 Niño's
extravagance with floral decorations, a baroque style all-too-typically
Filipino, has been a source of argument against his art. He has fine brush
strokes coupled with accurate inking and excellent composition and shading.
Unfortunately, his decorations tend to give his frames a cramped up finish
and obscure his subjects. Notice for instance an episode of Mga Matang
Nangliliyab, which depicts an old hermit discovering an Eden-like place.
The landscape dazzles the reader with all those fantastically executed,
superabundant flora and fauna. Without the dialogue balloon, however, the
reader would probably have lost sight of the hermit.
It is perhaps a renewed awareness that Niño weeded the clutter out of Ang Lihim ng Guadalupe and presented it along impressionistic lines. At this point too, he seems to have gone to the opposite extreme with a high contrast lighting technique that speaks well of a comparatively spacious presentation. Faces become stark, fine lines and curves while hair and dark areas became solid black splotches. This progressive "clean-up" is apparent in the stylistic evolution of his works in the period from the late 60's to mid-70's. Maligno, published in Redondo Komix in 1968, is suffused with details unlike Mariposang Dagat of 1975 which is allowed to breathe, shorn of exquisite but needless decorations. The engagement with the US comics and the exposure to artists there have pushed Niño to further polish his style and exploit the limits of the high contrast technique he has adopted. The competitive atmosphere prevalent in the States, the exacting taste of American editors and publishers and the freedom and appreciation given him there may have provided him with the incentive to react with renewed, creative vigor. A comparison of his earliest work in the US, To Die for Magda, and his latest works in '1984' (June, 1979 issue) reveals an even more acute preoccupation with the technique. Entire frames of Liason Aboard a Skylab are executed in the lightest of outlines like images seen through frosted glass. In contrast, the other frames in the same story carry the more telling elements of the technique's earlier stages evident in Magda and Mariposa. Throughout the years of drawing and constant innovations in style, Niño has retained in his works the quality that makes them unique. The same quality gives his works an ironic element in the sense that his characters are closer to fancy than reality. His women and children remind one of kewpie dolls by the way he suggests facial features rather than defines these. His illustrations of horror and science fiction stories reveal an unrelenting flair for the grotesque which is reminiscent of his cartoon period. He delights in drawing ugly creatures probably seen only in nightmares, and emphasizes the unpleasant more by setting these characters against an intentionally beautiful background.
The flair for the "grotesque" is taking Niño to greater heights. His present work for Warren swamps him with the challenge of conjuring the most unimaginable creatures one may likely experience in an encounter of the third kind. Alien creatures and planets occupy his drawing table. But make no mistake about it. Niño is neither an angry, confused and rebellious man nor a wino in a trance, as his self appointed critics would put it. It just may be that the expatriate artist is an another stage of artistic growth, a growth which may take him where nobody has ever gone before. One can, therefore, reasonably expect more surprises from this prolific expatriate. -C. Amigo
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