A celebration of Pinoy komiks

Hugo “Boboy” Yonzon III and his ever-equal partner Guia have based themselves in Tagaytay for over a decade now, but they remain in the forefront of preserving the wealth of Filipino comics and cartoons as well as animation, and expanding the international awareness of this treasure trove of delights.

This month of October, their efforts come to full fruition with the staging of The First Philippine International Cartoons, Comics, and Animation (PICCA) Festival, which formally opens on Oct. 15 and lasts till Oct. 18.

Pre-event activities include several exhibits that precede the main PICCA Festival. These are the “Komiks Yaring Pinoy” exhibits of contemporary comics art by Filipinos at SM Fairview and at SM Hypermart Pasig, which started last Sept. 21; “Slice of Life,” a one-man exhibit featuring the classic works of the master Larry Alcala, which opened at the Yuchengco Museum on Sept. 24, and “Expats Express,” a two-man exhibit of editorial cartoons by Edd Aragon and DengCoy Miel that was supposed to open on Oct. 2. at the GSIS Museum.

Edd and DengCoy are world-class artists who have been doing us proud with their editorial-page exploits that have won them numerous awards and undoubtedly established them as the kingpins in their respective domains. The irrepressibly gifted Edd Aragon — cartoonist, painter, musician, writer-blogger and cosmic wit of the zany edge — has lorded it over the editorial section of Sydney Morning Herald in Australia, while the irreverent DengCoy Miel of the coruscating humor and deranged coyness is the top visual draw of Singapore Strait Times, where he’s long been acknowledged as a conquering Pinoy hero.

Unfortunately, last Friday’s scheduled opening of the Aragon/Miel exhibit of editorial cartoons had to be canceled on account of the threat of super-typhoon Pepeng. The exhibit is now open for public viewing, however. Only the official opening date had to be deferred. I guess we’ll just have to wait a while before engaging in the guzzling of all that red wine from Down Under hand-carried by Edd. And maybe enjoy some funny beer and smokes with DengCoy.

PICCA will also feature drawing workshops for children, drawing contests for high school and college undergraduate students, animation showings, talks, book launchings, and caricature sessions. Here’s the full sked:

On Day One, Oct. 15, the Samahang Kartunista ng Pilipinas, the 31-year-old organization of newspaper and magazine cartoonists, will open a show billed as “SKP and Friends” at the Podium Mall, to last for the festival duration. An attendant highlight is the Parangal sa Mga Tagapaglikha ng Komiks. Comics creators will honor their peers and predecessors for their contribution to the craft. Honorees are Mars Ravelo, Nestor Redondo, Alfredo Alcala, Francisco Coching, Pablo Gomez, Larry Alcala, and Nonoy Marcelo. This event is hosted by the Intellectual Property Office (IPO).

For its part, the contest exhibit will be held at the fourth floor Bridgeway of SM Megamall, also for the four-day duration. Prizes for the art contests that are open to high school and college students are the Larry Alcala Awards for cartoon comics creation and the Hugo Yonzon Jr. Awards for caricature. The Boy Togonon Awards for editorial cartooning, under the auspices of the National Press Club, is for SKP members only. Winners will be announced on Sunday, Oct. 18.

Also on Oct. 15, a forum will be held at Powerbooks, SM Megamall, with Edd Aragon and DengCoy Miel speaking on editorial cartooning in Sydney and Singapore, respecively, and the panel of Gerry Alanguilan, Gilbert Monsanto and Guia Yonzon holding forth on comics publishing.

On Oct. 16, feature-length animation films and shorts from the Philippines, Canada, India, and China will be shown at Poveda College. This will be accompanied by industry talks led by Mimbi Eloriaga, executive producer of the animation film Urduja.

In the afternoon, more discussions will be held at the Development Academy of the Philippines (DAP). Topics will include the protection and promotion of the intellectual rights of artists and writers, global comics trend, and animation in Asia Pacific. Speakers are Adrian Cristobal, IPO director general; Dr. John A. Lent of Temple University; and Liuyi Wang of the Asia Pacific Association of Cartoons and Animation.

