At Komikon 2017

It's always nice meeting up with my old buddy old pal Jonas Diego specially at Komikon. It was a special Komikon for us because our mutual and late buddy Johnny Danganan received a posthumous Comic Aid award for his numerous charitable efforts to help comics creators in need. I pirated a bit of Komikon's recorded live video footage of the awards, inserted a special video that I did of Johnny and Jonas receiving the award on behalf of Johnny's family.

As far as Komikero Publishing goes, I think it was a pretty successful one for us. We sold a whole bunch of Bakokak as well as Elmer and Rodski. It was fantastic seeing all my old friends and meeting new ones. I'm specially proud of Kevin. His work on Bakokak seemed to have gone over well with readers and I'm glad to have had a little hand in introducing him to a wider audience.

I really owe a debt of gratitude to the Komikon organizers who have so graciously and generously helped me out with some of my concerns. Because of them I stayed at the event far longer than I scheduled to, and had a great time in the process.

Thanks also to Danry Ocampo for helping me out by getting copies of some new indie komiks that I wanted to get. I wasn't sure if I was going to get the chance to go around much so it helped having an extra set of Danry's legs to help me get these comics.

Of the things I've read so far, Puso Negro by JP Palabon and Please Take Care of My Heart by Gioseppe "Loser Mangaka" Custodio were just so hardcore that I couldn't help spewing profanity as I read them. P*cha, E 'di KOMIKS by Toto Madayag is always funny. Ultimo by Ruvel Abril was very exciting and has excellent artwork. I have yet to read the rest. I must mention the reprint of Dante Perez's "The Cursed" (bottom row, third from left). I was so glad to see this in print. A rare work of a master Filipino artist who passed away too soon.

I'm also very grateful to my wife Ilyn and my ever present Komikon crew: Zara Macandili and Edjee Chozas, and Ilyn's niece Kyla Florese in her first Komikon ever.  I would not survive Komikon without these guys.

In spite of the two annoying typos in BAKOKAK (which are entirely my fault, argh), I thought it turned out well. I'll be sure to correct that in the second printing.