CLASS

2012-01-26T14:14:00.001+08:00

The paper published this strip this past Tuesday without me knowing it. Sooo... I'm guessing now it won't be stuck on a Sunday but rather when a slot opens. The editor, Mr. Roni Santiago, already gave me notice that I should be submitting more. MORE! Yeeeee!

2012-01-22T11:00:00.000+08:00

My first colored comic strip printed in the Manila Bulletin today! Quite a historic day, really, since this was also the newspaper we were subscribed to when I was a kid (i.e. my first exposure to comic strips). May be coming out every week on Sundays from hereon in.

Kitten for Adoption

2008-08-29T21:38:00.000+08:00

I picked up this kitten by the side of the road some three weeks ago when I was on my way home. Someone left it to die outside in the rain and di ko naman makayang iwanan. She was real skinny at the time (mas payat pa kesa dyan sa picture) but she's got a healthy appetite ever since she was adopted by my other Siamese na kapapanganak lang (that's the adopted brother sa tabi niya sa picture). Di ko siya kayang alagaan ng matagal since I already have too many cats and other pets pa.

So do send me a message with your number if you're a cat lover willing to give this beautiful kitten a very good forever home.

2007-10-02T02:04:00.000+08:00

Click to view the larger picture in another window

This is a rough draft of the wrap around cover for the much delayed compilation of CLASS which I only finished a few days ago. Originally slated to be released in time for the 3rd Komikon on Nov. 17 I'm delaying it again for reasons I enumerated here. My apologies to everyone who's looking forward to seeing it in print after so many years of raised expectations, please hold on for a little more. I promise you the long wait will be very much worth it.

2007-07-14T12:13:00.000+08:00

Long before Photoshop and computer editing became available at affordable cost I was already using photos of real props I'd have a hard time drawing. I took this picture of a car from an ad those days, photocopied it, and voilà! Actually the method of using photocopied stuff in the strip was inspired by Berke Breathed in Bloom County.

2007-07-13T13:12:00.000+08:00

Click to view the whole strip

This was the last of the series of the centennial celebration. I was planning to follow it up with the assassination of Gen. Antonio Luna and the death of Gen. Gregorio Del Pilar some two years after this but things didn't push through as planned for some reason.

2007-07-12T13:50:00.000+08:00

Click to view the whole strip

This actually came out in the May, 1997 issue of the magazine during the centennial celebration of Andres Bonifacio's murder in after a kangaroo court convicted him of treason assassination. Despite a lot of media coverage going at the time reminding people of the significance of the 3 year Centennial celebration I don't a lot of them cared at all. Weird and sad if you think about it now.

2007-07-11T12:48:00.000+08:00

Part two of the strip below. I should continue with these plot lines.

2007-07-10T19:37:00.000+08:00

Michelle's an old friend of hers from way back, she's also level headed compared to her friend. She appeared in a couple more strips after this and I've yet to bring her back.

2007-07-09T13:24:00.000+08:00

Part of the strip below. 'Nuff said.

2007-07-08T14:15:00.000+08:00

This one's one of my favorites because this was the start of my experimentation with depths (via foreground and background). This was also the start of me establishing the details and stuff.

2007-07-07T18:56:00.000+08:00

Nobody can make the same mistake nowadays which robs the present in more ways than we can laugh at.

Uh... I don't know what that means either.

2007-07-06T18:48:00.000+08:00

Tah-daaaaaa!!! Comedy gold.

2007-07-05T18:38:00.000+08:00

Things were different back then, he tries that sorta thing with Anne these days and, BAM!!! he gets it right in the kisser.

2007-07-04T23:37:00.000+08:00

Miss those high school activities nowadays.

2007-07-03T11:04:00.000+08:00

MJ overstayed his welcome. Haha! Anyway, as you can see the words on the shirt the idea for Fil-Ams living in the country was birthed around this time with the strip centering around local professional baskteball player, Jeffrey Cariaso's friends. It was put on hold since I didn't have any venue for the comic strip and besides I was still toying with the idea. It was revived half a decade later with my stint in Philippine News. Although the premise was the same this time the characters were different.

