Second Day

It is my second day of solitude. It has been a busy day for me.

I have edited many pages of Issue 9. Thanks to my proof readers/editors Rhiver and Mark Rosario for helping me with it.

I have also printed many Kalayaan #9 covers. I figured that as early as today I would print some, because I really do not want to be on intense pressure of printing so many in a short period of time. Besides, I also wanted to test my canon printer once in a while. I do not want it's ink to clog up because on non use.

And lastly, I have finished page 22 of issue #9. Penciled, Inked and Lettered. I have even send a copy of the lettered page 22 to my proof reader for editing. Twenty two pages down and five (5) more to go.

First Day

Today is the first day of the month. First of all, be careful every one to those pranksters out there with this April fools day thing. :D

Second I would like to say happy birthday to Gilbert Monsanto. The fearsome leader of Bayan Knights. Happy Birthday Sarge, mag pa burger ka naman next time na pag kikita natin. :D

It is also my first day of solitude in our house. My wife and kids went to my in laws and will be spending the entire week there. I am home alone, eat you heart out Macaulay Culkin. Ever since I was a kid growing up. I have been a loner. I am very much comfortable with it because I could think more clearly and I just simply like the peace of mind once in a while. Speaking of peace of mind. Because of no distraction here at the house. I have just finished page 21 of Kalayaan #9. Complete pencil and ink. Only 6 more pages to go.

And as a preview of Kalayaan 9. Here is page 20 which is a little interesting because I have added the character of a fellow indie comics creator. Macoy's Jholeebird had a cameo apperance in the first and last panel. I hope you likes it Macoy :D

No vacation for me

Now that we have our vacation at our office (my day time job). I will have more time to do my comics. While other people will go to the beach, cool off and have fun some where else. I will be spending all the time at our house finishing the pages of Kalayaan #9. It is full steam ahead for me from now on. Ihi lang ang pahinga.

It is crunch time once again. Just call me call me "Mr. Photo Finish" when it comes to dead line. April 17 is becoming very near. And as of this writing, I have already finished 20 pages. Seven more pages to go. I am so happy and excited at the same time for this issue. It is truly a test of my writing skills. It has become some what of an 'Obra' for me. What started as a simple one shot love story became a 3 (three) part story arc. That's right, a 3 part story. A very emotional love story of the main character of my comics "John dela Vega". Each issue is such an emotional intense story. And the nice thing about it, the succeeding issue will be surpassing it in all aspect of the story. So there are already issue #9, 10 and 11 in store for you guys.

And that is not all folks, Erwin Ropa (artist of Kalayaan #7) will be back. He will be doing Kalayaan#12, where a new conflict that I have been cooking up. Erwin already finished 3 pages sub-story that will be inserted in Kalayaan #10 and #11. There will be a new character that will be introduce that will alter Kalayaan's reality in issue #12 ( both figuratively and literally speaking). I am not finished with whole script (an enormous script). But every time I get finished with a script of page, I will immediately email it to Erwin. So we are kinda doing this comics simultaneously. I am doing this because I plan to release Kalayaan every two months if possible. That is right (again), you have read it right. Call me crazy, call me insane, because that is what I am right now. I decided to do this because I do not want to slack off. The Forex company, my US publisher told me that they will be releasing an issue of Kalayaan every two months on the states. That gives me a 1 year and 4 months ahead of time. But producing a comics every two months is just a target for me that I will try achieve. I know that many set backs could happen. I will just have to do my best.

So stay tuned every one, fasten your seat belts. This is going to be one heck of a ride.

Guess the cover artist

This is a re-post from the Bayan Knight DeviantArt account.
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As a way of thanking our donors, we're giving them the opportunity to guess the identity of our upcoming issue's guest cover artist

Whoever guesses correctly gets all the donor freebies mentioned in the Be Our Hero, PLUS a free commission from our fearless leader Gilbert Monsanto.
If more than one donor guesses correctly, we'll raffle off the prize between them

Please scroll down to the How to Order section of this journal for information on how to send us your contribution if you'd like a chance at winning a FREE commission. Don't forget to indicate the artist's name on the deposit slip or your Paypal note. Last day for guessing will be on 05 April 2010.
Just to help you along, here's a little clue about our guest artist - he's Filipino with an ongoing international title.

