Last year, Gaiman, the writer behind the cult comic series The Sandman (does it still qualify as a cult if almost everyone has read it?) visited our shores and, quite simply, Manila went mad. For a culture frequently drubbed as one that doesn’t read, we surprised ourselves at how many we were there at his first signing, from artists to people with proper jobs, professors and their students, the geeks and freaks, government officials to their suffering constituents, perfumed celebrities to their stalkers (yeah, you Charles!), families and couples. You know what was amazing? This was no Oprah’s Book of the Month club author but rather one who wrote in that literary ghetto of sci-fi/fantasy/ horror. It felt good to be part of it, to be there to witness us doing something worthwhile and productive en masse.
It was unprecedented. We did not know how to act so we greeted Gaiman the same way we do all these pop acts. Was it that we felt guilty that we treated Gaiman’s countrymen The Beatles so awful all those years ago that we made up by voicing our apologies to Gaiman in screams like those American girls during the Fab Four’s visit?
Apparently, Gaiman felt the same. The long lines in blazing hot sun, waiting several hours to get that book signed, the common sight of people crying as they neared him. All of it left an impression.
On the way to the airport, back to whatever Valhalla he resided in (Minnesota, I hear), Gaiman was asked by Fully Booked owner Jaime Daez to describe in one word his experience in Manila. "Magical," Gaiman replied.
Some time after, Gaiman wrote Daez an e-mail thanking him for sending over all the gifts he received during his visit. Quite a lot, according to Daez. Including loads of books. Gaiman was reading them, and was particularly fond of the ones containing local folklore and mythology. In his e-mail, he noted that, "there is a strong tradition of realism in Filipino literature – I want to encourage Filipino unrealism." To do this, he wrote that he would put up the money for a contest in the Philippines; would Fully Booked help him?
Originally, the contest was supposed to be only confined to prose but my co-chairman, local comic scholar and writer, Ramon de Veyra suggested that it would be the perfect opportunity to establish an award-giving body for our comic community. Thus, the three of us joined hands, flew to our top-secret HQ and communicated with Gaiman via our super-computer. With his blessing and power, we then created the greatest thing since pirated DVDs.
Gaiman insisted that the award for comics be named after one of his comic heroes, Filipino artist Alex Niño. According to Daez, even as early as his visit, Gaiman expressed his admiration for Niño and was quite distressed that he wasn’t getting the amount of recognition he deserved. Largely known in the US for his highly idiosyncratic and hallucinatory artwork for both DC and Marvel as well as his adaptation of Harlan Ellison’s classic short story, " ‘Repent, Harlequin,’ Said the Tick-Tock Man" and truly groundbreaking work for Warren Publications, Niño is now more involved with animation including designs for Mulan, Treasure Island, Atlantis and The Emperor’s New Groove. Gaiman reckoned it was time to take steps in recognizing a true original.
We named the prose award after Gregorio Brillantes. During my lunch with Gaiman in- between signings, I gave him the book On a Clear Day in November, Shortly Before the Millenium and told him that the Philippines’ greatest living writer wrote it. After looking at samples of Niño’s artwork, it was clear we needed someone whose work not only boasted the same high technical skill at the craft but whose imagination could match these alien landscapes and their eccentric poetry. To anyone who’s read Brillantes, it’s apparent that his Camiling is a place of mythic beauty, inundating the actual humdrum reality of the actual town in Tarlac with a flood of prose that transforms it into something stranger and subtle than Bradbury’s October Country. In my e-mail interview with Discworld creator and some-time Gaiman collabo-rator Terry Pratchett, he talked about G.K. Chesterton, saying that, "(He) hailed the miracle of the every day, and that sense of wonderful dislocation that follows when you are forced to see the familiar, everyday normality from a new angle. He said the role of fantasy is to present the familiar in a new light, forcing us to see it with fresh, questioning eyes. It’s not just about wizards." (For the full interview, check out www.fully-bookedonline.com.) I decided that there was no better choice.
The top prize for both categories is P100,000 and the winners will be compiled in a book to be published by Fully Booked. The foreword will be by none other than Gaiman himself. There’s a special Youth Award to be given to any worthy entry by any minor that doesn’t win any of the major awards. Trust me, it ain’t just free books; it’s really, really special. Really. Deadline is Feb. 28, 2006. For the complete rules and guidelines, go to the Fully Booked website. That’s it, so far.
Now, it’s your time to work.