Anthology: Buhay Ang Baston! ~ The 1st Philippine 24-Hour Comic Book Challenge

Created by: Jamie Bautista, Jonas Diego, Rex Espino, Jac Ting Lim and Elbert Or

Edited by: Jean Paul C. Zialcita and Niña Rica Marie L. Terol

Nautilus Comics

(4.4/5 ★★★★☆)

"Five Creators.

Twenty-Four Pages.

One Day.

"The creators whose work you see here should be applauded, not just for the stories they created but for their dedication. They chose not just to participate in culture by creating the comics but also to honor their culture and traditions with their topics. On top of all that, they chose to work against a clock, to create the risk of not just artistic failure but of failing to meet the 24 hour challenge. Even an artist who fails the challenge should be applauded for taking the risk, because it's only through taking risks that success can be found." - Nat Gertler, from the Foreword"

The Good:

The five stories did a great job of incorporating the Kali and/or Arnis in every story. We were given some good action sequences, a nearly silent comic, a love story, a revenge story and a cultural awareness themed story.

The best among the five would be Tiwalag by Elbert Or. Given the circumstance wherein this comic was made, under the pressure of 24 hours, it was really well executed. A very short insight of our history, a legend regarding a dragon and the bakunawa, and a critical view of the cultural identity of Filipinos was told very easily in 4 parts before weaving it all together to present to us a great story.

The Bad:

The story that didn't do well was the 1st story, Galera. The fight scenes of this story were great and very detailed compared to the action scenes of the other stories. However, the story might not get the interest much of the reader for reasons such as; what was the purpose of the octopus? Is it often sent by the sea princess or queen to attack people on land?

The Arnisadora story, whose dialogues were no longer finished being written due to time constraints, might have worked better if it was presented completely as a wordless comic book. The story would probably do better without the initial dialogues that had been written. A detailed illustration of the expressions of the characters might have been a better way of telling the story.

There was some bad editing regarding the placement of the 1st Snapshot segment in this anthology. Its placement destroys the climactic fight scenes of the Galera story.

A typo was also left uncorrected on the foreword of this anthology.

The Verdict:

Buhay Ang Baston proudly shows the results of the 1st Philippine 24-hour comic book challenge. It gives recognition to the artistic competency of the five challengers who emulated the Filipino martial arts of Kali and Arnis into their stories.

They further proved that fighting with sticks will always be an interesting story to tell.

"What we do is bring out things that have been waylaid over time. Stories that have been forgotten.

What we do is bring them out in the open, show people what we once were, what we still can be."

* Breakdown of Rating:

★☆☆☆☆ -

★★☆☆☆ - 

★★★☆☆ - Galera

★★★★☆ - Arnisadora

★★★★★ - Kali Island, Ang Huling Laban, Tiwalag