For Love of Drawing

I have always been drawing since I can remember. Being a kid then, I was the type who prefers drawing and copying my favorite comic characters than play with my friends. Well, I do play, but not as often as other kids do. Back then my "refuge place" was in the roofed terrace in the second storey of our house, which overlooks the road. There I have a drawing table that my mother has personally commissioned for my birthday. It was nicely done, with an inclined board that was hinged on the topside so you can open it and store your drawing and other materials on a compartment at the bottom of the drawing panel. It was very special because aside from it being my first ever drawing board, it was also there that I have learnt so many things about drawing--practicing from anatomy to shading to background making. My drawing materials too, over the years have graduated from the very cheap newsprint papers and ball pens to white bond papers and felt-tip pens and black markers.

I think as early as grade 2 (around 8 yrs old) I was already doing my own comic books. A number of photocopy papers folded and stapled at the center. I recalled my first ever influences were the TV's Superfriends, then the local comics (SuperKat from funny comics to the more mature-themed stories like ninjas and wars as I get bigger) that I bought from pennies I saved by not eating during recess and walking instead of shelling out fares for passenger motorcycles (Pedicab). Most of these makeshift comics usually I don’t keep. They were either bought by my classmates(most of them, yeah) or given to friends.

My comics were usually a mesh of any form I can copy from my comicbook idols. Most notables would be Vic Catan (Jipeen, Anti-Ninja-1985) , Hal Santiago(Combat dragons-1986), Mar Santana(Robo-Tronn- 1989), Karl Komendador (Akin ang Buhay Mo-1988) and Pol Niño for local creators; then Joe Kubert, Dick Giordano, Dan Jurgens, John Byrne and frank Miller for the US comics (more often than not from comics borrowed from more well-offed classmates who has brothers/relatives living abroad). So drawing my own comics has basically became a routine for a long time. It usually begins when I came back from school at afternoon. When I begin to sit there, I can let anything just pass by and not care a thing about anything else but what I'm doing. Back then, once everyday, I have my own world. A world I totally control. And my so-called problems slowly drift into oblivion.