WIP: WORK IN PROGRESS a weekly webcomic

(The Photo above by Hub Pacheco. You can check out more of his stuff here )

"How satisfying is it to leave a mark on a blank surface. To make a map of my movement--no matter how temporary." 

Doing WIP has been a surprise, honestly. I never imagined I'd be where I am right now - making comics while being a photographer (and some other miscellaneous rakets in between). The circumstances that led me here are mind-rattling. What are those circumstances? Well, I'll save those details in my memoirs (WHOT!). HAH!

Kidding aside, It's been a real hoot to be doing this. And I guess my point here is this: Life is full of surprises, both good and bad. You can't escape them. You just have to figure your way through them and soldier on. 

Enjoy life. It's the only one we have. 

-Hub :D

**(The picture above depicts a stressful moment. Kudos to WIP's co-creator and his acting skillzzzzz. Ghad this is gonna be another one of them mindless posts. haha.)***

There are around 15 or more things happening on my head right now. 
There are times when I can literally feel my brain shift whenever I switch from being creative to hitting the books. 
There are days when I just feel so stressed out and wish I could cut back on things. And right now my brains registering a blank and I can't figure out what to write. 
But then I think about all the opportunities I've already lost, all the comics that I could've written but put off because I was "too busy", all the projects I shelved since I had more priorities to take care of, and I figure its high time I pushed myself just a little bit harder to keep this up. 
Nothing worthwhile comes easy after all. And I have a feeling in my gut that what we're doing here is something. 

April 17, 2010. Summer KomiKon. UP Bahay ng Alumni. Mark that date. WiPCOMICS will be there and we'll be making an impact. Hoo! 

***UPDATE: The original post was accidentally deleted so here's a new one.

So we're one month removed since launching WIP! Hooray for us! Boy, it feels like it's been more than a month. Well, you gotta put the hours in, as they say.

Our deepest condolences go out to the family of local artist Arlan Esmena who passed away early today. Gerry Alanguilan broke the news in his blog HERE I met him once back at last year's KomiKon when I bought and had him sign my copy of Where Bold Stars Go to Die. RIP Mr. Esmena.

-Hub

 "I don't think on stage, I feel. Once you're up there, you're who you are. You're not thinking." 
 - Keith Richards on what goes on in his mind during a concert. 


I think the best advice anyone could get about making comics is to just not worry about anything and just make one. No ifs or buts about it. 

Just grab the nearest piece of paper and draw. That simple.

Sure, I could say that you'd need to read certain things first (like anatomy, or figure drawing), or study a certain course in college (like literature, or Communication). That’s the smartest thing to do after all right? You’d want to be prepared before you start doing your first comic. No harm there.

The problem with getting too much information before you even start making your first comic, is that by then, you’d have too many “rules” and “principles”, and you can’t even get yourself to get past the first page. You end up endlessly debating with yourself how to make your intro better. You’d run through your mind all the possible angles or positions to make your page interesting. Heck, you might even defer writing and drawing to research/study comics further. And you know what? Despite all that hard work, at the end of the day, you’d still end up with a blank piece of paper. You end up deflated and defeated, and all that gung ho about making comics goes down the drain.

So, no. Learning isn’t really the best way to start. I’d actually recommend you just draw it. Empty your mind. Let that story in your head guide your hand. Never mind that little cencor in your head that tells you to stop, that makes u cringe at that dialogue you’re writing.

Get it all down, enjoy the experience, and learn from it. It may not be the best story you can think of, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be the worst thing you’ve done either.

To make good comics, you must MAKE comics first. Which means, even if you think your first comic is bad, at least you’ve gotten enough experience down to know what works for you, and how you can improve the next time around. In any case, you can’t come up with something good if you’ve never made anything bad…unless you’re innately good at comics, in which case, congratulations to you.

Way better than ending up with a blank sheet of paper, wouldn’t you agree? 

Pardon me while I still feel all giddy from our special guest cameos from this week's page. Coincidentally, we just wrapped up that page (page 13) when I stumbled upon CSCENTRL in Greenbelt 1. There I found and immediately bought a copy of the best of Hard Gay! Nonstop laughtrip, hoo! 

Anyhoo, I thought I'd talk about inspirations this week. Back when Ted and I were brainstorming WIP, we came across A LOT of similar ideas to what we were initially planning to do. Of course, I'd always suggest to do the opposite of what was already present in other comics stories (or at least veer away from similarities). I really, really don't wanna come off as a ripoff of anything. 

The thought of originality came up in our brainstorming sessions. Is there even anything ORIGINAL nowadays? It kinda feels like everything's been done already! On my end, I came to realize that what's more important is the story I wanted to tell. I may get bits and pieces from what I've seen in other works but ultimately what matters the most is the tale that Ted and I weaves for you guys -  a tale that's uniquely our own no matter how many pegs we have. 