2007-07-02T21:48:00.000+08:00

This was an easy idea, I loved the old local Christmas album that featured various singers famous during the 70s and early 80s (something similar to the "A Very Special Christmas" album). I know a lot of young people probably don't have any idea who they were but they'll still be familiar with the songs from that record. They should be because about a third of the songs in there was remade by some of today's talents. The same music company later came out with another album similar to the first one but it didn't make the cut as its predecessor.

2007-06-30T12:08:00.000+08:00

This was a spontaneous idea. I wish I could do more "silent" strips, unfortunately trying to deliberately come up with one is a lot harder than coming up with a dialogue going.

2007-06-29T13:47:00.000+08:00

Would you believe I was flabbergasted to know that Alanis Morissette dropped by to do a concert when I read this recently? I was like, "WHEN?!" Hehe. Yeah, I freak myself out.

2007-06-28T17:27:00.000+08:00

Just another birthday strip for Jeff, 'nuff said.

2007-06-27T12:13:00.000+08:00

This is a remake of an old strip which originally features one of my best friends in college making the wise crack. It never saw print anyway so I changed to feature one of my closest friends in high school as a birthday greeting for him.

2007-06-26T19:46:00.000+08:00

This is the second and last of the strips starring local professional basketball players whom I personally know. The second panel should show them before or after the handshake as I didn't know how to draw people interacting with each other at the time.

2007-06-25T13:16:00.000+08:00

I personally got to know some local professional basketball players care of my brother back in the early to mid 90s. We watched their practice along with some other fans of the different teams here in a gym right after school and got to watch their games care of a couple of complimentary tickets and what-nots. Some of them remain good friends of my brother and I to this day, one of these being Jeffrey Cariaso. Good guy, very down-to-earth, and him and his Fil-Am posse back then (his cousin, Lyle, included here; Jay, which became a player in the MBA; and Joey, and Barry) were a pretty much a happy group and I was pretty fortunate to have hung out with them off the court.

2007-06-24T13:55:00.000+08:00

The reference to nail polish was made during the time the family first arrived in Hong Kong and me and my sister saw these myriad of colors available, which at the time saw only different shades of red and none of the funky colors which came much, much later here in the Philippines. These days you don't see girls painting their nails as it's so 90s.

2007-06-23T15:50:00.000+08:00

Ah, basketball. Nobody talks about it anymore unlike the old days back in the early 90s. The reference to the Orguss 02 OAV was made because of the sheer novelty of watching the first episode where robotics technology meets 1930s sensibilities. It was sheer genius for me at the time (Japanese cartoons and comics haven't entered the mainstream at that time).

2007-06-20T14:46:00.000+08:00

This was how it went with two of my close friends outside the building while waiting for next class back in college. It was so funny I had to include it in this strip.

2007-06-19T15:12:00.001+08:00

I bow my head in shame.

2007-06-18T17:11:00.000+08:00

I don't usually put this much detail in props, especially newspapers because drawing the lines that stand for newspaper articles is tedious. I made an exception with this one because the panels would look too empty save for the details on the school paper Jason's holding. By the way, these two talking to each other is an aberration because, well, it's a long story but let's just say they've got a huge accidental rivalry going on between them.

2007-06-18T14:19:00.000+08:00

I'm mighty proud of the details I did on this one which shows the 1.) old school grounds I grew up with in my alma mate, 2.) the argyle design on Wilfred's sweater which I wouldn't normally attempt if I didn't have that much time in my hands at the time.

2007-05-23T18:57:00.001+08:00

I wonder if people still get this joke in this age of text messaging.

2007-05-22T15:49:00.000+08:00

Another one from the old days when cellphones were fairly new and having one of those old big black brick versions were such big status symbols that got envious stares from anyone who didn't have one. This was also before the advent of pagers, so having these apparatus for communication was a sure way of being a chick magnet.

