Kalayaan on Facebook

Kalayaan comics is now on facebook. I was very surprised with I received a notification from facebook saying that Juan Carlos Villaverde just made me an administrator of a Kalayaan facebook page. Wow, a very own fan page for my comics. I have just met Juan Carlos in facebook who is an obvious follower of my comics. So all the credits on making this Kalayaan facebook account all goes towards him.

I often now sit back and smile, while thinking about more and more people like Juan Carlos, Randy Albert (who created the Kalayaan action figure) and Mark Rosario (who is a long time supporter) are starting to pop up. Just like other people, I also have problems and I often get stressed out in the office, and recently I had a rejection from a book store that I have passed a comic sample. But these people (I realy hesitate calling them fans, nahihiya kasi ako), keeps me going no matter how depressed I become. As long as they are there, I am happy. :-)

Proud Callboy on Summer Komikon

Hazel Manzano will be releasing her second comic strip compilation entitled "Proud Callboy" at the Summer Komikon this coming April 17. Please bring along all of your friends at the event and buy a copy. Let us support all the local independ comics creator. We definetly need all the help that we can get.

And while at it. Please also buy a copy of Komikero Anthology 5 where Hazel also is a contributor. Unfortunately for the younger audience (fortunately for me) that it is a for adults only comics. It is an 88 pages comics for only P50. I do not know how Gerry A. and the Komikero guys did it, but that is very much a bargain.

I am still not finished reading it, but far as I have gone. I have to say that the story of Hazel is my definete favorite. After reading her 5 pages comic strip. She had my admiration and respect for her sincerity and courage. I hope that the other people that would read Kalayaan #9 would also have the same feeling that I felt after reading it.

Colorful Lanterns

In brightest day, in blackest night,

no evil shall escape my sight!

Let those who worship evil's might, beware my power...

Colorful Lantern's light!


Ehhhhh?

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Clash of the Titans

Would you believe me if I say that I still have a VHS tape of the original movie "The Clash of the Titans"? That is how I love this movie. During my elementary days, just like other public school, there are film featured viewing once in a while. That was the time I saw Medusa , gargoyles , flying unicorn and other stuff.

Judging from the trailer below, the remake of this movie would be very spectacular.

Belated Happy B-Day Vhonne

(During our December Reunion)

Belated Happy B-Day Vhonne. Pasensya na at ngayon lang kita nabati. Very busy kasi sa mga work at kung ano ano pa. Pero okay lang, alam ko namang maraming nag mamahal sa iyong bigatin at sikat na artista. Ang layo na talaga nang narating ng dati kong classmate sa college. Parang kelan lang at nag kukulitan tayo sa PUP. Ngayon puro artista ang kakulitan mo. Hindi ko man kamukha si Sam Milby eh HAPPY BIRTH DAY na rin. :D

(Photos from her facebook account)

Media me

Thank you very much to Macoy for sending me these pictures of me being interviewed by the Net 25 people during the Renaissance event in Megamall last Feb. 21. When I was sketching for a fan during the early hours of the event. I was very surprised when a camera with people holding a microphone started filming me. It was uneasy at first, but when the nice people had introduced them selves and start asking questions about comics and other stuff. It was smooth sailing and kind of natural thing for me. It's just like having an ordinary conversation.

The interview took about 20 to 25 minutes to finish. It was a little bit longer than I expected. Too bad I forgot to ask when it was going to be aired.

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For more pictures of the Renaissence, please go to these sites

Macoy - Mababang Langit

Gerry Alanguilan - Komikero

Carlo Pagulayan - Multiply Photos

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A few months ago, I was also interviewed by Cheska Garcia and Allen Pena. Nope, not the actress. But a student from Far Eastern University (FEU) with a similar name. They were doing their thesis that has something to do with nationalism and arts. When I saw this picture above in facebook, I was a little bit shy for being shown on a big slide show projector.

The deal is sealed

After a very minor modification of the contract. The deal was sealed and signed just today. If you have no clue on what I am talking about. You should first check my previous blog post HERE.

When I was just starting Kalayaan comics a few years ago. It was solely intended for local distribution only. Never in my wildest imagination that my comics would go international. I am just freaking out right now.

Let me just first introduce you to the company behind it all.

