The Carver's House

Thanks to Budj for the info: Besides the convention proper on November 22, 2008, there will be activities held from November 17 - 21 at the UP College of Arts and Letters (UP CAL) and in the UP College of Fine Arts (UP CFA) for KOMIKON. Our schedule is as follows: November 17 (Mon) KOMIKS 101 Talk Venue: UP CFA Auditorium "KOMIKEROS FOR HIRE" Filipino Comic Artists Working for Companies Abroad Time: 10:00am - 12noon Panelists: Harvey Tolibao, Wilson Tortosa, Gilbert Monsanto, Melvin Calingo "KOMIKS IN EDUCATION" Including Comics into the Curriculum Time: 1:00pm - 4:00pm Panelists: Gerry Alanguilan, Gilbert Monsanto, Elbert Or, Jose "Chong" Ardivilla, Emil Flores November 18 (Tue) OPENING of EXHIBIT at UP Faculty Center Galleria 1 UP CAL Workshop: "Comic Making for Writers" Time: 2:30-4:30pm Venue: UP CAL (classroom to be announced) Speaker: Jonas Diego November 19 (Wed) UP CAL Workshop:...

The author of Jurassic Park passes on. I've only read one of his novels, Sphere . Which is a big accomplishment for me since I don't really read novels.

Here's something you can do to jumpstart the realization of an ambition--creating a graphic novel. This is all theoretical, of course, since I don't know of anyone who's actually done this. Plus, the younger you are, the better. But if there's enough passion and dedication, plus the will to improve, then there's always the strong chance for success, right? It all takes five stages: STAGE ONE: The Starter 12 Duration: One calendar year In this stage, you will create one short comics story a month. Each story will be 8 to 10 pages long. Take two weeks to write and two weeks to draw (or the whole month to write and draw at the same time). As you go from one story to the next, get feedback, determine which areas you can improve, and allow areas for experimentation and personal styling. Simple, right? By the end of the first year, you would have 12 short comics in your portfolio. STAGE TWO: The Intermediate 6 Duration: One calendar year In this stage, you will create one...

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If you guys have the time, do check out this online novel by a good pal o' mine, Palanca-award winner David Hontiveros . His dark fantasy novellas Takod , Craving , and Parman are still available at the bookstores. The online novel is entitled Pelicula . What's Pelicula about? Well, take your average Joe named Luis Conrado who shot to fame playing the role of a superhero in one of those fantaseryes . But Luis Conrado's got powers. Real superpowers. Thing is, he's not the only bloke in the showbiz industry with superpowers. And some of them are pretty nasty. The first few chapters are now online. Do check them out. The site will be updated weekly. Also at the site, a gallery of Habagat (that's the name of the superhero). With illustrations by me, Ian Sta, Maria, Kajo Baldisimo, Bow Guerrero, Ronnie Tres Reyes, Dennis Crisostomo, Arvie Villenia, Reno Maniquis, Oliver Pulumbarit, Aldin Viray, and Edgar Tadeo. If you know anyone who might be interested in the story,...

Writing for Comics 101: Part II In assigning a number of panels to certain sequence, writers need to determine the amount of impact the sequence needs to give. If a writer is restricted by a fixed number of pages, then the task becomes a matter of checks and balances, and difficulties set in because, certainly, all sequences are important. (Here, let me make a distinction between a scene and a sequence. While a scene occurs in one defined location, a sequence can occur in multiple locations; a running battle, for example, or a cut-to-cut of different scenes.) I’ve mentioned previously that there are two factors that influence page budgeting – Level of Spectacle and Amount of Text. Auxillary factors connected to these are Intensity of Drama and Nature of Sequence, both of which tie in to determining the number of panels in a sequence. Intensity of Drama. Drama involves emotional intensity, and the number of panels that can be used in a given sequence is based on the amount ...

Writing for Comics 101 Writing for comics is not the same as writing prose. While the basic tenets of good and effective writing apply to comics, comics scribes need to have fundamental knowledge on how the comics format affects the way they write. I’ve seen too many scripts that are simply unfriendly to artists. One of the basic steps in writing a comics script is budgeting pages, wherein the writer, based on his plot, predetermines how many pages will be assigned to a certain sequence. Following are the factors that should come into play when budgeting pages. Level of Spectacle. This is essentially your The Authority (cinematic panoramic kick-ass superheroics) versus Strangers In Paradise (slice-of-life drama). If you’re working with a 24-page standard-size issue, a high-spectacle story won’t have the real estate it requires for the proper threshing out of plot points. Low spectacle stories have an advantage here. If your story combines both, the large-scale events will sur...

Learning To Write I’m a frustrated writer. It irks me, the fact that I can’t get a good narrative going despite the bazillion ideas that flood my head. I can’t even get myself to finish my Hinirang short story. I sit in front of the computer, open the file, read through it till the point where I left off, and I’m stumped. Dean gave me good advice, that I should stop bleeding over it for a while. He said that maybe the story wasn’t meant to be finished, or that it needs to sit on the shelf till such time that I could go back to it. But knowing me, it would be more of the former, because that story is as good as gone the moment I shelve it. One of the tips given to aspiring writers is encapsulated in two words. Read. Write. Read and write furiously. Get the hang of stringing words together and hopefully some panoply of narrative takes shape. Read as much as possible to get the feel of rhythm, flow and structure. To determine for oneself what works and what doesn’t work. The...

Insights Borne from Saturday Last Saturday, the gang found itself at Café All Day for our regular discourse on Whatever-We-Felt-Like-Talking-About. The topic was storycrafting, entertainment vs. craft, formal criticism, and other bits the average barkada wouldn’t find itself bothering with. I enjoy listening to Dean talk about these things as he manages to compartmentalize a personally mystifying art into digestible bite-sized portions, and in doing so allows me to develop, at least theoretically, what I once knew on an intuitive level. Writing is another skill I want to be good at. Compartmentalizing Knowledge. About a couple of years ago, I spoke before students on writing for comics. It wasn’t about writing per se, knowing fully well that I’m not the best person to ask when it comes to the craft. My talk focused primarily on being able to write with the limitations and opportunities of the medium, which includes an awareness of comics’ unique elements. In retrospect, the ‘sys...

Reflecting on Drawing and Writing and Both Drawing I can't say that I'm totally satisfied with the way I draw, despite whatever praise I get. And I can't say that I'm really satisfied with everything I've done as a comics illustrator. But I can say safely that I've found my default style, a hodge-podge of various influences mashed together within the palms of my own 'artistic' sensibilities. There's no other way to go but 'better.' I'm batting for another submission to the major American comics companies. Get that out before I start work on Vinnie's dream project. I'm more comfortable now at drawing tech and a bit of action, though cityscapes are still a challenge. (And feet...) As an illustrator and designer, I've the conviction that my default style can't be used on all stories. When Dean asked me to illustrate Ruin, I made it a point to find the appropriate style to match the cultural atmosphere of the pie...