100 Araw ng Komiks: NOT Keeping It Real
100 Araw ng Komiks (100 Days of Comics) is an online event organized for the purpose of spreading awareness of Philippine Komiks through Twitter, Facebook, DeviantArt, blogs and other online venues. Click here for the event page on Facebook. The Komikero Comics Journal will be posting everyday for the month of July news, opinions and commentary on aspects of the Philippine comics industry. Today, I will talk about Not Keeping It Real.
Being idealistic is something I readily admit to when it comes to creating comics. I'm glad to say that I've been pretty much stayed that way ever since I began making them. Of course, many things have happened over the years that made me pessimistic about certain things, some things left me jaded and kind of cynical, but I think I've never created anything where I had to compromise the integrity of my work. Whenever I would enter a situation where I was too uncomfortable, where I felt like I was giving too much of my freedom and control over my work away, I just get the hell out of there.
I must admit that doing things that way have kept me from reaching a wider audience and kept me from making a bit more business. But having all that is not worth it if I felt bad about myself and about my work. So I make sure I don't put myself in that position.
An advantage of being idealistic is that I'm not bound by existing boundaries. Countless times in my life I've been told, "It's not possible to do that.", "You can't do that.", "Let's just be realistic." Keeping it real is sensible advice perhaps for other certain professions, where certainty is the priority, and where certainty is where everything should revolve around. As an artist, I cannot allow myself to revolve around certainties. I can't allow myself to be limited by boundaries. In fact, as an artist, it is my job, no, it's my responsibility to push the boundaries, to grab new territories of possibilities, create *new* realities.
If I had "kept it real", then I would have never had the imagination or even the inclination to do ELMER, and do it the way I did. I'm happy that Elmer is getting a bit of attention and recognition, not really for myself, but I'm crossing my fingers, hoping that it would be something that would inspire other creators to push their own boundaries. It really is truly possible to strike out and do your own thing, pushing your imagination and creativity as far as it could go, and then some more.
There's plenty of amazing, brilliant creators doing comics in the Philippines now who have not yet reached their potential, or even realize the potential they can achieve. But once they tap into that, I'm absolutely confident that they would be creating work that would push the medium much farther and much higher than I ever could.