2006-01-28T17:23:00.000+08:00

This one's a classic! This is also one of my top favorites.

2006-01-27T12:20:00.000+08:00

This one was fun to make but I don't think the punchline made as big an impact as I wanted it to.

2006-01-26T18:48:00.000+08:00

Art-wise I wasn't happy with this one. I usually submit strips months in advance, enjoying the privilege of doing so because the mag published two strips at a time, like say out of the eight strips in a batch I'd submit I would be enjoying the next four months slacking off. This one came after a time when drawing strips turned out to be more of a chore than anything else that's why they look weird in this one. In any case, thanks for enjoying the stuff!

2006-01-25T11:56:00.000+08:00

This is a good example of creating a high impact punchline with as sparse dialogue as possible. This was one of the fastest I've ever done.

2006-01-24T15:59:00.000+08:00

It was true. They did look like a rap group at the time. Eventually these guys moved back to the California after a couple years of living here and trying out for the local professional basketball leagues. The guy in the white shirt, Jay Magat, stayed behind for a while when he landed a gig in the shortlived MBA. I think he followed his friends back home after a while.

2006-01-23T10:43:00.000+08:00

This was from the time when we sued to hang out the next door basketball gym where professional basketball players would practice. In the course of watching the practice and hanging out with them we not only got to know them but also their friends and family. One group in particular stood out from the rest, being Fil-Am and all they would almost immediately command attention especially since they were also big guys. This were the friends and boardmates of Jeffrey Cariaso. I got to know these guys courtesy of my brother who was one of Jeff's close friends.

2006-01-22T16:17:00.000+08:00

This joke is so dated (according to IMDB.com the Del Pilar biopic came out 1997) I don't know if anyone would be able to get this. The centennial celebration of the Philippine Revolution was so high at the time I was more than inspired to come out with the book about their illustrious ancestor, Don Crisanto Ibarra.

2006-01-21T10:39:00.000+08:00

We haven't been back to San Francisco for seven years when this came out so it was all based on my imagination again. I'm not sure if ever gets that cold enough to freeze bird poop in mid-air but you can imagine how dangerous that could be if ever that happens. It was also around this time I saw Jorge's older brother, Joseph, on TV doing a round of discussions with the press (he held a small government position during former Pres. Fidel Ramos' time). I haven't met him before in high school, so it was quite a treat to be able to draw the both of them together here in one strip.

2006-01-20T12:15:00.000+08:00

I haven't been to Baguio for years when I did this and Camp John Hay was then developed as a resort of sorts when this came out. I just imagined what it would have been like to stay up there for the summer. I imagine it would be heaven since the summer capital of the Philippines wasn't crowded back then as it is right now.

2006-01-19T12:05:00.000+08:00

'Nuff said.

2006-01-18T09:27:00.000+08:00

This one was tampered with and edited when it came out in the magazine. Someone from the publisher's office erased some of the lines in the third panel and completely changed the punchline without informing me. That was really weird.

2006-01-17T09:12:00.000+08:00

Part of the shameless promotion I did for the Philippine Revolution project. I'm still tweaking bits and parts of the story.

2006-01-16T09:06:00.000+08:00

I remember this one from summer of 1996. The centennial celebration of Philippine Independence was coming up and this was one way of promoting an upcoming project touching on the subject of the Philippine Revolution.

2006-01-15T13:35:00.000+08:00

This was borne out of a conversation between my my two friends from college who are big gaming geeks. It wasn't the exact conversation but something them talking about the latest games in the market with the holy week looming in the horizon inspired me to do this one.

2006-01-14T13:33:00.000+08:00

This is one of those attempts in showing full figures inside the panels. Obviously I'm getting more confident with my drawing skills by this time.

2006-01-13T13:31:00.000+08:00

Who knows what really happens behind closed doors in those faculty rooms? Hehehe...

