Philippine Komiks

From WikiPilipinas: The Hip 'n Free Philippine Encyclopedia

(Redirected from Komiks)

Komiks is the Tagalog term for comics created or produced in the Philippines. It is simply the English word "comics",
adapted to fit the orthography of native Filipino languages such as Tagalog.
Inspired by American comic strips and "Funnies" during the early 20th century, komiks eventually became widespread
and popular throughout the country, making the Philippines one of the biggest publishers of komiks in the world. In
recent decades, though, their popularity has subsided due to various factors, including the advent of other mass-
media forms of entertainment such as television and the Internet.
History
[edit] Rise of the industry
While the first indigenous cartoons may be traced to Jos Rizal's 1887 fable "The Monkey and the Turtle," the origins
of the mainstream komiks industry would not arise until after the Spanish-American War.
The period of 1896-98, when the Philippines was in the throes of revolution, certain magazines appeared in Manila
that carried cartoons. Two of these were Miao and Teh Con Leche. Presumably these were influenced by the
American magazines Puck and Judge, possibly brought to the islands by American volunteer soldiers.
After the defeat of the Philippine Revolutionary forces, the anti-colonialist struggle shifted to the free press.
Unbeknownst to American colonial administrators, Filipino nationalists had shifted their revolutionary struggle to the
satirical press, in which they denounced American slights and injustices. Many of these magazines or newspapers
published only in Tagalog or Spanish, two languages that the English-speaking colonialists could not understand. In
1907, Lipang Kalabaw, a magazine owned and edited by Lope K. Santos, was published. This magazine was in
Tagalog, and it carried satirical cartoons directed at American officials. However it did not have any paneled cartoon
strips, only editorial ones. The magazine died in 1909.
The very first Filipino komiks serials appeared in the early 1920s as page fillers in Tagalog magazines.
Two of these magazines, Telembang and a resurrected Lipang Kalabaw, carried anti-American or anti-Federalist
satirical cartoons. These two magazines could be considered as the precursor of today's komiks.
There were two prominent comic strips in these magazines that were very popular with the Filipinos during those
years: Kiko at Angge in Telembang, and Ganito Pala sa Maynila in Bagong Lipang Kalabaw.
Art historians Alfredo Roces and Alfred McCoy attribute the art of both these comic strips to Fernando Amorsolo.
Indeed, Roces featured one of the issues of Ganito Pala sa Maynila in his seminal work on Amorsolo.
In 1923, the Tagalog magazine Liwayway was born. Although the magazine did not contain any comic serials in its
early years, this was to change in 1929, with the publication of Album ng Mga Kabalbalan ni Kenkoy as a filler in the
entertainment section of the magazine. Kenkoy was the star of the series, a funny everyday Filipino teenager
representative of the colonial-minded youth of the early 1930s.
n 1946, the first regularly published all-comic-magazine was born, the short-lived Halakhak Komiks. Halakhak lasted
only ten issues, perhaps due to the lack of efficient distribution. It certainly looked like "komiks" had died a few months
after it was born. But it did not, because in 1947, Pilipino Komiks, under the management of Tony Velasquez, was
published, opening the floodgates for other komiks magazines to follow.
Afterwards came such popular tiles as Tagalog Klasiks in 1949, Hiwaga Komiks in 1950, and Espesyal Komiks in
1952. This was the start of one of the largest comics industries in the world, such that by the mid-1950s, komiks was
already considered the unofficial "national book" of the Filipinos.
Originally inspired by American comic strips and comic books left behind by American GIs , the komiks' early aim was
to entertain Filipinos with cheap reading material. Hence, many of the strips in those early years were cartoons, a local
version of the popular "Funnies" comic books being published in the United States.
But the medium steadily diversified, and by the 1950s, drew more inspiration from other forms of Filipino literature
such as komedya, alamat, folklore, as well as Philippine mythology. The early Tagalog komiks magazines were
therefore rich in tales of the aswang, kapre, nuno sa punso, tikbalang, and many other characters indigenous in
Philippine folklore.
Many komiks were also evidently inspired by specific American comics, such as Kulafu and Og (Tarzan), Darna
(Wonder Woman or Superman), and D. I. Trece (Dick Tracy). The predominance of superheroes has continued into
the modern day.
During the Martial Law years, President Ferdinand Marcos censored many of the content of komiks magazines. He
also ordered the use of cheap paper to produce komiks, such that the visual and the physical qualities of komiks
magazines were affected, resulting in the eventual decline of readership in the 1980s.
As a result, many of the top Filipino komiks artists went on to work in the American comic industry instead, including
Alfredo Alcala, Mar Amongo, Alex Nio, Tony de Zuniga, Rudy Nebres, and Nestor Redondo.
After the lifting of Martial Law, the komiks industry began to generate new readership. The heavy drama of komiks
novels was the trend, with such writers as Pablo S. Gomez, Elena Patron, Nerissa Cabral dominating the field.
[edit] Fall of the industry
The resurgence in komiks' interest was only to last up to the early 1990s when Filipinos began to notice other forms of
entertainment such as video games, karaoke, cheap pocket book novels, cellphones, and much later the internet and
text messaging -- especially the humorous text messages that are very popular with Filipinos. The shift in the interest
of Filipinos from being readers to viewers reflect the constant advancement of technology in modern times, which has
adversely affected the komiks industry.
Many komiks publishers cut their budget, reduced their artist's and writer's fees, used the cheapest paper for
production, and resorted to more movie gossip pages than komiks pages. Suffering from low pay and low prestige,
komiks artists and writers eventually lost vigor and enthusiasm, until their works become a burden, with the writers
forced to rehash old stories again and again, and the illustrators producing mediocre drawings that did not reflect the
great komiks tradition of the past.
These factors eventually led to decreased consumption of komiks from even the most loyal fans. A steady decline
followed, until most publishers finally gave up and cancelled their titles once and for all.
By the year 2005, there were no longer any major publishers of komiks in the Philippines. What remained were the
smaller ones, who instead published independent comics titles.

