I Wonder If It's On E-Bay, Two

When my niece told me to buy a robot in response to my telling her that I don't have a girlfriend, I asked her why she would say such a thing. "Why should I buy a robot?" I ask.

"So that you have someone to help you wash dishes and clean the floors, of course," she says.

I don't know why sometimes she talks like I'm the one who's five years old.

"Isn't that what girlfriends are for?"

Just who are the five brave comic book creators who participated in the 24-Hour Comic Book Challenge anyway?

Jamie Bautista graduated cum laude from the Ateneo de Manila University with a degree in Communications, and has been spending the years since then as a freelance graphic designer, part-time college professor, Creative Director at LSA Printing Press and Line Publisher of Nautilus Comics. He currently writes the ongoing comic series Cast and provides colors for the covers of each issue. He has also contributed art and stories to the comic anthologies Four and Project: Hero. He is living his dream.

Jonas Diego is a studio director by day and a comic book creator by night. He creates comic books for traditional print media as well as for online consumption and mobile content for various companies and studios locally and abroad. He also does graphic design work for several online companies.

Rex Espino has been illustrating comic books all his life, with his most notable publications including stints on Funny Komiks and Nautilus Comics' Cast.

Jac Ting Lim works as an Art Director for a local game development company. She creates comics for traditional print, online and mobile publication. You may sometimes see her in events drawing portraits or face-painting.

Elbert Or is the editor of Nautilus Comics’ teen-oriented comic book series Cast. He is a member of Ang Ilustrador ng Kabataan (Ang InK) and has illustrated Ang Parusa ng Duwende and Ang Binibining Tumalo sa Mahal na Hari for Anvil Publishing, Fat, Cranky, and Full of It for Milflores Publishing, as well as an upcoming anthology of Rene Villanueva’s works for Cacho Publishing. He is also co-editor of the superhero comic anthology Project: Hero, and conducts comics workshops in various venues around the country.

Yes! We will be releasing a compilation of the 24-hour comics we created during the Puerto Galera event. Buhay ang Baston: The 1st Philippine 24-Hour Comic Book Challenge is scheduled to come out a couple of weeks from now, just in time for Christmas!

Here's what International 24-Hour Comics Day founder Nat Gertler has to say about us:

"The creators whose work you see here should be applauded, not just for the stories they created but for their dedication. They chose not just to participate in culture by creating the comics but also to honor their culture and traditions with their topics. On top of all that, they chose to work against a clock, to create the risk of not just artistic failure but of failing to meet the 24 hour challenge. Even an artist who fails the challenge should be applauded for taking the risk, because it's only through taking risks that success can be found."

You can view more photos from the 1st Philippine 24-Hour Comic Book Challenge on our Kodak Gallery (one-step registration required).

Buhay ang Baston!

Originally posted on best viewed with eyes wide open:

I’ve been re-reading the 24-hour comics we created during the Puerto Galera event, and found myself amused at what we managed to come up with over a 24-hour period.

Of course, I chose to invite comic book creators whose presence I can stand for extended periods of time (goes without saying, that one, effectively stranded as you will be with them in an island for almost a week), but who will also represent the range of art styles and sensibilities present in Philippine comics today. So the fact that the output shows much diversity comes as no surprise.



Jamie surprised everyone by being the only comic book creator who was awake throughout the entire twenty-four hour stretch (while everyone else took an hour’s nap – I took three). Even more surprising was the fact that he managed to take the common subject matter of kali/ arnis (kali being the ancient form of arnis) and coming up with a 24-page love story, about a guy who gets stranded in an island and meets a cute arnisadora with Brandy-like breasts.



That he was awake during the entire twenty-four hour stretch, by the way, was no mean feat, as we were all awake well before the event itself. This was because we planned to hold a mini comics workshop the morning before the event (which would last from three in the afternoon Friday til three in the afternoon Saturday), except no one showed up partly because it was too early (we were awake seven in the morning!), and partly because it rained. (In fact, it was raining for most of the event and didn’t let up until the Sunday after.)

Jonas represented the more realistic school of comic book art, and of the five of us the most alpha male of all and thus most likely to turn in the straightforward action comic piece. And he did, turning in an action-horror piece featuring shadow demons for villains (easy to draw!)…



With a special cameo by someone who looks suspiciously like Edgar Tadeo as the main villain!



Balls to the wall action ensues, at least until page thirteen, when Jonas ran out of story to tell, fatigue sank in, and he started coming up with pages like these at two in the morning:



In the meantime, Jac was coming up with her own techniques for filling up the 24-page quota. In general, everyone was in agreement that the fewer panels per page you have, the sooner you can finish and go to sleep. By extension, splash pages are your best friends. But Jac one-upped us all by being the only one to use double-page splashes! Twice!



Oh, and for a story supposedly set in the time of the galleons, before the Spanish colonization, her comic book features some of the strangest cameos (I meant my own guest appearance, eyeglasses and polo shirt and all…not the squid.)



Of the five of us, Rex represented the local manga art school, coming up with a very manga-esque story of a girl who proves herself a skillful arnis fighter in an arnis tournament.



In the end, Rex ran out of time to letter in the dialogue, and the result is a Choose Your Own Adventure-esque comic book where the readers have to craft their own dialogue to make heads or tails of the story.

For my part, having already experienced the pressures of a 24-hour comic book challenge, I indulged in various ways of “cheating” my way through, from structuring my stories into standalone chapters (it’s easier for me to construct short vignettes than sustain a longer narrative) that get tied together towards the end, to illustrating an entire chapter using silhouettes (all seven pages of it).



The coolest thing about doing the 24-hour challenge as a group is that each of you are feeding off each other’s enthusiasm and energy. While there are times, especially during the wee hours of the morning, when everyone’s too tired and just want so badly to get things done (coherently) so they can sleep, overall the 24 hours breezed by painlessly. Didn’t feel like 24 hours have passed at all (which is either a good or bad thing, depending on how far ahead you are with your pages).

And in the end, it makes us thankful of the tools we take for granted when creating our art – I suspect Jonas kissed his computer soon as he got back home, and would also kiss his Photoshop software if it were possible. Me, I kissed my drawing table, and, having spent 24 hours drawing on what is essentially a wooden picnic table and bench, kissed my cushioned swivel chair, despite it smelling like fart and all.