Gerry Alanguilan's Blog

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My Friend Johnny

Johnny insisted that I first met him at Comics Den, a small comic book shop here in San Pablo sometime in the early 2000s. To be honest, I don’t remember. When the Laguna Artists Group (later known as the Komikero Artists Group) formed in 2002, he became one of the members. Little did I know at the time that his entry into my life would be a life changing one. Slowly over the years we got to know each other and he eventually became one of my close friends. That doesn’t mean we shared everything. Johnny was a private person and so was I. And so was Jonas, but in spite of that we three formed a strong bond. We didn’t need to see or talk to each other all the time. We didn’t intrude into each other’s personal lives. And yet we were so close it’s crazy. It’s hard to explain.

It is this same privacy that kept Johnny from telling us right away that he had been feeling seriously sick. He did tell us he felt feverish once in a while, but he didn’t tell us how serious it actually was. Talking with his sister last night at his wake, I was told how private he was with them. Talking with her made me realize something about Johnny… something I already knew but didn’t realize how significant it was. Perhaps I was too close that I didn’t fully realize it or comprehend it.

Johnny spent a large part of his life helping other people. The more I thought about it, the more I realize how true it was. Johnny spearheaded a lot of fund raising events that helped impoverished school children get school supplies. He approached those that he knew, bringing comic book artists together to create art that were sold at auctions held at our local comic book conventions.

Auctioning off artwork at Komikon. Photo by Kit Perez.

Johnny showing off how much was raised for “Lapis at Papel”. Photo by Carlo Pagulayan.

Johnny managed to get a lot of big local names to help out. Leinil Yu, Carlo Pagulayan, Stephen Segovia, Harvey Tolibao, Manix Abrera, Carlo Vergara, etc. There was something about Johnny that just made you trust him and made you want to help.

He was also involved in helping raise funds to help fellow comic book creators who had needed financial help for medical reasons, such as the case with Vergil Espinosa and Rico Rival’s family. When someone needed help, Johnny’s first thought was to help raise funds so everyone could help.

Johnny made a living for himself holding down two jobs. One job was with an NGO that helped fellow Filipinos across the country. His other job was online… and that was helping Japanese citizens learn how to speak English. It’s amazing how much of Johnny’s life was built around helping and serving other people, even right up to the end.

He thought of others more and less for himself. Sure he had his own vices. He was after all a comic book fan. He collected toys and comics. But that is as far as he went serving himself. I realize now how Johnny was one of the most selfless people I know. I wish there was some way we could have let him know how much we appreciate him and what he’s done. But knowing Johnny, he wouldn’t want the attention and the fuss.

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Last night I saw Johnny at his wake. It’s so hard to believe he’s gone. Even now I still can’t wrap my head around it. He loomed so large, so vibrant and alive that it’s hard to fully accept that he’s no longer here. Of course, in many ways he will always be around. As long as we remember him he will be. And there’s the videos. I made so many videos with Johnny. I’m thankful I did that because whenever I miss him I can just look at any one of those videos and I can laugh with him again, and be comforted by his presence again.

Back in 2004, Johnny moved to Davao to work. I had gotten so used to having Johnny around during our regular Komikero meetings that his departure devastated me. I had been moved to create the video below as a tribute to him.

Commenting on that video from faraway Davao, Johnny exclaimed: “I’m not dead yet!”

No Johnny, you will never be.

Thoughts on Heneral Luna

This is not a proper Heneral Luna review. I tried writing one, but words fail me. Simply put, Heneral Luna is one of the most remarkable Filipino made films I’ve seen. The talent that went into creating this movie from all people involved evokes pride in me as a Filipino. The risk they took in creating a work of quality in the midst of commercial naysayers appeal to me immensely as an artist. That this movie triumphed is a victory I feel myself, my trust in the Filipino’s intelligence justified. That I love this film is now beyond question.

But there are things I do want to say about certain aspects of it.

I’m absolutely sorry to the actor who played Joven, but I believe he needs to attend more acting workshops. His acting is, I feel, the weakest in the entire film. His delivery has that sing songy quality that I detest in a lot of Filipino films and TV shows. That he had a scene with the actor playing Paco Roman, himself not that strong of an actor, as they rode the cart on the way to Cabanatuan just made me cringe.

Compare Joven’s delivery with the delivery of the actor playing Jose Rizal (in a voiceover). Just absolutely brilliant. Nakakakilabot. Nakakaiyak. Holy shit.