Their name is Forex DKM (Dahil Kailangang Makarating). It is an all Filipino owned company. They are a door to door delivery service that also have a small publishing company in the US. They have a newspaper called Pinoy Herald. They handle money delivery and other stuff that could fit in their box. Just like the balik bayan box of Pidro. :-)

The deal is that they will re-print issue #1 to #8 and any succeding issues of Kalayaan comics that I would make. They are actually going to give it away for FREE to their customers/clients/patrons that will use their services. They will just put a 4 pages advertisement insert in my comics. Other than that, the whole essence of my comics will be completely intact. They will not earn money from my comics because the ads that they will put is an advertisement of their own company. They could (in theory) earn money if they could find another company to advertise on my comics (which is actually included in the contract by the way, which is totally fine with me). But for the time being, my comics is just strictly for advertisement for them and not for profit.

I will be paid in royalty based of the number of copies that they will print. The more copies they print, the happier I am :D. In the contract, it is stated that Forex shall render and submit a report with regards to the number of copies printed or reproduced to me.

I also like the contract that they made for me. It has an additional protection for me and my character. Because for example, if another person or company abroad would use my character for merchandise purposes... let say t-shirt or mug ..etc. Forex company and their lawyers would come after those jerks.

The launch date of Kalayaan comics is set on March 9,2010. But before that, there will be a press release on their news paper Pinoy Herald. With a picture of me signing the contract together with the big bosses. Can you imagine that? And there will be lots of promotional posters displayed on their branch offices abroad. Aside from the many states in the US, they also have branches in Guam, Japan and Australia. I am still waiting for their secretary to send me a complete list. I will post it here once I got it.

They have choosen my comics because it has a very distict Filipino look (Pinoy na pinoy daw ang dating. Which brings me in mind of some detractors that are saying not so good things about flag based Superhero). Having a very distict Filipino Superhero look would be very ideal for the Fillipino community that are living abroad. Since my comics would be given away for free to Forex customers, which majority are Filipinos sending money and other stuff. There were no need to translate my comics to English.

Another reason that they have choosen my comics is because of it's continuity. I have already 8 issues published and still continues to publish more. They have said to me that they could not just afford to wait for the other artist to come up with the materials.

The only thing that a little bit concerns me right now is the frequency of the issues. Starting from March, Kalayaan comics would be released every two(2) moths or 6 issues a year. While it is not strictly written in the contract that I must produce a comics every two months. I just really to not want to let them down. And I also think that 2 months is a compromise frequency issues, because I do now want for the readers to wait four months or longer to read another issue.

Forex would be my publisher and distributor abroad(or outside the Philippines). I will still be the one publishing, distributing and selling Kalayaan comics locally. That is one thing that I have clarified to them very much since I am also in a process right now of talking to a book store in the Philippines that has a nationwide distribution.

The good news, is that I still have one(1) year and four(4) months head start. So after a few months of resting, I have my work cut out for me now. So I better stop writing this long blog post and start drawing now. :D

A sad day for Kevin

Kevin Yue is my favorite contestant from day one. I am so sad for him because he was recently voted out of The Biggest Loser Asia. And I am also very angry at the former blue team. Specially to David because of his arrogant remarks during the elimination table. Carlo is right when he said to David that he will vote a fellow blue team eventually.

All of the former blue team just DO NOT HAVE ANY HEART.

Just by looking at all of the contestant, it is very obvious that Kevin is the one that really needs to be there because he has so much more body fat to loose. He simply needed more to be there compared to Martha.

Carlo Miguel is the last Filipino and the last former Red Team in the game. I really hope the he wins this all the way. Just like Kevin had said to Carlo "Bring hope the bacon".

Commercial nga naman

Kung ano ano ang ang naiisip ng mga company para lang makagawa ng commerial.

My Joyce

My daughter Joyce Nicole just gave me this valentines card. She always does this when ever there is an occasion such as birthday,fathers day ..etc. That is why I love her very much.

Kalayaan goes to Summer Komikon

Kalayaan will be going to this years Summer Komikon in UP Bahay ng Alumni, UP Diliman Quezon City this April 17. I hope to see you all there.

