AMAZING FABULISTS 
Comic Book Creators, and an abiding passion
By Yonina Chan

The local comics scene has had a resurgence of sorts in the last decade, with the creation and release of a number of independently produced comics by local creators. Aside from Arnold Arre’s Mythology Class, there are several defining works that have caught the attention of readers and gotten them to take a second look at what the Filipino comic creator has to offer.
 
 The works featured here are among those created since the mid’90s and, incidentally, are all radically different from each other. These titles range from more teen-friendly anime-ish works equivalents of short fiction. These recommended reads are available either in local bookstores or in specialty comics stores like Comic Quest in SM Megamall.

WASTED BY GERRY ALANGUILAN

Wasted is a slice of life type of story by Gerry Alanguilan about a man who goes on a rampage when he loses the woman he loves. A painful, gut-wrenching story that is not for the faint-hearted, this comics deals with very real issues and emotions between the extreme violence and rage.
 

The Author and the Story

“I’m still surprised at how Wasted all turned out and how much an important part of my life it had been. In 1993, I was still a struggling artist. Although I had already been writing and drawing stories for local comics, my intention back then was to get a job drawing for Marvel or DC so I could go to the US to be with my then-girlfriend. I had been sending in submissions left and right and received as much as rejection letters back. But instead of letting it discourage me, I let it drive me to do much better…to really improve my work. I was becoming known to my friends and to those who saw my work as someone who drew superheroes with intricate detail in both figure work and backgrounds. I was pretty obsessive about detail, about the correct anatomy, about the right visual perspective.
“So when my relationship with that girlfriend fell apart, it all pretty much fell apart. My dreams to go join her and my dreams to become a comic book artist all fell down together. It was devastating and a very difficult time for me. I stopped drawing completely and it took me an entire year of bumming around before I picked up a pen to draw again. I had become pretty self-destructive, my hair grew very long, I didn’t shave, I drunk, and I did other things I’d rather not say because I’m reminded of how stupid I was.
“And when I started to write and draw again, all that hurt and anger just came pouring out. I just wrote anything that I wanted, not caring about what other people might think. I was doing it for myself anyway. Nobody was going to see this, just me. It was kind of liberating because I didn’t have to kowtow to an editor, or think that I might get censored, or think that my friends would hate me. I did the first issue of eight pages pretty fast. I just wanted to get the first part of the story over with so I just blasted through it as quickly as I can. My intent was just to write the story, and I really didn’t care very much about how I drew it.”
 

Creating Wasted

“Wasted was done in a span of two years, from 1994 to 1996. The first issue was put together into a photocopied mini comic. I gave away 15 copies to friends to see what they think. Some of them pressed me to have it published. One copy eventually found its way to Budjette Tan, who was at the time putting together his Comics 101 anthology, and invited me to add wasted there. I was hesitant, because if it came out in Comics 101, it would be read by a lo more people than I wanted. Eventually, I relented.
“Finishing the first issue, and receiving positive feedback from it, gave me some of my self-confidence back. I thought well, I think I can do this again. I started drawing, and I started sending submissions to Marvel and DC once more. I started working in an architectural firm again so I could have some money which I had stopped doing when I decided to concentrate on doing comics a couple of years before. Eventually, I finished the second issue, and the third, and he forth in a span of a year, in between all the other things I was doing.
“I was emotionally exhausting finishing one single issue. For instance, I got sick after finishing issue #4, the Wedding Issue, because doing it, and going through the emotions I need to finish it, totally exhausted and wasted me. I was in bed with a fever for a week.
“I felt pressure to finish Wasted, which I had projected to be done in eight issues. It was harder to find time to do it, and the fact that I was slowly recovering from my failed relationship and my anger was slowly fading, it was even more difficult to maintain the momentum and sustain the emotion that I felt Wasted needed. But in spite of that, I eventually finished the last issue in July 1996, exactly two years after I had first started it. 
“When the entire series was finally finished, the demand for a compiled edition started coming. I managed a compilation for a while, but producing these compilations on my own proved to be too much work and I found I couldn’t keep up with the demand. Fortunately, Alamat Comics stepped in, and came out in February 1998.
“Finishing the entire story and seeing it finally put together in one volume was terrific. I still count Wasted as probably the reason why I’m still here. It literally saved my life, and gave me the confidence to just go on. If I hadn’t done it, I might have self destructed all those years ago.”
 

Beyond Wasted

“Looking back on it, I realize that the art is pretty bad in a lot of places. Once or twice I had been tempted to redraw everything, but I thought I’d better just let it stand as a document of who I was at that time. I’m not ashamed of What I had written and drawn, in fact I’m very proud of it. Most of my mail came from surprisingly enough, girls. When I had my book launching in 1998 at Robinsons Galleria, most of those that got their book signed were young girls. That was quite startling to me. I’d get letters from guys too, and one particularly memorable one was from this musician who had been contemplating on killing himself but changed his mind when he read Wasted. I mean, how do you react to something like that?
“I had grown concerned over the years that Wasted may well be the only thing people know me for, and I dread the notion that as an old and doddering man 30 years from now, I’d still be talking only about Wasted. So I naturally had been trying to avoid mentioning it in recent interviews, choosing to talk about my recent work instead like Humanis Rex! or Dead heart Stories, or Stupid Chicken Stories, or SIGLO, or Tales of the Big City, or my stateside inking work like X-men, Superman and Batman.
“And yet, I’d still get email about Wasted, thanking and congratulating me for it, and if there are still any copies around. At signings, people would still bring Wasted. And you know I realize that for some, they’re encountering Wasted for the first time in their lives and it somehow means something to them, and they just want me to let me know. I feel ashamed that I had rejected Wasted for a while, not realizing the value it has had, and still has one some people.”