Care for a peek?

Facts - plain and simple

First of all, I did not create this table. I got it from a friend on facebook. To choose the best person for the highest position in the land. We should get as much information on the candidates as much as we can. We should check their track records, their accomplishments and we should never vote a person because he or she is popular.

(click the image to enlarge)

If you have find this information very useful, please re-post it to your blog or any social networking site that you have. Or simply print it and show it to your friends or people that you know. The voters has the right to know about the candidates.

Earth Hour 2010

BK4 preview

These are the preview pages of Bayan Knights #4. As you can see, these are a little bit different from the previews issue in terms of art. It's because Sarge (Gilbert Monsanto) has been trying out this new technique. He will just layout the pages first on paper, scanned it and directly ink it on the computer. The result is pretty much amazing if you ask me.

Paninindigan

Kapag dumarating ang election, lagi kong naaalala ang isang taong nakilala ko minsan. Empleyado sya ng isang company na client namin dati. Maraming taon ko na syang di nakikita at nakalimutan ko na pangalan nya at mukha. Pero ang hinding hindi ko makakalimutan ay ang walang ka kwenta kwenta nyang prinsipyo sa buhay pag dating sa politika.

Nagkataong election din noong nagkakilala kami. Habang nag mimiryenda, napunta sa politika ang usapan namin. Napag usapan namin si Candidate A at Candidate B. Parehas naming gusto si Candidate A dahil sa tingin namin ay matalino sya, hindi corrupt at maraming magagawa sa bansa natin. Parehas din ang pananaw namin kay Candidate B. Si B ay maraming asawa, lasengero at napakahilig sa sugal. Pero ang kinagulat ko ay noong sabihin ng kausap ko na si 'B' and iboboto nya at hindi si 'A'. Nagtanong ako ng 'Bakit?'. Alam nyo po ba ang sagot nya? "Bakit ko pa iboboto si A? eh hindi naman sya mananalo. Si B ang siguradong mananalo kaya sya ang boboto ko. Useless lang naman din kung si A ang iboboto ko kasi kolelat sya sa survey". Nanlaki mata ko sabay kamot sa ulo. I was still very young when that happened kaya tumahimik na lang ako.

Siguro kung ngayon nya sa akin sasabihin ito. Malamang mag kakausap kami ng mahaba haba. It is very sad that some of the people here in our country think this way. Kung lahat siguro ng tao ay tumatalon sa bangin, malamang ay tatalon din sya. Siguro kung popular ang mag bigti ay mag bibigti rin sya. Siguro kung susundin ko ang logic nya malamang ay patay na ako. Lahat naman tayo mamamatay diba? So bakit pa tayo gigising, kakain at mag ta-trabaho? Humilata na lang tayo at antayin ang kamatayan natin. Kasi useless naman din diba? Mamamatay rin naman tayo.

Kung meron ka kasing paninindigan. Kahit gaano pa ka popular ang isang kandidato. Kung sa tingin mo ay hindi sya karapat dapat. Hindi mo sya iboboto. Kahit na sinasabi ng buong mundo na sya ang mananalo sa election, pero alam mo naman na sya ay sugarol, babaero at lasinggero. Hindi mo sya iboboto dahil siguradong nanakawin nya lang ang pera ng bayan para pang gastos sa mga ito. Yung ibang kababayan kasi natin ay hindi na rin bomoboto kasi sabi nila "Bakit pa ako boboto eh dadayain rin naman ni Candidate B ang halalan". Kahit sabihin pa nating dadayain pa nya ang election . At lease, we did our part. Kung gumawa man sila ng kalokohan ay labas na tayo dun. Sila na ang sasagot noon sa Dios at sa batas.