Kalayaan site update

I just recently updated the Kalayaan Comics Official Website . I just uploaded a total of 65 Kalayaan Fanart. And I am not finished yet. I still have a lot more fan art to upload. But for now, please do check it out. And thank you very much to all that have created these fan art of my character. I very much appreciate it. :-)

Thanks also to Myke Guisinga for designing this site on the first place.

Gilas Bro.

GBS are a bunch of young comic book artists / comic book creators joined together that offers quality artworks at a very affordable price. Click here to view the gallery of Gilas Bros.

What we offer:

Comic Book Pencilling
Comic Book Inking
Digital Coloring
Digital Lettering
Character Designs
Character Pin-ups
Logo Creation
Storyboards
Web Designing
and the list goes on and on.

For inquiries, please contact Omi Remalante at omiremalante@gmail.com

Indie Animation

Being a Maskarado fan. I was very surprised when a friend of mine pointed me to this video which I have no idea that existed. This was done in Photoshop and edited in iMovie. Original post - > CLICK HERE.

Gener Perdina also did some motion comics with his Sandugo team. I really wish I have something similar like this with Kalayaan.

Chuck VS. Manny V.

(click image to enlarge)

Mock Election

I really commend the commission on election for having a mock election today on some parts of the metro manila. There were a lot of hiccups during the process today which is very much expected on any transition. Being a computer programmer, I had a lot of experiences about this. Most of my clients on my younger days as a programmer had to have a transition from manual (Inventory,accounting or payroll... etc.) to computerized. And those transition took many months, some others even years. So when the comelect have announced that the next election would be computerized. I was very thrilled and a little sceptical. But I know that this is the way to go. There is no turning back from technology. I am sick and tired of manual counting that took months to find out who would be the next president. And during those months of manual counting. Most of us know that there is a 'dag-dag bawas' being done.

But having a computerized election would also present many problems. And one of them is trying to familiar the majority of the people who are mostly computer illiterate to use a computerized automated voting system. So I am very much happy that today, they have conducted a mock election. I hope that everybody would learn from today's experiences and try to correct those mistakes when the time comes to do the real thing.

I also hope that there would be another mock election on a much wider scale before the May election. And I hope that they would announce it so that more people would be familiar with the system. For this is very crucial to eliminate more of the mistakes.

Oh Yeah

I was pretty optimistic on this coming year. But even I was surprised about what recently happened.

I just came from a lunch meeting with the top people behind a big company that is willing to republish my comics abroad. Yup, you heard it right (or read it right), ABROAD. As in outside the Philippines. They said that they will be starting at the east coast of America first and later on to other places. This company first took notice of my comics more than a year ago when two of the board member approached me during the U.P. Komikon 2008 (I think). After a few months from there, we had our first meeting in quezon city that went okay. But after that, I never heard from them again. Until yesterday. The secretary of the CEO told me that the big boss himself wants to talk to me personally while he is still in the country.

Before going to our lunch meeting, I already had a deal in my head. I wanted a royalty type deal. For each copy that will be printed. I will have a small share. And I also wanted to have a copy of a certified circulation report, those are the exact number of copies that will be printed. And of course, I wanted a control of what is the final printout of the comics. Since I know that they will be inserting an advertisement on it. Which is very typical.

I was so glad that all of these are very much acceptable to the chairman (which I may add a very cool dude for an old guy. :D). It is almost a done deal when he reach out his hand and shook it while saying "Can we have a deal on that?". I of course took his hand and said "Yes sir". With a big smile on my face.

They told me that hopefully next week, their lawyer would be finished with the contract for me to sign with all of my conditions listed for my protection. And it also happens that they own a local newspaper (Pinoy Herald) in the east coast that has been circulating for quite some time now. And they wanted me to be featured on that newspaper. The cool CEO even told me to send my best picture to them.

This is a HUGE opportunity for me. Not only that this will be an extra income for me and my family. It is also a big exposure for me and my comics, since it will be printed in thousands of copies and would be distributed to thousands of new readers abroad without me spending a single centavo. That is a hard deal to beat. :-)

All in all, I just want this project to push through. Just like any deal. Anything could turn out bad. That is why I always expect the worst, but always hope for the best. So, from this moment on. I am keeping my fingers crossed. :-)