hearted villainy because that can teach a few more things to kids.

Bakemono High (K-Zone magazine)

Trese’s Budjette Tan would sign my comics with “You don’t have to be afraid of the dark.” And Elbert Or’s fun Bakemono High (“bakemono” is Japanese for monster) is the Peanuts of local fare. The strips follow the adventures of young monsters who get caught up in all sorts of school high jinks. There’s Max, the insecure and neurotic vampire, Chuck the werewolf, and Amy the Mummy.

The friends deal with school bullies, pets who steal the Show and Tell session, the perils of eating cafeteria food, pranksters, detention, and – horrors -- young love.

Was high school ever this fun?

Or’s work is fun, highly imaginative, and puts back the groovy in the ghouly.

Callous Comics (www.callouscomics.com)

Carlo San Juan draws from his experiences as a medical doctor in telling the life and times of Rhianne Nicah, a struggling physician, and her guardian duck, Cal Duck. There are others in the cast but the two are the main characters. Has there been any more synergy between a human character and a funny animal since Eddie Valiant and Roger Rabbit?

This one is more in tune with the works of Walt Kelly and Charles M. Schulz as there are references to the modern world we live in from Rhianne’s lack of IT savviness to Cal’s witty remarks and views on life.

I love it for its lightness without being silly and because it isn’t sardonic. The day-to-day challenges even as something as befuddling as Sudoku finds its way into the strip. Clearly, San Juan draws from his own experiences as a physician and I am sure there are quite a lot to tell.

If you enjoy Pogo, Peanuts, or even Liberty Meadows, check out Callous Comics.

Sometimes, one need not read heavy stuff to find fulfillment or enjoyment. As Walt Kelly also once said in the panels of Pogo, “Don’t take life so serious. It’s ain’t nohow permanent.”

You can find these titles at Comic Odyssey, www.callouscomics.com, www.omflit.com and www.elbertor.com

An epic journey: Aaron Felizmenio's Minkowski Space Opera

An epic journey: Minkowski Space Opera

by rick olivares

Minkowski Space Opera was one of those books that stood out during the Summer Komikon. The title alone evoked those classic Japanese manga/anime in the vein of Stardust Memory and Fairy Navigator Runa looked and the use of watercolors made it stand out from the sea of mostly black and white fare of local indie creators.

Grandiose? Ambitious? But aren’t all epics?

I am somewhat of a sucker for watercolor art having loved J.M. DeMatteis’ and Jon J. Muth’s Moonshadow for Epic Comics and all of Kyle Baker’s works (from the comic book adaptation of the Dick Tracy film to the recent graphic novel, The Fifth Beatle). So I picked up Minkowski Space Opera. However, creator Aaron Felizmenio’s art style reminds me of Mike Grell whose works I have been collecting since I saw him on Legion of the Super-Heroes and followed all the way to Warlord, Starslayer, and Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters. And that was a huge part of what got me to pick up Minkowski Space Opera.

Minkowski Space Opera is a sci-fi/fantasy epic about loner named Randall who in a Hayao Miyazaki way (a nod to the classic Spirited Away) suddenly finds himself displaced from the modern world he knows into the fantastical world of Arcadia where science and magic co-exist. He befriends a warrior monk named Artus who pledges to help him find his way home.

Artus relates the tale of Aeon who frees a powerful celestial being called the Minokawa (that will remind you of Marvel’s Phoenix – the force of nature and not the Jean Grey character) from its prison in order to tap a fraction of its energies to save his beloved who is dying.

Randall suddenly finds himself mysteriously appearing in another part of Arcadia where he meets the mysterious Nathaniel who supposedly tells the truth about the Minokawa that is a devourer of worlds. Having feasted on all the world sin the solar system, the Minokawa met its match when it failed to consume the planet of Arcadia whose peoples used their collective will to imprison the being in a cage called “the panorama”. Now the being is free and is seeking to finally consume Arcadia.

There’s promise in Minkowski Space Opera that according to the author was loosely inspired by the Bagobo tale of the Bakunawa that consumed the sun hence the cause of eclipses. Felizmenio’s art is lush and gives life to Arcadia. He is young and can you imagine how good he could be when he gains further mastery of his already good illustration skills.

The dialogue though needs a little work as does certain parts of the story in order to move it along. The mash of science, mech, magic and fantasy is certainly challenging. If Felizmenio can pull this off it could pave the way for the fantasy genre in Philippine comic books that is currently dominated by mythology, horror, and Japanese comic book inspired stories.

Whether Randall is a modern-day Luke Skywalker who allows his imagination to run wild as a means of escape from boredom or is an unlikely hero who lands in the midst of a Narnia/Westeros-like land as its savior has yet to be established. And who is telling the truth – Artus or the mysterious Nathaniel? What is going on? Or should Randall be penning the next Lord of the Rings?

Minkowski Space Opera definitely bears following.

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Notes: One of the cool things about Aaron Felizmenio’s Minkowski Space Opera is he includes a soundtrack that is available for free download online. It helps to listen to it while reading the comic.

The 40-page Minkowski Space Opera is now available at Comic Odyssey at Robinson's Galleria for P150 bucks.

With Aaron Felizmenio