Philippine Comic Book The Filipino
©2004 the Estate of Alfredo Alacala.
60 CBA V.2 #4
There is a wonderful word, much beloved of comic-book pros, to describe obsessive line-work and cross-hatching: noodling. The undoubted kings of noodling were the Filipino artists who first entered the U.S. culture in 1971, led by Tony DeZuñiga. As has been the case with other influxes of artists — such as the South American, Spanish and British invasions — U.S. fans have long seemed unsure what to make of them. Were they merely cheap labor, or a safeguard against a possibly militant artist guild? Alternatively, were they rather a supremely talented — and quick — band of artists who would bring something new to an increasingly diverse comics scene? I would prefer to believe the latter option, but there is every possibility that all three could be true. The pioneering Tony DeZuñiga, the first Filipino to break into the American market, must have been extraordinarily visionary to travel to a foreign country, with a culture entirely alien to his own, to present his work to DC Comics. Luckily for him — and us — DC boss Carmine Infantino and editor Joe Orlando were perceptive enough to see the possibilities in his work. His first assignment, inking Ric Estrada on a romance story for Girls’ Love Stories #153, duly appeared in the summer of 1970. Within a year, DeZuñiga had branched out into other titles and genres, such as House of Mystery, All-Star Western, and The Phantom Stranger, and his new assistant, Ernie (Chua) Chan, was also beginning to get romance assignments. When Infantino and Orlando traveled to the Philippines in 1971 and discovered Nestor Redondo, the floodgates opened. Through DeZuñiga and Redondo, we first saw strips by Alex Niño in July 1972, soon followed by Gerry Talaoc, Vic Catan, Alfredo Alcala, Fred Carrillo, and many more. What the Filipinos shared was a good, solid and usually (Niño excepted) conven-
tional approach to storytelling, exceptional draftsmanship, and exuberant, florid brushwork which harked back to the golden years of magazine illustration in the first few decades of the 20th Century. Interestingly, DC were quite selective in who they used, ignoring excellent Redondo-esque artists such as Federico Javinal and Rading Sabater in favor of quirkier, more individualistic artists like Niño, Alcala and Ruben Yandoc. Once they saw how the Filipinos had transformed DC’s mystery titles, other companies came calling — principally Pendulum Books, which used Nestor Redondo to recruit artists for their new Classics line (1973-79), and Marvel Comics. Marvel needed illustrators for their black-&-white mags, and picked up DeZuñiga and his stable of artists. Some of these, such as Rudy Nebres and Ernie Chan (then using the name Chua), soon moved on to their color books. By the end of the decade, Warren Publishing also began to recruit a large number of Filipinos, resulting in a talent drain from the big two which precipitated a second wave of immigrants, including Romeo Tanghal, Adrian Gonzalez, and Danny Bulanadi. However, 1982 proved to be something of a watershed for the movement, when both Warren and DC cancelled their horror lines. Mainstream editors had always seemed reluctant to try out the Filipinos on their super-hero books, relegating them to the commercial margins on horror, Western and sword-&-sorcery titles, but as the ’80s progressed and those genres were snuffed out one by one, the foreign artists either had to adapt to the mainstream or move elsewhere. One result was a mass exodus to Hollywood and the animation factories, where they at least had the comfort of higher pay. Those who stayed behind, including Tanghal and Bulanadi, enjoyed steady work as inkers but there seemed little
TOP: A fascinating — and gorgeous — one-shot we heartily recommend folks to seek out is Magic Carpet #1, published by Bud Plant in 1977, which features spectacular artwork by the legendary Alfredo Alcala. Voltar was a sword-&-sorcery character Alfredo originally created in the Philippines, which also appeared in The Rook #2-9.