[edit] Komiks in Pinoy Culture
During the heyday of the komiks industry in the Philippines, komiks embedded itself, so to speak, in the Filipino
consciousness.
Ubiquitously present in poor and middle class homes, komiks could be found being read almost anywhere: in the
ricefield as the farmer enjoyed a short relief from his backbreaking work, in the hagdanan (staircase), in the comfort
room, or almost everywhere else. Dubbed as "bakya" by the elitists, the lowly komiks were patronized in great
quantities by the Filipino masses who could not afford theaters, movies, or vaudevilles.
Countless poor Filipinos who could not afford to send their children to schools taught their children reading and values
formation through the pages of the komiks. Children easily and happily learned reading through these paneled picture
stories. They adored the fumbling escapades of Kalabog, or the latest antics of Kenkoy, or the Phantomanoks newest
adventure. Adult readers likewise eagerly awaited the continuing saga Cochings of El Indio, or the latest trick of
Redondos Palos, or the further adventures of Clodualdo Del Mundos Pitong Sagisag.
Komiks were a disposable item. Filipinos usually did not care to keep their copy after reading it, letting other members
of the household or even the kapitbahay read it afterwards. What happened to it later was never a thing to ask about;
unless one hadnt yet finished his reading. hoy, nasaan na ba yung komiks na binabasa ko dito. Umihi lang ako e
nawala na?
Everyone took komiks for granted. After all, komiks were cheap at 25 to 30 centavos a copy, the price of one bottle of
Coca Cola (which usually had a weekly advertisement on the back cover of the komiks). One could even throw it away
afterwards without feeling guilty.
After this much passing of hands, komiks, printed on cheap pulp, were usually reduced to a torn and creased state,
after which they must fulfill their final duty: panggatong (fuel for the fire stoves), pambalot ng tinapa (salted fish
wrapper), an emergency umbrella during a sudden downpour (why not?), or worse, as portable and convenient
lavatory equipment.
Written in the Tagalog lingua franca, the vernacular language spoken at Filipino homes and gatherings, the komiks
had become a kind of national book, easily understood by Filipinos.
Hindi nakakasakit ng ulo basahin, madadala mo kahit saan, nakakapagpaantok, "magaganda mga kuwento",
"magaganda mga drowing" murang bilhin: these were some of the answers of Filipinos to a survey conducted in
1986 as to why they read komiks.
[edit] Language
It was indeed fun to read stories with dialogue used in everyday conversations. Slang words common among the
younger people proliferated in komiks conversations, such as datung for money, askad for ugly, bebot for
girlfriend, datan for an old man or woman, repa for friend, dyahi for shy, or tsokaran for buddies. It was thus
possible to read dialogue like, Askad naman repa. Mukhang datan na yung inireto mo sa kin. Dyahi sa mga tsokaran.
Cuss words such as walanghiya, hayup, ulol, impakto, bastos, and kiri were qualitatively allowed, meaning
they must appear only in humorous stories and intended as words for teasing. The more serious stories required
justification to use these words. The harsher words like the F and S words (Putang-ina, anak ng puta, etc.) were
restricted and not allowed to be printed. These words were only found in the more fly-by-night publications such as the
Bomba Komiks type which were sold clandestinely on the newsstands.
[edit] Komiks as collector's item
Inasmuch as Filipinos loved the komiks, they did not collect them and or store them for future reading or reference,
unlike their Western counterparts. Of course there were a relative few who cared to store them in wooden bauls or
deep drawers in their aparadors. These komiks may survive for years, but a tropical country like the Philippines may
not really be a good place to hoard komiks in the long run. In a few years, humidity, tropical climate, floods, termites,
and fires would destroy many of these komiks. The komiks may escape human apathy, but not the natural elements.
Thus, a good number of these komiks have not survived into the present time and are now considered scarce.
