The Philippine Online Chronicles

This is the third part of our Secret Origins interview with Elbert Or. You can find part one here and part two here. In this portion of the interview, Elbert Or talks about his most famous series, Bakemono High, how he came to teach comics at one of the country's most prestigious universities, and what the future may hold for him. He also dispenses some tough love to aspiring comics creators.

POC: How did Bakemono High come about?

I think a large part of why Bakemono High came about was that I had been making comics for about two or three years, and one of the things that I noticed was whenever I go to conventions people tended to ask me: “Can you tell me about the state of Philippine comics right now.”

I didn’t even think there we were any kind of comics industry. Like one of the things I always noticed was there weren’t any comics for kids, which just ran contrary to the popular notion that comics were for kids.

Before, when I would blog these "State of the Nation" essays about comics, I’d always refer to it as the “cottage industry of Philippine comics,” because it was and still is a cottage industry.

I’d notice people would say comics was just for kids, but there weren’t really any comics for kids.

A large part of this was precisely because people who’d work in comics had day jobs, so they couldn’t work on comics full time. Then, if you only had a limited amount of time and energy to make comics, you might as well make the kind of comics you’d read that you’d be interested in. So unsurprisingly, a large portion of the material that came out would either be for mature readers or else be half-baked stuff.

So that’s one reason why. The other reason was that, even from the start, I was a very insecure comic book creator. The only reason I ever started making comics was I couldn’t afford to buy my own. So in the absence of comics I could purchase, I made comics I wished I could read.

Even when I started making comics professionally, I’ve always had this feeling that I would never be as good an artist as say, Arnold Arre—how could I beat that? Or how could I be a better writer than Dean Alfar, who wins a Palanca every year.

At the start I would tell Chinese stories. I made this niche for myself telling slice-of-life Chinese-y story. So it was that for a while until I figured, with comics for kids, I wouldn’t have any competition. I could be on my own here. So that’s really why. It’s insecurity, and finding a niche--but also opening doors. Because for me, part of the fun is also trying things out that other people haven’t and then showing people it’s a viable option and then seeing how they pick it up, going down that same path I’ve gone.

POC: How did you get into teaching comics  in Ateneo?

There was someone who was teaching comics before, this artist called Gino Bagsit. Gino loves comics. Loooves comics. And then when I found out there was a comics class in Ateneo, I started sitting in, and he was like, “Oh it’s Elbert Or.” And I was like, “Yes, it’s me.” And so we had a lot of conversations and he got to know me and my work.

After a while he stopped teaching, and recommended me. I don’t know why. But he’s the one who got me into teaching comics.

I had been wanting to teach a comics production class. Or at least, at the back of my head I thought it was something that would be fun to do. So I took over, just like that. At the time I was teaching in the English department for one semester, because I was already pursuing my MA, and I realized that if I was a teacher there, I could get 15 percent off my tuition.

POC: What kind of stories do you want to tell in the future?

No idea. I have the attention span of a six-year-old. So every day I wake up there’s always a new story I want to tell. I’m working on [a new project called] Wake, and on Bakemono High [compilations].

The nice thing about working and teaching in Ateneo (or even just at the weekly comics workshop in Katipunan) is it forces me to not be complacent. Like with the workshop, for instance I see we have a new indie, and I think “I have to beat that.” The nice thing about it is that it for me offers a healthy level of competition--or not competition, more like a barometer, or a benchmark.  If I’m in the workshop, I see that this is what the other creative people in my life are doing, and there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be able to do that.

I’m at the point where I’ve spent much of my early years helping other people find, or at least try to fulfill their goals. I’ve spent so much time, and I still spend time, giving people opportunities that I felt I didn’t have access to when I was starting out. Even with the workshop--which started out as me trying to help Harvey King form a sustainable comics-centric organization--or with the people who come to the workshop because I want to see them make comics, or tell stories that I’d want to read.

I’m getting to the point where I want to be able to do the things that I want to do. Which sounds selfish, but I’m at the point where I think I can afford to be selfish. Comics isn’t a cottage industry anymore. Somehow, somewhere along the way, through my own experiences with comics and publishing, me sitting in on so many consultancy meetings, where people will treat me to dinner and tell me their dreams, and they’ll say, “You know what the problem is with the Philippine comics industry—I know how to save it!”--And they won’t save it, because their ideas have been tried before. Part of why they fail is it takes a lot of resources. And inevitably they fall prey to lack of proper planning and then suddenly they’ll be surprised that it’s actually difficult to distribute comics. Or that it’s expensive to publish books. Or that it’s hard to find advertisers. Or it’s hard to deal with artists sometimes. There are a lot of problems.

But the nice thing nowadays is that you have people who are approaching these problems from various fronts in the hopes that one of their ideas will work. Gilbert Monsanto makes it a point to make sure that all of his artists are well compensated. Gerry Alanguilan doesn’t care, as long as the comics are of good quality – comics that you’ll want to buy and make love to. You have Blue Cow, the publishers of Private Iris, which applies business acumen. They’ve even tied up with Max’s restaurant so you can have a Private Iris-themed party, and you’ll have a Private Iris mascot and merchandise. They even have their own animated show which they screen in-school tours. That’s made of win. They’re a multimedia empire. Some are approaching it from a marketing standpoint. You have Espresso Comics which is being published by the Tale Craft people. Their model is you make 18 to 22 pages of comics, to be published weekly or monthly, and their revenue is ad-driven so as a creator you get compensated P10,000 per story.

Surely, hopefully, one of these will stick.

POC: Any advice for people who want to make comics?

Quit! You’ll go hungry (no, not really).

For aspiring creators I’m not sure that I have actual Tuesdays with Morrie kind of advice for that. I did in the past, but I’m also at the point where I feel that if you really want to do it—and I guess the encouragement is—if you really want to do it, there’s no shortage of opportunities, financial or otherwise.

The Internet removes any excuse not to make comics. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be pursuing comics if that’s really what you want, because you can network with people, you can publish yourself, you can show people you have the discipline to finish it.  If they’re easily discouraged, then it’s probably not for them. I’m at the point where that’s how I feel about it. For instance, if you’re someone who continually has to be hugged and patted on the back, who needs to hear people say, “Keep at it, girl! You can be a comics creator!” then it’s probably not for you. I have no patience for that.

The Filipino comics community is very open and very helpful. We’re very social creatures. We’re also very shy and diplomatic, so we won’t outright say, “Stop talking to me, you’re invading my private space!” If you really want, you can just introduce yourself to people and they won't say anything bad about it to your face.

If you really want to make comics, there’s no shortage of opportunity to learn and go about it. You can just ask your favorite comic book creators how they do it; you can get yourself published just by showing good work; you can publish yourself on the Internet even, so you can gain a following first so that when you pursue a publisher you can say, “Look I have 5,000 readers every day!”

That’s a lot of opportunities. But the thing is--the important thing is--you have to make comics.

I’m willing to bet that 70 percent of aspiring creators are content to just aspire… they just sit and think that they’d like the feeling of having been published, but they’re not willing to do the work that it takes to get there. And that’s the sad thing, that’s the horrible thing and after seven years in comics that’s the thing I have no more patience for at all.

If you really want to, there are opportunities. The thing you have to do, is to work at it. To tell the stories you need to tell, to write the stories that you need to write, to art the art that you need to art.