Kaya rin siguro merong limit ang number of minutes na commercial sa TV dahil madaling ma uto ang mga kababayan natin. Kung ako lang, hahayaan kong walang limit ang advertisement sa TV. Because no matter how many hours of commercial they put there, I already have made up my mind on who I am going to vote. There is no TV commercial that can persuade me to vote for the undeserving candidate. Hayaan nating lustayin nila lahat ng yaman nila. But sad to say, maraming kababayan natin ang pwedeng daanin sa advertising at sabi sabi lang.

If you are going to vote. Please vote for the candidate that will do something to better our lives. Yung merong mahabang karanasan sa public service. Hindi yung parang kabote na lang na susulpot pag panahon na ng election tapos panay ang pa pogi at pa cute. Yung iba kasi, hindi yata naging barangay captain man lamang. Presidente ng Pilipinas kaagad ang gusto. Parang nagising lang ng isang umaga at sinabi sa sarili "Mag pe-presidente ako".

I am looking forward on this coming election positively. Specially with the computerization and all. But I hope that all of us Filipinos will vote more responsibly and wisely.

Members of Bayan Knights

Being a bunch of wacky guys that we are at Bayan Knights. We have made this promotional poster. It is a some what spoof of 'The Guardian of the Globe' poster that I posted a couple of days ago.

The background cover credits goes to Wansworld.

Kalayaan : character owned by Gio Paredes.

Morion : character owned by Wansworld.

Kawal : character owned by DCel.

Bathala : character owned by Jon Zamar.

Bagwis : character owned by Santy.

Comics Creation Link

I have created a new links on the right side of this blog for "Creating an Indie Comics" to make it much easier for people that is interested in creating their own comics. I have been receiving lots of questions about it lately.

But I just want it to stressed out that these are just based upon my personal experiences on creating an independent comics here in the Philippines. Others might vary on other parts of the world or might not be applicable on other cases.

Al Gore coming to Manila

This former vice-president of the most powerful nation in the world will be coming to Manila. I have admired him for the longest time because of his environmental advocacy. Despite the idiotic detractors that he has that is saying that global warming is a myth and he is just doing this for money. He just keeps at it and do what he does. And this time he will be going here in the Philippines. He will present an asian version of 'An Inconvenient Truth' in April 30, 2010 at the SMX Convention Center in the SM Mall of Asia Complex. I will try to be there if my schedule would permit.

For more information please go to Yahoo News.

Complementary copy

I just got my complementary copy of Pinoy Herald and Kalayaan #1 reprint. I might say that the print quality of the reprint came out way better than I have expected. This came in just in time. Because today, I will be going to my parents house to meet with my brother and sisters.

Iron Man 2 Trailer

This trailer is just amazing. The even got a design for the briefcase armor. And War Machine is just one mean machine. I think he even looks better than Iron Man. I just love that suit case armor. It makes me wish I have one when I go to office :D

Guardians of the Globe

The Guardians of the Globe will have its own comics soon. If you do not know who this team is? Then I guess you should start reading Invincible. The Guardians are first introduced way back in Invincible #7. It is a spoof of DC's Justice League and Marvels Avengers (yeah I know, that Robert Kirkman is one wacky guy :D) . But now, it seams that Image comics is putting a great deal of interest into them.

Even I was surprised to see that Todd McFarlane's "SPAWN" is going to join this team. The Image guys are still not giving details about this. My own guess is that this title will come out when the whole IMAGE UNITED mini series has finished.

Invincible has been in and out of this team during the series of his title. Lots of members have been fragmented when Invincible and Cecil (the pentagon leader of the guardian [which I hate] ) had a clash in ideology. Cecil's method to protect the Earth is too extreme that he even hires villains and murderers just to do this bidding. This new title that will be releasing on August of this year is very exciting to me. I just can't wait to see who among of the other image characters will join this team. I am hoping(and keeping my fingers crossed) that Whilce Portacio's Fortress will join the team. It is good time to be an Image fan now a days.

Click here to read the original post in Newsarama.