Comics: Pepe: The Lost Years of Rizal ~ Book 1

BIC0007
Story by: Ron Mendoza

Illustrated by: Arnold Renia Cruz

Black Ink Comics
(3/5 ★★★☆☆)

"Jose Rizal - or Pepe as a young boy - while lost in a forest, meets a mysterious old hermit who gives him a pendant. The pendant turns out to be a magically powerful amulet which could grant him all his wishes and could give him anything he wants - even his country's freedom from Spain.

There is only one problem: the governor-general is also looking for the said amulet, intending to use it to shackle the Filipinos more - and make him the most powerful man on earth."

This is an interesting fictional historical book. It tells of Jose Rizal's supposedly unknown adventures when he was still a young boy. So far the first book was an interesting start. It has been a good introductory story. The thing that I noticed most with this comic was its art. In my opinion it seems some of the expressions made by different characters seemed inappropriate for each given situation. Most of them were smiling in the face of a serious situation. I know that Filipinos are known to be seen to still be smiling despite being faced with great problems, its just that when faced with a life and death situation I don't think you'll find yourself smiling that much. This is evident on the 2nd frame of page 16 wherein after being held up at gunpoint most especially by a Spaniard, in which he'd be the last person you would still be able to smile even if he has a gun pointed at your face. In the next scenario that I noticed, I could say that maybe in here one can still manage to smile despite the given situation. This scenario can be seen on the 3rd panel of page 40, regarding the character of Jose Rizal's Ate Neneng. Another descrepancy regarding emotions can be seen on the 3rd panel of page 46. It is regarding the narration which says that Pepe, the young Jose Rizal, didn't feel any tiredness. But from the looks of the art which tells otherwise. It can be seen that Pepe has that tired expression on his face. Well those are just bits of my view regarding the art.

In general, the story from the first book attracts readers due to the fictional fantasy that has happened to Pepe. I just hope that the layout artist would do a better job or at least the publisher tries to see the final layout of the book before it gets printed. It is a shame that parts of the book, both the illustration and texts, are not easily seen due to way it was laid out. Hope that these won't be encountered in the rest of the books.

Note: Images were taken from the internet.

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