Outside of that, every single actor and actress here were just excellent. Brilliant casting all around. That I don’t know most of these actors lend well to the credibility of the film.

Joey de Leon has commented that this movie would have been a bigger hit if it had cast Alden or some other famous person in certain roles. The problem I have with that is that Heneral Luna would have become a showbiz film. Viewers would not see the character, but the actor. The moment the viewer goes “Ay, si Alden!” the credibility of the film and the integrity of it will be shot to hell. In spite of the star-less quality of these actors, the movie has nevertheless earned 200 million pesos (and counting), far more than any historical film in the history of the Philippines. Would it have made more money if it had “stars”. Perhaps, but it would have been a movie that’s damaged, its integrity compromised.

Inking Sample

In connection with my previous post, I would like to share an image that compares Leinil’s pencils with my inks, taken from a panel detail from Civil War 2 #4.

As you can see, more than just “tracing” is going on. In fairness to Leinil, most of his pencils aren’t like this. As with any project with tight deadlines, any penciller can’t afford to go full details on every single image. Once in a while there would be panels like this and the inker would need to come in and clarify what the penciller has put down. Having worked with Leinil for almost 20 years now, I have a pretty good idea of how he would like these lines to be interpreted. I am simply going in and do what he would have done if he had more time.

Being An Inker

I’ve finally finished the inks on all 5 issues of Civil War II and I’m really glad I got to ink every single interior page of it, with no line rushed or thrown away. It really feels good that I get to accomplish a book in this way, working on all pages without the need of another inker coming in. It feels like a complete job, something I can take as a whole and feel proud of. I have felt the same way when I did things like Superman Birthright and Indestructible Hulk. Projects that I’m proud to have done as an inker.

I’m even happier that I completed the job in spite of all the drama that happened in my personal life behind the scenes. No matter what happened with me on a personal level, it didn’t affect the job, as it should be.

Leinil has been telling me about how the book is getting good notices online and I’d gladly take his word for it. I generally don’t read reviews of books I inked. In fact, I avoid them all together. It’s not that I’m uninterested in feedback. It’s just that the only credible feedback I can ever get from my inking is from Leinil himself and from my editors. If they’re happy with what I’m doing, then I’m good. Of course, Leinil has been really critical of my inks early on in our partnership. He has a very specific way he wants to be inked and it took a long time for me to adjust. Right now I feel I’ve pretty much grasped how he would like his pencils to be inked.

Reviewers, for the most part, don’t fully understand what goes on in inking. A lot of the critiques I’ve read speaks to me how they don’t understand the process. I’ve read comments about how I ink too dark or too scratchy or too “rushed”. I pretty much work with what the penciller gives me. If he puts in a lot of shadows, I will just follow his lead. If he doesn’t put in too much details, who am I to add any more? My job is simply to understand what the penciller is trying to do, and help him interpret his pencil lines in pure black and white. To me it’s pretty hard to review an inker’s work without actually seeing the pencils. Reviewers do so anyway, and I just feel bad about it because I think they just don’t get what I do. So that’s why I avoid reviews altogether. Leinil knows his pencils in and out, so it is his critique that would be of utmost importance to me. If I screw up, believe me, he’ll tell me about it, and I’ll adjust.

When it comes to my own work though, like ELMER, I read ALL reviews. It is reading reviews online and even those long reviews sent to me privately that help me, as an artist, improve my work. I have taken a lot of those comments and improved what I did subsequently.

I Tried to Like Alcohol

When I was very young my dad shared a can of beer with me. It was nice, but I didn’t enjoy it. Later, he would allow me sips of the hard stuff. I didn’t enjoy it either. By not forbidding alcohol, I think my dad actually diffused a curiosity about it that could have led to me indulging in it out of spite.

I tried drinking again in college, but I did it more to fit in. I still didn’t like the taste of beer, but I did enjoy feeling buzzed. Was that it? Were people drinking because they enjoyed the buzz rather than the taste? Because honestly, beer really tasted nasty.

When my GF broke up with me back when I was a young adult, I took to going to Shakey’s and having a large pizza and a pitcher of draft beer all to myself. I did this as often as my paycheck would allow. I kind of liked draft beer but I still thought it tasted weird and bitter. I still loved the feeling of being buzzed and enjoyed the challenge of going home, on foot, trying to act like I wasn’t drunk.