2006-01-12T13:21:00.000+08:00

It's been a long time since my high school, I'm not sure if this is the same scenario with those around here today.

2006-01-11T13:16:00.000+08:00

Those folks who are born on a leap year are special. They age slower than those born on normal days.

2006-01-10T13:09:00.000+08:00

This was a spontaneous joke and I thought who better to crack it than Wilfred. Right?

2006-01-09T10:10:00.000+08:00

I'll be changing the last panel when the book comes out.

2006-01-08T10:08:00.000+08:00

This was my first and still the only Chinese New Year strip. I plan to do some more but nothing tops this so far. By the way, I saw this same joke recently in another local strip. Ha! I did it first!

2006-01-07T10:05:00.000+08:00

This was really fun to do as I had to come up with various brands and places that were considered cool at the time. That way you'll know how new or old a strip is.

2006-01-06T18:14:00.000+08:00

Unlike the previous strip which didn't make sense at all other than to incorporate a holiday greeting in the script, this makes more sense and I'll probably start the story in the book with this one.

2006-01-05T18:07:00.000+08:00

This was part of a short series I did as a birthday gift to my friend from high school, Jorge.

2005-12-18T16:56:00.000+08:00

Way to go in standing his ground. Not!

2005-12-14T15:54:00.000+08:00

This will be one of the strips I will be scratching off the upcoming book compilation because it doesn't add anything and all it does is muddle the story even more.

2005-11-11T14:28:00.000+08:00

Notice the brand of the yellow pad paper. I dunno if they're still in the business of making them. By the way, I saw this same joke was done by another strip in a local daily a couple of years ago.

2005-11-10T14:25:00.000+08:00

Kitsch so bad it's vogue. Click the image to view the whole strip.

2005-11-09T09:04:00.000+08:00

I never noticed how much the old the man resembled former Philippine President Fidel Ramos till after I finished the strip. Watch also how the bouquet of flowers grow in size as the panels progress.

2005-11-08T16:17:00.000+08:00

This one I think dates back to 1994. I know about the Chinese traditions of offering platefuls of food to the ancestors and I guess I was always drooling at the sight of a lauriat sitting right there for no one in particular. It was only recently when I learned that the families partake of the feast after a while.

The Chinese characters in the last panel were written by my friend and classmate Sandy.

2005-11-07T16:22:00.000+08:00

Remember when Magic: The Gathering was all the rage? I heard the Black Lotus was the rarest card of all at the time amounting to around 1,800.00 pesos or dollars.

2005-11-06T17:55:00.000+08:00

I think this was the first time I established Stan's character as an artist. His problem was also my problem back then.

2005-11-05T18:04:00.000+08:00

Madonna's video for Vogue has been enjoying a few week's worth of air time in MTV around this time and that's where I got the idea for this strip. You got to admit the choreography for the video was really something else.

2005-11-04T16:39:00.000+08:00

Wilfed is still at it with this one.

2005-11-03T18:04:00.000+08:00

I was trying to establish Wilfred's character here as one who cracked jokes that got on everyone's nerves.

2005-11-02T16:28:00.000+08:00

It's really a wonder Jason can still get away with stuff like this.

2005-11-01T16:27:00.000+08:00

This is good. One of the few strips that really amused me.

2005-10-31T16:24:00.000+08:00

A friend of mine made a remark that I was the first cartoonist to come up with the term "McJolly." Which s weird since I don't know anyone who did after me. I had help for the Chinese characters in the last panel, you don't wanna know what it means.

2005-10-30T17:21:00.000+08:00

This is the first appearance of Wilfred who's also the last main character to be added in the strip. I made some final adjustments to his height after this one.

2005-10-29T13:25:00.000+08:00

I'm not really sure if this came out in the magazine. The last line he recited in the last panel was taken from the first hit by the indie band Color It Red, which is about schooldays, I think.