A major highlight is the launch at 6 p.m. at Powerbooks, SM Megamall of the coffee-table book The First One Hundred Years of Komiks and Cartoons, written by Dr. John A. Lent and published by Yonzon Associates.

On Oct. 17, PICCA guests and local artists will motor to Tagaytay for a leisure trip, lunch and caricature session. In the evening, there will be a fellowship among cartoonists, comics creators, animators, and supporters at the Perla Mansion Rooftop, C. Palanca St. in Makati City.

On Oct. 18, PICCA will co-present the “Komikon” or comics convention at the SM MegaTrade Hall — featuring comic book sellers, indie and veteran artists, game designers, publishers, and various other involved or interested parties.

The First PICCA is presented by Mango Comics, with the Samahang Kartunista ng Pilipinas and the Creative Media Professionals Guild of Asia and the Pacific as the proponents. Cooperators include SM Malls, IPO, DAP, Poveda College, National Press Club, Microcadd Institute, Yuchengco Museum and GSIS Museum. Other supporters are Seventoons Animation Studios, Epson Philippines, Komikon and Cream Studios.

PICCA was co-founded by Boboy Yonzon with artists Gerry Alanguilan, Gilbert Monsanto, Sherry Baet, animation producer Mimbi Eloriaga, and writer Orvy Jundis. More information is available at www.picafest.com.

Now we turn over this space to the wonderful foreword written by our friend Hugo Yonzon III for the milestone publication that certainly makes for a grand collectible:

“The idea to produce The First One Hundred Years of Philippine Comics and Cartoons arose from my association with Dr. John A. Lent of Temple University. This amiable guy — who looks like Santa Claus or Papa Hemingway depending on what fairy tales you subscribe to — keeps telling people in comics forums all over the world that the Philippines has a rich tradition in cartoons and comics.

“I also have been asked to deliver talks about the comics of our country in Malaysia and several times in China. In the process, like a professor prepping up for an inquisitive class, I had to dig deeper into what Lent has been saying about our comics wealth. And in that classic irony, the more I learned the less I knew.

“For truly, I must say that Lent, who is a comics scholar, if ever there is one, has been right all along. He wrote as much in ‘The First Seventy Five Years of Philippine Comics,’ an article that appeared in 2004 in the US magazine The Comics Artist. Like how ‘Mr. Komikero’ Gerry Alanguilan felt, reading that piece made me a proud Pinoy. This inspired me to ask Lent to expand the article into a manuscript for a coffee-table book, thereby affording us the opportunity to present a bigger gallery of the works that the topic richly deserves.

“Asking a foreigner to write about a historical aspect in our country may seem odd. But my contention is that we need somebody who can step back a bit and winnow with an objective eye the profusion of data that Philippines comics history presents. Tentacles of tall tales from anywhere can jump at somebody a tad too close and suffocate him. People who have worked in the Philippine comics industry, so vibrant and colorful for decades, keep declaring it is now dead. Only to say on second breath that its ghost is too powerful and too real that it may even spring alive if only it can find a vessel to inhabit. Hoho! Clearly, there is blurring of vision because our eyes are too close to the mirrors.

“Researches are actually cluttered with so many digressions and inside stories that the main story itself becomes so disjointed in the aftermath. Aware of that as we were, I must admit we couldn’t resist the temptation of adding vignettes and sidebars to Lent’s main, straightforward text. Maybe we are fond of asides. Maybe of textures. Maybe of subplots. Because like an eager traveler in a strange territory, we listened to many a driver’s tale about Philippine comics and we couldn’t help but think that a couple of them must be retold. We attached them like barnacles onto Lent’s ship.

“From the standpoint of a Filipino, telling you about the story of cartoons and comics in the Philippines is like rummaging through our family chests and making sure that whatever we unearth from them are something that we can be proud of or be richer with. We like to build myths. We like to construct diagrams of progeny. We like to be comforted in a cozy bed of heritage.

