The Carver's House

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When my first full-length graphic novel, “The Spectacular Adventures of Zsazsa Zaturnnah” made waves for the most part of the 2000s, many people said that I was a success, that I could content myself with the fact that I’ve made a great contribution to Philippine pop culture, Philippine comics –Philippine literature even– in the New Millennium. While I was thankful for the unexpected accolades, it didn’t sink in so much. Maybe I was in denial. Maybe I believed the success was premature. Or maybe I didn’t really have an idea of what my success should look like. To me, the fact that I was able to finish the book and get it published was my true success. Everything else became a nice bonus. But maybe I should have looked at building my success differently, especially if I had really wanted to make comics my career. It’s important to define what your success will look like, especially if you plan to make comics over the long-term. If you’re starting out, your measure of s...

When learning how to draw comics, it’s prudent to start small and work your way up. Many times have aspiring creators approached me to talk about their planned “epic series” but never got around to starting. They’re chasing the big dream without knowing what achieving that big dream entails. My first solo work back in 2001 was 56 pages long, and the story was simple–two people talking about their past romantic relationship. There were no physical fight scenes nor adventurous camera angles, and I had been drawing other people’s stories for a few years prior, so tackling 56 pages for a simple story wasn’t much of a stretch. For you, it’s advisable to spend a couple of years to create one 4- to 8-page story every month or two. Ideally, these works won’t be for public consumption. Instead, you can post your pages on forums like DigitalWebbing to get crits. As you work on shorter stories, you’ll be able to: 1) Learn how to draw different things. With each story, try a ...

I was at De La Salle University this afternoon, invited to give a short talk at the Student Media Office Comics Convention. During the talk, I said something that I'd like to elaborate upon here, because it could easily be misconstrued. I basically said that, personally, I feel it's really important for Pinoy comics creators to learn the principles of story, to be good at the craft, and try to make the best possible comics they can, especially if they intend to sell their works. We're asking people to give us money, and so our works--essentially consumer products--need to have worth. There's one thing to consider here, which I think is very important to note: what may have worth for some people can be seen as worthless to others. I personally don't find a lot of value in a Louis Vuitton, but many consider LVs great investments. In contrast, one man's trash has been proven to be another man's goldmine. An article over at Business Insider reveals the su...

I remember how, as a kid, I had thought about being one of two things: a priest, or a chef. Look where I ended up. In the late 2000s, I moved out of the house to join a friend and her then-boyfriend to a nice three-bedroom townhouse in Pasig. She was paying most of the rent so I couldn't complain. The moment I stepped into the unit, one of the first areas I checked out was the kitchen, and I'd imagine myself whipping up whatever culinary storm I could think of, even if  the time I had could only afford me enough to make a sandwich. I love kitchens, moreso the stuff I could do there. Being an art director for Real Living magazine had exposed me to different kitchen designs, and I'd always get secretly excited whenever a kitchen was the subject of the monthly makeover. A mall's appliance center is also a fave place of mine, particularly--surpirse,surprise--the kitchen section. Then there's the supermarket, which I'd sometimes visit even if I didn't have an...

Since I'm the kind who thinks about these things, I've come up with a list of the different skills of story creators, and I use the word "skills" loosely here. While creating stories, I find myself making use of all of them, some better than others. 1) Research - The ability to search for, consume, and digest relevant and interesting information. 2) Omnipresence - The ability to go into "god mode," that is, to see a story from all angles, within and without. You are aware not only of the events that take place in your story world, but also of the aspirations and motivations within the hearts and minds of your characters. 3) Causality - The ability to see how things lead to other things, why some events take place, and what these events can lead to. 4) Interconnectedness - The ability to determine the connections between seemingly unrelated elements. 5) Psychology - The ability to dissect personalities, attitudes, relationships, and states of mi...