My inspirations for WIP? ANYTHING & EVERYTHING in life. 

End of the blog, hoo! 

-Hub :D

As a kid growing up, Pro wrestling and superheroes were synonymous.

This might be a stretch to some older or younger generations, and probably an abomination to most comics buffs and purists, but hear me out.

Comics and Superheroes back in the day were pretty hard to come by. You only had certain malls that carried comics, and most of the time they were far away from home (my home anyway. Them’s the breaks for being a Manila Boy). Be that as it may, I couldn’t get enough of them, but the opportunities to get a comic or follow a series regularly were not readily available as a kid (Afterall, how can an 8 year old kid get enough allowance to make his way to SM Megamall just to buy comics on a monthly basis?) . Therefore, other forms of media were required to satiate my obsession with superheroes.

I remember the first wrestling match I’ve seen on TV – it was that of Ahmed Johnson and Goldust. I believe it was a pay-per-view event that happened a month or 2 prior to its airing on Star Plus (Yes kids, back in the day Pay-Per-View events didn’t air simultaneously with the US live broadcast).

I don’t believe I watched the entire thing. I only saw the promo, and probably some parts of the beginning of that match, I didn’t even know it was called wrestling, but that was enough to captivate me. Here you have two guys muscle bound men, one with a fancy costume, the other in his underwear, beating the living crap out of each other because of some simple pre-determined storyline, using highly stylized fighting techniques. They even had signature tag lines, phrases, and finishing moves, there were also good guys and bad guys. You tell me that doesn’t sound like your typical Image superhero back in the day. How could one not relate them to superheroes as they go flying from the top of the ring and crashing into the Spanish announcer’s table?

Needless to say I was hooked.

Those pre Attitude era wrestlers, as well as the Attitude era were the best times to have been a wrestling fan.WWF used to put out all the stops, and the wrestlers back then were incredibly gutsy and  was willing to go through crazy gimmicks to make a match memorable and unique. Buried Alive matches, Inferno Matches, Ladders, Cages, Hell in the Cell; Wrestlers falling off the top of the hell in a cell cage only to come back and be choke slammed back into the ring through the top of the cage. Submission matches that had the winner decided by default because the opponent has lost consciousness because of too much blood loss. Or Iron Man matches that went on for an HOUR without anyone scoring any pin or submissions, only for it to resume for a sudden death match. These matches were as epic as fights between Superman and Doomsday, or Batman against Bane, only this happened on a weekly basis, and it was free (as long as you had cable of course). The stories that lead to the matches, as well as the storytelling in the matches themselves captivated me.   

My interest in wrestling has waned over the years, not because I learned that it was fake mind you, but because the stories doesn’t seem to hold up to the caliber it used to be. The wrestlers generally do not seem as interested in developing a storyline in the match as much as they want to throw power moves at each other. Its not the same as it used to be I guess since there is less reason now to be edgy and risky since WWE is basically a monopoly.( No more old school arm locks or tests of strength. No more hurricane rannas and drop kicks or high risk maneuvers. No more blood.) That, and because superhero comics actually grew up with me, while wrestling stories never really did. There are still the occasional gems I’ll admit, but they don’t happen quite as often anymore.   

Be that as it may, it doesn’t diminish the fact that in its own way, these guys were my first definition of superheroes, and somehow whenever I write or draw superhero stories, I take a bit of the elements I found interesting in pro-wrestling and I add them on.   

I'll make this short and sweet. Mainly because the idea mill is kinda dry today. Hehe. 

I really can't remember what my FIRST comic book was because I've been reading them since Grade 1. All I remember is that I would save up on my allowance weekly then come Sunday I'd buy bargain comics at the Book Sale outlet in Cherry Foodarama. I remember buying a comic for as low as P20 per book! Archie books and various Marvel superhero books were my staple. Then as I got older, taste evolves and I trooped to Comic Odyssey in Robinson's Manila to get my weekly fix of Spidey books. Ah, The Clone Saga. Those were the days. 

As high school rolled along, I kinda stopped buying. I dunno why, but as far as i can remember I wanted to focus on photography then. As I shifted my focus, I lost track of the good stuff. 

Then one day in college, Ted introduced me to Mark Millar's Ultimates 1. Needless to say, I was back on the comics train after that! 

And so here I am. 

Bow. 

-Hub :D

*Toldja it was short and sweet.

This was supposed to be a coherent entry about Comic Odyssey and Planet X, about how the guys who ran the store back in the day are now running their own store, and how I thought it fitting to thank them for introducing kids like me to the world of comics by putting them in a comic of their own.
Buuut, the internet wasnt't cooperative with me tonight, and I lost connection just when I was clicking on the "Post" button, and therefore nothing got posted, and that half hour of typing was for nothing.>_<.
Maybe I'll rewrite it next week, but for now, here's me being angry about sudden internet disconnetion. Dammyooo internetssss~!!!!