“I was fortunate as a child to have seen great visual artists at work. I saw my father and his friends Malang, Larry Alcala, Liborio Gatbonton, Elmer Abustan, and Roddy Ragodon when they were doing cartoons. I witnessed the Golden Era of comics that saw its creative apex in the outputs of CRAF Publications. Being partial to visual narratives, the weekly dose of Alcala and Redondo sent me to Nirvana. Mars Ravelo’s artist son Richard and I used to spend whole days at the comics library of his father in Philamlife Homes, then a suburban village.

“There was, of course, my dad Hugo Yonzon Jr. who entered the University of the Philippines School of Fine Arts with Larry Alcala, left after a semester and plunged right away into the visual arts profession. He was one of the pioneers of cartoons and comics illustration when the country was recovering from World War II. He drew ‘Sakay n Moy,’ a comic funnies, for several decades in the Roces-owned Manila Times. He also drew the comics serial Sawa sa Lumang Simboryo that became a movie classic.

“Veteran journalist Neal Cruz has always argued that cartoonists and comics creators must be considered for the National Artist Awards. The gatekeepers of the awards kept ignoring that silly contention, saying even that comics and cartoons are not of the fine arts. The nominations of Francisco Coching, Mars Ravelo and of Larry Alcala were kept at the doors. Of course, the guards of culture were jolted from their fossilized world when, one day, a pretender upends the process of selection.

“What came into scrutiny was the qualification of the supposed awardee, yes, but the good thing about it is that it again kicked into the surface the issue of whether to finally consider comics as a legitimate art form. In this day and age when the description of visual arts has expanded into cyberspace, that is just timely. This could lead to a healthy discussion, or could dreadfully remain in academic shelves.

“What is sure is that art forms may evolve through the visions and sensibilities of gifted men but their spectators validate and sustain them. Comics creation remains virulent not just because there are artists who cannot sleep unless they can draw but because people as a whole need to put down their dreams on paper, so to speak. Drawings represent the aspirations of man.

“The Philippines is a young country and may not have a deep and complex history like Japan with its emaki and kobyoshi dating back to the late 18th century, very readable materials replete with drawings that are said to be the forerunners of comics. In 1821, we had Ilocano painter Esteban Villanueva depicting the Basi Revolt in sequential paintings and, in some pieces, populated them like Malang’s Menagerie. But I guess those paintings, considered to be the first historical ones in Southeast Asia, don’t count because they were not printed on paper and publicly disseminated.

“When cartoons and comics were born in the country at the turn of the century, the populace was just beginning to read after being kept from literacy for centuries. The American occupiers brought public education. They introduced Hollywood, a new way to look at Christianity, and a freer discourse.  There was an explosion of expression that remains to be contained up to this day. The repressed exuberance of Filipinos exhibited itself in politics, entertainment, and media.

“The few comics that American soldiers brought mutated in the Philippine soil. And a whole comics industry, nay, a whole cultural node was formed.

“This book will trace the birth, the blossoming and withering, and — now we are saying — the rebirth of comics and political cartoons in the country. Filipinos, I am sure, will both be surprised and pleased by the depth of talents the country has produced. They will be proud of what these art and media forms have achieved for us.

“The First One Hundred years of Philippine Comics and Cartoons, we must qualify, is a work in progress. The diggings in the archives have yet to be completed. A living witness as I was of the development of comics in the country, I wasn’t aware until recently of the extent of other attempts and forays of comics creators.

“More evidences are coming out from camphor-smelling armoires. Though sadly, as a people, we cannot earn brownie points for preserving documents. We turn our films into New Year torotot (horns), and our ancestral buildings into ukay-ukay outlets. That is probably why we have national amnesia. That is also why, in response, we pursued to do a book such as this to serve as a reminder that excellence can and should reside in us.

“Amassing all the outputs as we go along will, no doubt, confirm the rich heritage of comics in our hands. In the meantime, we give you this report. Enjoy reading and viewing our first edition. We hope you are inspired by it.”