One day when I was still feeling really down because of the breakup, I found a recipe for a zombie drink which consisted of rum, juices, and grenadine. I gulped down two glasses at once and enjoyed it because I like juice but there was a weird, strong aftertaste that I attributed to the rum. I got drunk real fast and threw up. I felt horrible. I never tried that again.

Still feeling really down, I attended a school reunion and got really drunk. My classmates brought me home in dad’s car (which I had borrowed) as I threw up in the back seat. It was terrible. Back home, mom dragged me to the bathroom and gave me a shower, cursing all the way. I didn’t take a drink after that for a long time.

As time passed, I would just have sparkling white wine here and there during Christmas and that’s it. One New Year’s I tried getting drunk on lambanog. But it tasted nasty so I didn’t get fully drunk, just half buzzed.

Even today when I drink beer with friends I still don’t like the taste of beer. It’s just nasty. I just don’t get it. Why is this such a popular drink? People all over the place seem to enjoy it. And drink lots of it. They like it so much that a lot of them become alcoholics. But it just tastes nasty to me.

Hard drinks taste even nastier. I tried them all. Rum, vodka, tequila, whiskey… even the tame stuff like Tanduay Ice. Even wine, red or white. They all taste weird and nasty. An average ice cold glass of Coca Cola still tastes much better. So what gives? Why are people drinking this stuff?

It’s not like I haven’t tried like it. Lord knows the many kind of brands of beer I tried. Most of the time I never even finish the bottle. I’m always like what the fuck is this shit?

I guess it’s really not just for me.

Flattered, but NO.

When I woke up this morning, I opened a link Ilyn told me about the night before. It’s a link to an article at the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s website where I’m named as one of “5 Filipinos Who Owned Their Dreams”. This is the link to that article.

My initial reaction was surprise, and well…joy that I was chosen to be featured in this article. I felt it was quite an honor. At the back of my mind I was thinking, “Why me?”. In the field of Philippine comics, there are quite a number of people who have probably owned their dreams more than I did. I can think of a few right now.

In any case, I had someone buy me a copy of today’s Inquirer just in case there’s a print version, but unfortunately, there’s not. And then I forgot all about it, concerning myself fully with a frightening deadline at hand.

But something about the article kept bugging me. I felt that there was something a little “off” somewhere. For one, the article didn’t say who wrote it.

Earlier this evening I decided to take a second look at the article and was quite surprised to read, at the very bottom:

“Led by its mission to Build the Filipino Dream, Filinvest Land, Inc. (FLI) has launched its new campaign called “I own my Dream”. This campaign fortifies FLI’s tagline, “We Build the Filipino Dream”, as it aims to inspire more Filipinos to dream and own their dreams. And through its residential properties, FLI continues to help millions of Filipinos achieve their dreams of owning a home.”

Then it clicked. I realized that it wasn’t a true article, but an advertisement for Filinvest. People who know me closely would be familiar with my stance on appearing in commercials and advertisements. That stance being I don’t want to be in them. That I don’t want to appear in ads selling products. I’ve declined to appear in advertisements before. Because of a viral video I uploaded at You Tube, I’ve received invitations to appear on TV commercials. I’ve declined them all. If you ask me why, all I can say is I don’t like it.

Flattered as I am at being chosen (and I admit it did feel great), I wish Filinvest would have gotten in touch with me first to ask if I would be willing to be attached to their product in this way. But they didn’t ask my permission and instead used an old photo and collected information about me online. I would have politely said no and I would have gladly recommended other people in my place.

For the record, I do wish to say that I am not endorsing Filinvest in any way.

Civil War II, Le Monde and Bugel

Civil War 2, the sequel to Marvel Comics’ Civil War is basically the main comics project that has preoccupied me for most of the year so far. I’m inking this over my long time partner Leinil Francis Yu. It’s written by Charles Soule and colored by Sunny Gho. I’m currently working on issue #5, the last issue. Inking Civil War has been both challenging and amazing. Challenging for a couple of reasons. One, much of the early issues I worked on under incredible stress because of family and personal emergencies. It had really been an incredible tough first few months of 2015.

