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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Comics: Ten Grand ~ Issue 1: Blood Oath

Story by: J. Michael Straczynski

Illustrated by: Ben Templesmith
Rated: M / Mature

Joe's Comics
Image Comics

(5/5 ★★★★★)

(Cover B by Bill Sienkiewicz)

"Love is the only thing worth dying for. I should know. I've done it plenty of times." - Joe Fitzgerald

This is the first time I grabbed and bought an american comic. I just discovered Ten Grand thru Budjette Tan's instagram post in which he said interesting comments about it. As I have read from the website of Joe's Comics at www.studiojms.com Ten Grand is said to be the return of Joe's Comics after a long time. So far with the first issue, I could say that this is indeed a great material for the comeback of Joe's Comics.

The story begins with Joe Fitzgerald's memory of Laura. I can say that this scene was the one that I find it really funny, since the scene mentions that he dreams of Laura being beautiful. However, in my opinion she is being portrayed to be a bit different by having a chubby face that goes with a thin arms. I could say Debbie, a character introduced on the 3rd page, looked to be more beautiful than Laura. But it could be anybody's point of view. Well at least they had drawn Laura beautifully somewhere in the middle of the comic. From the looks of the story, I find myself looking at a few comparisons with other comics thru Ten Grand. First, it reminded me of Trese, the comic book created by Budjette Tan and Kajo Baldisimo, due to Lenny's that looked a bit liked the Diabolical in some way since the main character mostly stays there. Then, there's the odd jobs that both of them do, in which they usually handle paranormal cases. It is somehow the same, the only difference here is that Alexandra does it as guardian to her city, while Joe does it for him to be able to see Laura once more. The first issue already gave a great intro of how the world of Joe seems to be. It may even feel that Joe's character is the same with John from the movie Constantine. Now with the art, there are a few funny sketches like the previous one that I mentioned regarding Laura. Another one that is still about her is in the preview of a scene / cover of the 2nd issue of the comic. The art shows Joe and Laura hugging each other tightly, in which I find it funny to see Laura being drawn with a huge right hand. In addition to the story and the art, surprisingly the comic also comes with an audio version. It is an interesting and a new experience wherein one can just listen to the audio while reading the story by just looking at the illustrations of the comic.

As much as I would go on narrating different scenes from the comic. I'd rather suggest and encourage you to go on and buy a copy of this comic. With its great story combined by its dark and a bit of strange looking illustrations, I'm pretty sure you'll look forward for the rest of the issues of Ten Grand.

Note: Some of the images were taken from the net, while the others were just a photo from my copy since I couldn't find them uploaded on the internet.

More of Ten Grand can be seen at:

Joe's Comics: www.studiojms.com

Image Comics, Inc.: www.imagecomics.com