[edit] Movie, Television and Radio adaptations
Many serial komiks were later adapted into other art forms like movies, radio plays, musicals, and theater plays.
As early as the 1950s, komiks had become a rich resource of movie outfits for their screenplays. Some of the early
stories that were made into movies were Sawa sa Lumang Simboryo, which won the first FAMAS Best Picture Award
in 1952, El Indio, Darna, Kenkoy, Bondying, Tres Ojos, Barbaro, and hundreds of others. Indeed, a movie that was
previously serialized as komiks was sure to become a box office hit. The tradition of komiks into movies continued well
into the 1960s, 70s, 80, and 90s. Up to the present, komiks serials are still a staple on the menu of movie producers,
an example of which is the recent movie Zsazsa Zaturnnah from the comic book by Carlo Vergara.
More recently, ABS-CBN started a TV series entitled KOMIKS, featuring classic Pinoy komiks stories made into short
teleseryes. GMA 7 countered by buying the television rights of such popular komiks characters as Darna and Captain
Barbell and turning them into highly-rated prime-time television series.
Komiks was also a rich resource for radio plays. The radio, being a cheap appliance that most Filipinos could afford to
buy -- unlike the more expensive television -- was once the basic source of home entertainment alongside with the
komiks. Thus, from the 1950s up to well into the 80s komiks serials like Prinsipe Amante, Kurdapya, Batas ng Alipin
and hundreds of others were staples of the radiowaves.
Top 10 Komiks Characters
From WikiPilipinas: The Hip 'n Free Philippine Encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
These are the most popular characters in the Pinoy komiks industry, having appeared in various forms of art other
than komiks (such as film, theater, musicals, etc). Indeed, they have acquired the status of pop icons, so that they
almost become movie superstars with loyal followers.
Here then are our choices for the Top 10 All-Time Classic Pinoy Komiks Characters:
1. Kenkoy - Created by Tony Velasquez, the Father of Philippine Komiks, Kenkoy is the very first komiks
superstar, having been born in the Liwayway comics in 1929. His name has become synonymous with "a
funny person".
2. Darna - Created by Mars Ravelo, Darna is our country's Wonder Woman, as she has been represented not
only in komiks but in several movies, musical, and plays as well.
3. Zsazsa Zaturnnah - No other komiks character created such tremendous media attention than Zsazsa
Zaturnnah had. Presumably the "first superhero gay komiks character", Zaturnnah has changed the way we
Filipinos look at superheroes.
4. Bondying - He made us laugh with his wit and smart ways in life, even though he was a full-grown man who
dressed in polka-dotted baby's shirt, talked baby-blabber, and sucking a large bottle of milk!
5. Barok - The famous innocent caveman who lived in Stone Age Philippines is one of Bert Sarile's most
memorable creations. Barok is beloved by all Filipinos!
6. Polgas - The wise and philosophical pet dog of the obese Sungcal family in the hilarious Pugad Baboy strip by
Pol Medina, Jr..
7. Mang Kepweng - Are you sick or brokenhearted? Mang Kepweng can heal your malady with potion, oils,
herbs, and an overdose of witty laughter. Mang Kepweng is truly one of the most popular Pinoy komiks
characters.
[1]

8. Kulafu - The very first Tarzan-like character in Philippine Komiks, whose "kingdom" was a deep jungle in the
Visayas, battled evil men as well as dragons and siokoy. This famous creation by Francisco Reyes now lives
on in the label of a famous Tsinoy Sioktong called Vino Kulafu.
9. Asyong Aksaya - Larry Alcala's hilarious parody of the Filipinos' senseless expenditures is bitingly reflected in
the character of Asyong Aksaya, a wacky millionaire who lights a cigarette with a wad of bills.
10. Zuma - His green skin has the menacing look of a snake which he can summon anytime he wants to. His
snake-haired head and a couple of phytons dangling from his shoulders are his most memorable trademarks.
Every Filipino knew him as the father of Anak ni Zuma, who were Galema and Dino. Zuma gets his strength
and vigor by eating the hearts of virgins he had seduced.