The stress, I believe, actually began when my mom died in May last year. I thought I had gotten over it, but I didn’t realize it was really eating me up inside. I knew it because I slowly became physically weak over the next year. My dad got hospitalized in April. I had seen him collapsed on the bathroom floor and I thought he was dead. I can’t even begin to describe how harrowing that was emotionally for me. It really stressed me out further. By around May this year I was down to 62 kilos, which isn’t THAT bad normally, but I looked really sick and thin. Thankfully, my dad got better. I got better. Me and Ilyn forced ourselves to go on an outing just to relieve that incredible stress we were both feeling. I think getting away for a few days at the end of May must have saved my life. Imagine working all throughout that. I’m proud to say that I’ve managed to do it. I’ve managed to balance taking care of family matters as well as work matters. That thought really makes me feel glad.

Ok, what else made working on Civil War 2 challenging? Well, I’ve been inking Leinil close to 18 years now. The first thing of his I worked on were a few pages of Wolverine back in 1997. Over that time I’ve seen his stuff evolve and I needed to evolve with him. One would think that I have it all down pat and I’m just going on automatic when I ink his stuff. But to be honest, I keep pushing myself to do better. I keep challenging myself to do a better job. With Civil War 2 I’ve been really pushing it, working on each panel really hard and spending a lot of time making it all look as good as it can be. Hopefully, it shows. because man, I’m really really trying.

In between pages of Civil War, I worked on a full page full color newspaper strip for Le Monde. I don’t know if Le Monde is the title of the newspaper, or if it’s simply a section of a newspaper. I was commissioned to do it by Serge Ewenczyk of Éditions çà et là, the French publisher of ELMER. It’s supposed to depict a vacation I took here in my home country. I chose to tell the story of the trip I took with Ilyn to Bataan to visit an entire village of old restored Spanish era houses. I was also asked to letter it, which was a challenge in itself because it had to be in French. I don’t know any French except maybe merci or où sont les toilettes. (Thank you! Where is the toilet?) I believe this strip already came out Saturday last week. Serge promised to send me a copy. I can’t wait to see it!

That is of course, only two of the things I’m working on that I can actually talk about. I may be working with another artist for something for Komikon, I may be not. Whatever I finish though, you’ll definitely see it this November at Komikon.

I can’t end this post without an obligatory selfie with Bugel.

Rodski Patotski, National Book Award Nominee!

Rodski Patotski: Ang Dalagang Baby has received a nomination at the 34th National Book Awards in the Graphic Literature Category, English Language. It goes against Mythspace by Paolo Chikiamco (and artists) and Trese 6: High Tide at Midnight by Budjette Tan and Kajo Baldisimo.

I really want to thank Paolo Herras and Tepai Pascual of Meganon Comics for making this possible. They’re really the ones who went through the effort to have Rodski nominated by processing all the paperwork, submitting copies and applying the book for an ISBN. None of which I would have done myself. This is probably why Rodski appears here under the Meganon umbrella rather than Komikero Publishing.

I want to thank Paolo and Tepai for all they’ve done for me, and for believing in the work I do. They’ve done more than this, I have to say. They are also actively promoting and selling Rodski for me at various events and fairs and even online. So thank you guys… you’ve been awesome! I really appreciate it.

Of course, I really want to thank Arnold Arre as well. He breathed life into this character beyond my wildest expectations. Finally, thanks to my wife Ilyn for the unfaltering support. Rodski is based on her, after all. If it sounds like I’m already giving my award acceptance speech, then you’re not deaf. The nomination is already an award in itself. But I have to be honest and say that I would like to win it. Sorry, Paolo C. and Budjette. hehe.

Click here to see a list of all nominees in all categories.

If you want to read the first 9 pages of Rodski, click here!

My Chico Branch

This is the view outside my window whenever I’m lying down in bed. Because I haven’t been feeling all that well for the early part of this year, this is a view I saw a lot. My attention almost always fixed on that branch from our neighbor’s chico tree. I would see it bathed in sunlight when it’s sunny and I would see it swaying in the wind and wet whenever it rained. At night I can barely make it out. I felt I had a constant companion whenever I was feeling bad both physically and emotionally. It became a constant in my life…something I could count on to always be there whenever I looked out the window. And it became quite a big comfort for me.

Nowadays I’m feeling a whole lot better, I still look out my window and I still see it there. It’s grown a little bit and seems to have a lot more leaves than before. It still makes me feel good. It’s quite ironic because I actually hate the chico fruit. I’ve never liked it. I don’t like the smell of it, and I don’t like the taste of it. But I’m so glad that tree is there for me to look at. I’ve grown to appreciate at least that.