I've been looking through my email archives and saw this one sent by Michael Sutton, the Publicity/A&R Manager of Know-It-All Records, an indie label based in Tacoma, Washington.


This page is very cool:http://www.pbase.com/image/21659981

Luis, is Bill Sienkiewicz one of your influences? Thepanel arrangement and style here reminds me of Bill Sienkiewicz, especially his work on "Elektra" and "Stray Toasters." You're good, man! You want to collaborate on a comic-book story? Mondo knows my writing style. I see traces of Sienkiewicz, Case, and McKean in your art! Awesome!!! I was a staff writer for the legendary "Amazing Heroes" magazine in the late '80s-early '90s. They were the true voice of comicdom before "Wizard" sadly put them out of business.


...he then sent a follow-up email containing...


And maybe a little bit of Howard Chaykin, too :)
Mikey


...and another email came....


Luis, that's awesome! Can you draw comic-book pages - you know, panel narrative? Perhaps we can collaborate on a project? I've been looking for an illustrator to draw my scripts. You draw really well, very surrealistic! I'm reminded of Richard Case during Grant Morrison's run on "Doom Patrol" and a little bit of Dave McKean, too!
Mikey

Reserved, quiet, wise and free spirited

You are a sprite of the Earth:

You have a deep connection with the earth and all its creatures, preferring plants and animals to people you are quiet and reserved. You understand things on a different level and can often see straight through to a persons true intentions. You are mysterious to everyone even those in your family, they may live with you but that doesn't mean they 'know' the real you. Being inside the house for long periods of time can be torture, you crave the outdoors and love simply escaping up a tree or into the forest where you can be free. Although you may be smart you are easy to judge a person because you fear what they 'may' be going to do. You are wise in things that most overlook and you are very creative in many aspects like art, music, etc... Although try as they may to seek you, you are a free spirit. Just let them try to catch and put you in a cage.

Last night was another sleep-deprived evening. Sated only by a slab of the ref cake I personally concocted that afternoon, a glass of lychee-flavored iced tea and a (legal) copy of The Matrix: Revolutions, I went into my journey into the bizarre, yet familiar world of being groggy.

And for the nth time after watching a Matrix installment, I got both enlightened but disappointed...geez I've been watching these movies for the last few months and I still get the same tipsy feeling aftwerwards you'd think I was the lead from Memento.

No. 36

Twisted Halo

They say I’m not supposed to feel

I feel there’s really nothing real

Is it bad?

In every bed it’s all I said

“It stains the sheets but pays the rent"

Is it bad?

Touch me…touch me, please…

Touch me…touch me, please…

They say I’m not supposed to care

The scars and broken bones are there

It’s been done

Some of them are cavalier

They kiss my hands and lips of steel

but its been done

Touch me…touch me, please…

Touch me…touch me, please…

Touch me…touch me …

I am my own protection

I am my own salvation

Fom the things that are part of what I’ve become…

This isn’t something I would cry about

A little secret whispered all too loud…
That’s not my conscience speaking

That’s not my heart that’s bleeding

That’s not my body

my broken body…my broken body screaming…

Touch me…touch me, please…

Touch me…touch me, please…

Touch me…touch me…touch me…touch me…

Touch me…touch me, please…

A former officemate and friend, Elle, called me up at home a couple of days ago wanting to meet up for breakfast. Weird really, since he called me up around 11:00 am...waaaaay past breakfast hour.

Anyway, she now works for another company- another call center. Crap. So it does seem that people who have resigned from being call center agents may have difficulty leaving the field.

DAMN.

Anyway, she also informed me that my artwork, "The Anatomy of a Call Center Agent" has reached her office email group.

So apparently my work has been elevated to office spam.

Amusing.

A few days ago I found an OLD copy of Rock&Rhythm (1991). The editorial, titled Kamalayan, was pretty amusing. Instead of discussing about the magazine, it listed a few movies the staff had thought of making. Here are a few:

Leprechaun - Unusual plot about a dwende promoting condoms

Forever Hiyang - Lea Salonga stars in this international film with Mel Gibson

Sherry and George - an Ariel Rivera and Richard Gomez film. A who's who behind the closet. Me fellatio pa!

Gwapings - life and success story of The Youth. Starring Ringgo Marquez as DODONG, Dale Villar as ERAP and Romnick Sarmienta as Robert in a trilogy of drama, comedy and horror.

Once Upon a Time in Ongpin - Kris takes centerstage once again as the screaming victim. Kidnapped. Massacred. Mutilated. And sold as bopiz sa isang turo-turo.

A Kind of Burning
Ophelia Alcantara-Dimalanta

it is perhaps because
one way or the other
we keep this distance
closeness will tug as apart
in many directions
in absolute din
how we love the same
trivial pursuits and
insignificant gewgaws
spoken or inert
claw at the same straws
pore over the same jigsaws
trying to make heads or tails
you take the edges
i take the center
keeping fancy guard
loving beyond what is there
you sling at the stars
i bedeck the weeds
straining in song or
profanities towards some
fabled meeting apart
from what dreams read
and suns dismantle
we have been all the hapless
lovers in this wayward world
in almost all kinds of ways
except we never really meet
but for this kind of burning.

- Last week I found an old copy of The Flame. I flipped through the pages only to find, at the last page, my first published comics page. It was titled Omega.

I couldn't stop cringing as I looked at it. I didn't know much about the craft. I did it using Pagemaker, but the lay-out sucked! I was a terribly storyteller.

So now I've decided to rehash the darn story into what I tentatively call V2.0. I'm planning to make it a 10-page storyline to give the character, Vega, an actual background.



- Since the Noah project I was working on with NeoParadiso has been pushed back, I am now working on a project I tentatively call American Accent. It's about Simon, a 19-year old Call Center trainee plagued by speech defects.



- As you can see, I now acknowledge the fact that I can no longer write decent verses, so these scripts are merely exercises to get me into writing again.

I had the most unfortunate accident of staring at Krystala for five minutes...well, it was both annoying and enlightening. ANNOYING because that very same night, between sleep and awake, I saw an image of her in that blasted costume and now...and now it's embedded into my consciousness. I even see it whenever I close my eyes. I hope this affliction is temporary.

However, on the other hand, it made me think of my superhero era, where every conversation I make involves a DC or Marvel character (my friends also refer to it as my X-Men stage). And now I am rethinking my script-writing style. Though I have preferred to make realistic stories (that never even reached pencilling stage), the storytelling method -from my point of view- is still decidedly superhero-ish.

It's not really a new thing, but at least I'm becoming more conscious regarding my writing, which I now take a little more seriously. Back then, I just write stories out of the blue, without designing the characters first or plotting the outline or even planning the general direction I want the readers to take. Before I knew it, I was inking pages without knowing what'll happen in the next page.

LABO.


--And maybe, once I've mastered writing, I'll try writing screenplays.

HELP