Upcoming Podcast All About Pinoy Komiks!

Podcasts are slowly getting in to the mainstream nowadays and I believe I have listened/followed a few - namely Bill Simmons of ESPN's "The BS Report"  for some basketball commentary, and for the local ones, the one hosted by DJ Mo Twister, "Good Times With Mo" where they give advice about sex, love, life problems and what not. 

Now Komiks will get a chance to get talked about in an all new, all-Tagalog podcast to be presented by comic book writer/artist Gerry Alanguilan together with two other komikeros. I believe its a nice vehicle to promote local komiks where in the Philippines. 

I would definitely download this once it goes online on May 6. Pretty excited to hear what they've got to say, as  Gerry is one of my favorites in the industry together with Leinil Francis Yu and Francis Manapul.

More info on gerry.alanguilan.com

P.S - congrats to Sir Gerry as his graphic novel "Elmer" is nominated for Best Graphic Album in this year's Eisner Awards - which basically the Oscars / Grammys of the comic book industry. Hopefully he bags it!

Darna Lives On With Gerry Alanguilan and Arnold Arre

I was never a fan of Darna. Really. Never ever. I thought that she was corny, and even a rip-off of another Western superheroine and all that.

But all of that changed after seeing a couple of comic book panels that spanned up to 9 pages. Yes. Fucking 9 pages is all it took for me to realize that the 64-year old character created by the great  Mars Ravelo was something that could be revived for the new generation of readers: with an all-original, imaginative storytelling from Gerry Alanguilan (Elmer, Timawa, Superman: Birthright) with the right mix of some clean and fresh art from Arnold Arre (that somehow reminded me some of Alan Moore's books before), Darna suddenly became a cool hero for me. She is fucking awesome! 

The sad part is, its just fan fiction and it ends there. Sobrang bitin talaga yung istorya. I don't know if they will continue doing it, but I really hope that the Ravelo Family will see Alanguilan and Arre's gorgeous work and maybe give them permission to continue. Sir Mars would be very proud. And I do believe that Gerry and Arnold can pull it off  and make Darna relevant again if given the chance.

Don't believe me? Check out the preview pictures below, but make sure to check out the whole thing at http://darnalives.blogspot.com/ and show some love for their work and our own Pinoy superheroine.