The wonderful world of Jomike Tejido
Within the wireless jungle of Multiply, I found a new species of cute. Its name is Robotarsier or Robotar. It has the power to hypnotize you to take it home with its big round eyes. This tarsier, which is set to rule the world with its cutesy ways, is one of the creatures that inhabit the mind of 26-year-old architect Jomike Tejido. His other children live in various mediums such as the 21 children’s books that he has illustrated and seven that he has written himself, his monthly Foldabot comic book in Kid Zone magazine, and his acrylic works painted on banig.
Jomike first unleashed his imagination to run amok in the real world when he started tsubmitting his comic strips to local newspapers when he was in high school. He was surprised when his Mikroskosmos bugs crawled into the kiddie magazines of newspapers and he got paid P200 per publication. At that time, Jomike says that it was fulfilling to earn his own money because he could buy PlayStation cds from his own pocket.
As an architecture freshman at UST, Jomike joined INK or Illustrador Ng Kabataan and later became its president. It is in this artists group that Adarna publishers discovered him and he drew his first children’s book entitled Abot Mo Ba ang Tainga Mo? by Heidi Abad that won the Gintong Aklat Award for Children’s Literature in 2002. Inspired by the adoration of young fans for Heidi Abad during a book signing, Jomike wrote his own book entitled Dindo Bondindo about a firefly with a real lightbulb for a rear. He says that electric butt idea came from watching the hazy glow of streetlights that look like fireflies dancing as his car passed by.
Aside from street lights as story starters, Jomike’s world comes from the nature videos that his dad made him watch as a kid. This is why Jomike’s world is filled with turtles, birds, carabaos, mythical birds such as the Adarna, and a funky robotarsier. Thus, his passion for nature has made him a timely artist for our go-green world.
Portfolio Of Bright Ideas
His knack for the kid’s genre shows that, like other great imagineers, Jomike never lost the child in him. As you will see in this mini gallery, his creative spark cannot be contained within a specific medium. It expands the possibilities of storytelling and excites readers to brave the world of the “why not?”
Also, Jomike’s young heart proudly shares his works with his fans — he was even a host for TV5’s Art is Kool. Whether on or off air, Jomike encourages small and big kids to doodle and invent their own versions of his children, igniting a wildfire of continuous creativity from one creator to the next. Thus, encouraging us the readers to continue his stories and make his creatures live forever.
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In my interview with Jomike, he never mentioned the numerous accolades he has achieved, which I only learned when I typed his name on the Net. His world is too big to publish. You can find him on the Net through the following links: www.geocities.com,/jmtejido/frame1.html,http://www.geocities.com/jmtejido/p1.html, http://jmtejido.multiply.com, http://http://foldabots.multiply.com, http://http://robotars.multiply.com, http://www.ink.group.ph.His Art is Kool video can be found at http://http://tinyurl.com/ARTISKOOLJT
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Tell me a story at readnow@supreme.ph