2005-10-28T13:23:00.000+08:00

A friend of mine had the exact umbrella as this one which we used to launch countless times whenever there wasn't any teacher around.

2005-10-27T14:21:00.000+08:00

Another idea based on a real experience in college.

2005-10-26T15:00:00.000+08:00

This got some rave reactions from some friends which served to all the more endear the character of Joan to them.

2005-10-25T13:17:00.000+08:00

This was based on a true experience of mine in college. Notice the brand of the sauce, that's hot.

2005-10-24T12:49:00.000+08:00

This was Jonee's last appearance in the strip. He was to be replaced later with another, more permanent character.

2005-10-23T12:47:00.000+08:00

My intention with the Jonee character was for the usual class outcast. No malice was intended towards the real person, it was just a phase he went through anyway.

2005-10-22T12:46:00.000+08:00

Jorge's buddy, Jason does have a counterpart in the real world, I just didn't realize it at the time.

2005-10-21T12:42:00.000+08:00

This first appearance of Jorge's character was such a big deal to a good friend of my mine whom I based the character on, he says he kept my letter informing him of it and the copies of the strip in his desk until now. This also marks another level in the social standing of the characters as Steven, Mike and Stan no longer rule the roost and have been relegated to geek status from hereon.

2005-10-20T12:37:00.000+08:00

This strip's so dated. This came out during the height of the dance group's success in the early 90s.

2005-10-19T12:35:00.000+08:00

Enrollment's always something parents don't look forward to for this reason aside from shelling out higher tuition fees, of course.

2005-10-18T12:32:00.000+08:00

There's a follow up strip to this one that I unfortunately lost. I'll probably scan the one that came out in the magazine in the future and post it here.

2005-10-17T12:54:00.000+08:00

It's the same story every year. This is also one of those rare times when I show the parents of the other characters other than Anne's.

2005-10-16T12:25:00.000+08:00

This one came from one of those experiences we had in Puerto Galera. It was first time to see a "tuko," feisty li'l fella. Tried to attack the broom we waved in its face too. Hehe.

2005-10-15T12:22:00.000+08:00

Just came from our first outing to Puerto Galera at this time. I used the experience as a material for this one.

2005-10-14T12:20:00.000+08:00

I include my other character, the Drolls in this strip whenever I can. They were, after all, my ticket to being published in the first place.

2005-10-13T14:46:00.000+08:00

The first appearance of Jessica. I never knew at the time he'd be a permanent fixture in the strip.

2005-10-12T12:17:00.000+08:00

This sequel came naturally I guess.

2005-10-11T02:01:00.000+08:00

This is one of my favorite strips, I like how everyone's reactions changed in the last panel. This also marks the first strip that cemented Jason's reputation as a romeo.

2005-10-10T01:59:00.000+08:00

The things we do to delay the inevitable.

2005-10-09T18:40:00.000+08:00

Stan is Mike's spokesperson whenever he gets into trouble or too far with his practical jokes.

2005-10-08T18:40:00.000+08:00

2005-10-07T01:50:00.000+08:00

Joan has always strongly liked Steve and she's not discreet about it. Ever.

2005-10-06T18:42:00.000+08:00

This was my first attempt in comic strip continuity. I did this at the suggestion of my classmate and friend in college.

2005-10-05T18:38:00.000+08:00

I redid this when I did the book dummy for my thesis.

2005-10-04T18:36:00.000+08:00

Mike was still able to get away with Joan this time since I haven't yet rearranged their status in the pecking order. These days he'll get a slap from her for attempting such a thing.

2005-10-03T14:34:00.000+08:00

Autograph by Anjanette Abayari.

2005-10-02T14:30:00.000+08:00

The Prince Charles reference is about his racking up a huge phone bill for making overseas calls to his then rumored paramour and now wife, Camilla Parker Bowles. This was in, I think, 1993.

2005-10-01T14:40:00.000+08:00

2005-09-30T17:39:00.000+08:00