Street cartoonists and other 'komikeros'

Few books these days capture the spirit of Philippine cartooning and the development of graphic art in the islands as does this handsomely illustrated publication with the Yonzon imprint, with main text by the scholar John Lent plus sundry essays by members of the trade, including Beth Chionglo and Boboy Yonzon. Anything you wanted to know about Pinoy comics is probably here between these pages and then some, the colorful illustrations and even the black-and-white plain pen-and-ink ones like subtle reminders of a childhood well spent, possible tropes of a time of innocence and confidences.

Lent himself, whose name suggests a chronicler with camera, concentrates on two main aspects of the craft: editorial cartooning and comic strips. Though the two are distinct fields, they require related skills, as evidenced by the fact that many editorial cartoonists also have their own strips. There are however those who prefer to stick to political and other caricatures, as well those who opt to stay faithful to their comic strips. Not unusual though is to find them all under a common umbrella, like, say the Samahang Kartunista ng Pilipinas.

Publisher Yonzon in his foreword points out that in the Philippines readers often differentiate between a cartoonist and an illustrator, while in the West the terms are often interchangeable. Thus Lent’s breaking down the art of illustration into specifics is tailored to the Filipino mindset, and there is even something like a bonus section where guest writers take over on the graphic novel, as this goes deeper into the local psyche and so a subject better suited to the homegrown writer, in effect making Lent’s text fade away through no fault of his.

What this book does provide, which we hesitate to call coffee-table because it is not exclusive, are many hours of pleasurable reading if not browsing, tracing a veritable timeline of the craft and coming upon many familiar names and half-forgotten faces, though the work is very memorable indeed.

There’s the late Nonoy Marcelo and the loving tribute written by his student Chionglo, that short of resurrects the man’s quirky one-liners as he gulps his nth mug of coffee, so that we are reminded how, apart from drawing, Marcelo also rearranged the slang terminology of a generation, (it would be interesting what he would have said about today’s jejemons).

Larry Alcala also makes his presence felt through reprints of comic strips that were extremely popular during martial law years and after, Asyong Aksaya, Siopawman, and the full-page delight Slice of Life that had us all searching for the cartoonist’s profile hidden in the day’s happenings.

The book covers practically all the bases when it touches on the graphic novel, many of which became movies and so had a lifeline to the period’s zeitgeist — Mars Ravelo’s Darna and Carlo Caparas’ Panday, surely harbingers of a country stuck between harsh reality and the redemption available for those brave enough to imagine. Magic realism was already evident in Philippine comics even before the term was invented.

Francisco Coching, worthy nominee for National Artist opus posthumous, is also given due credit, his well-wrought lines a foreshadowing of the latter-day illustrator who has made inroads in the megabuck companies such as Marvel in the First World. The concept of the superhero, this Coching translated into a grassroots feel, the suspension of disbelief necessary in a world of intangibles and absurdity.

There are familiar names of course, who have continued to tickle the public funny bone as well as fire up the imagination of the casual graphic novel reader. Closer to home there’s Rene Aranda, in faraway Singapore there’s Dengcoy Miel, in Tandang Sora there’s Tence Ruiz whose visual discourse has been successfully transcribed onto large canvases, yes, even the sharply witty drawings of Dalena, now a semi-recluse in Kamuning and Pakil, whose paintings prefigured the dark side of jai alai and Alibangbang.

Among the younger ones are Arnold Arre and Gerry Alanguilan, the double barreled torch carriers of the illustrated novel that have made the genre worthy of respect and admiration with a slew of national book awards to their names. Arre was guest illustrator in a special fiction issue of Uno magazine last summer, while Alanguilan was mainly responsible for the digital restoration of the classic comic book El Indio by Coching.

It is no accident that in such a project the text, though necessary, becomes almost incidental, as the visuals just about overwhelm what any scholar or expert has to say.

But can you imagine a book such as this consisting only of drawings and illustrations?

Not possible, and so Lent serves his purpose like an impresario introducing this mind-boggling display of talent and skill. Because it’s likely the last time you saw work like this was in your dreams or in your wildest imagination.

Yet for all the browsing through this book I swear not to separate from at least in the near future, I can’t locate one cartoonist illustrator whose magazine filled many a lazy childhood day with laughs and corn. Using spot drawings with one-liners, this cartoonist had strokes a la Li’l Abner. Can’t for the life of me recall his name, Quiambao or Yambao, and he wore dark glasses on the back cover of our sole tattered copy — now most likely lost to the elements and time itself. Maybe in the next hundred years.