to 1993
Philippine Komiks
Kenkoy was enthusiastically received by a large readership, as it eventually was translated into four other vernacular languages (besides Tagalog) for use in Roces’ magazines Bannawag, Bisaya, Hiligaynon, and Bikolnon and was made the subject of a song, “Ay, Naku, Kenkoy!” composed by Nicando Abelardo, a poem “Pagpapakilala, Ay Introdius yu Mister Kenkoy,” by Huseng Batute, movies, and komiks. Velasquez said a plan to take Kenkoy into animation failed, recalling, “There was a producer way back in 1946 who came to me. He worked with Walt Disney. He said he knew all the tricks to the trade and told me to make a full-length script of Kenkoy. I did and he paid me. I waited for weeks and weeks. He returned the script to me and said it was too expensive to do. I said, ‘I’m not going to return the P5,000 you paid me.’ My idea was to have Kenkoy in animation, but unfortunately, it failed.” In some ways, Kenkoy was a satire on the 1920s’ trend to rapidly Americanize the Philippines. Carrying a ukelele, sporting a Valentino hairdo and bell bottoms, and mouthing English slang like “okedokey,” or “wait a minute” with a Filipino twist, Kenkoy was, in the words of noted komiks creator Nonoy Marcelo, “a ludicrous portrait of the Filipino… pathetically trying but barely succeeding in keeping up with his American mentors.” To Velasquez’s way of thinking, however, the character was Filipino, conceived in the Philippines without outside influences. When I relayed one writer’s feeling that Mickey Mouse was the inspiration for Kenkoy because of some similarities in appearances, Velasquez reacted strongly: “It’s not patterned after anyone. In fact, I had not seen his [Walt Disney’s] Mickey Mouse when I created my Kenkoy. He was in the United States; I was in the Philippines. I beat him [Disney]; he went abroad [died], I’m still alive.” Roces was quick to add another strip to Liwayway and Velasquez’s workload, Ponyang Halobaybay. Ponyang’s stylish clothing set fashion trends in the Philippines, much as some comic strips of the 1920s were said to have done in the U.S. By the 1930s, Velasquez was an extremely busy man. In 1935, he was made chief advertising artist for Roces’ six magazines, pioneering in the use of cartoons in advertising with a slew of characters — Isko for Esco shoes, Nars Cafi for Cafiaspirina, Castor for Botica Castoria, Charity for Philippine Charity Sweepstakes, etc. He also introduced new characters to Kenkoy, which became separate strips, such as Kenkoy’s parents, Mang Teroy and Aling Matsay, his girlfriend Rosing, his archrival Tirso, the neighborhood dimwit Nanong Pandak, his children, and the adopted Tsikiting Gubat, a clever, non-verbal child who never wore pants. Others were Tinyente Dikyam, Dr. Wakwak, Saring Bulilit (published in Liwayway Extra), and Detektib Bembo in Hiwaga magazine.
by john. a lent
Strips proliferated in the 1930s, most published in magazines and some modeling themselves after prominent American funnies. For example, Francisco Reyes’ Kulafu, created in 1933 as an adventure strip in Liwayway, owed much to Tarzan, and Procopio Borromeo’s Goyo at Kikay was said to imitate Bringing Up Father. In the mid-1930s, Jose Zabala Santos introduced four characters to Sampaguita magazine – Titina, the Popeye-like Lukas Malakas, Sianong Sano, and Popoy, and two years later, 15-year-old Francisco V. Coching created Bing Bigotilyo in Silahis magazine. J. M. Perez contributed two popular strips to Liwayway in the early 1930s: Abilitat sa Akong, about a Chinese corner store proprietor, and Si Pamboy at si Osang, featuring a henpecked husband and his nagging wife. Abilitat sa Akong was unique in that it carried one panel twice as big as the others and independent of the main story in the episode. Kenkoy alone among the funnies survived throughout the Japanese
ABOVE: 1970 Nestor Redondo cover painting for one of his CRAF Publications komiks. Courtesy of Manuel Auad. ©2004 the Estate of Nestor Redondo.
75 CBA V.2 #4