Trese 5, one of Inquirer's Top 10 Books of 2012

Inquirer's Ruel de Vera wrote: ‘Trese 5: Midnight Tribunal,’ by Budjette Tan, illustrated by Kajo Baldisimo. (Visprint, Inc) The single best ongoing Filipino comic-book series continues to impress and terrify. Paranormal investigator Alexandra Trese is challenged by new cases that expand on and shake the spooky natural order of “Trese”—plus, an unexpectedly effective villain is added to the menacing mix. Here in this fifth volume are Tan and Baldisimo doing what they do best.

Read the complete list at: http://lifestyle.inquirer.net/83535/top-10-books-of-the-year

Forbidden Planet reviews TRESE

Trese – dark mysteries on the streets of Manilla
a review by Richard Bruton

Trese is a supernatural series starring a female investigator who steps in to protect the streets of Manilla when the police can’t deal with the supernatural weirdness that appears. Produced by Budjette Tan and Kajo Baldisimo, this Filipino book does so much right it’s practically scandalous we haven’t heard more about it here in the UK.

...Trese is definitely from the same mold as Hellblazer, just as it’s writer Budjette Tan is channelling equal parts Jamie Delano and Warren Ellis and artist Kajo Baldisimo does some impressive black and white work somewhere on a scale of Frank Miller and Eduardo Risso. But there’s a lot of other influences in there as well – is it just my prejudices or can I see Alan Davis as well?

But the most important thing is that it’s a very impressive take on the whole mysterious magical investigator. Its’ a very original take on an old genre idea. A hugely entertaining series of 13 stories across the 3 volumes.

READ THE COMPLETE REVIEW AT:
http://forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog/2011/trese-dark-mysteries-on-the-streets-of-manilla/

Trese in Spot.ph TOP 10 PINOY BOOKS OF 2010

The 10 Best Pinoy Books of 2010 You Should Read—and Give Away
http://www.spot.ph/top-list/47219/top-10-books-by-pinoy-authors/1


As 2010 comes to a close, SPOT.ph asked Andrea Pasion-Flores, executive director of the National Book Development Board and herself an author and fictionist, to pick the most noteworthy Pinoy reads released this year that were penned by some of the most creative and controversial storytellers of our time. Check out the page-turners that deserve a place on your bookshelf--or under the Christmas tree.

CSI meets kapres, duwendes, tikbalangs and other mythical creatures of the Philippine underworld in Trese. Tan and Baldismo have created a series just as suspenseful and entertaining with strange murder suspects and a girl-sleuth named Alexandra Trese and her aswang sidekicks. Set in contemporary Metro Manila, the crimes are horrendous, with no violence, blood, or gore spared, and depicted in black-and-white illustration that show unearthly crime in all its gruesome glory. Would you believe this graphic lit series won a National Book Award? It’s that good.

Spot.ph recommends TRESE

Here's a list from SPOT.PH on 20 Hottest Books to Give Away this Christmas and they were nice enough to include TRESE and Manix Abrera's KIKOMACHINE!
http://www.spot.ph/gallery/684/20-Hottest-Books-to-Give-Away-this-Christmas/article/47064#pid=8838

Sunday Inquirer reviews UNDERPASS

“Underpass” by various creators (Summit Media)
A CHILLING journey to the dark, hidden places we fear, “Underpass” is a comic book anthology featuring four well-crafted horror stories.


In “SIM,” Gerry Alanguilan shows just how much can go wrong when one picks up a discarded SIM card in a jeepney. Betrayal comes in many colors in “Judas Kiss,” a tale from David Hontiveros, Budjette Tan and Oliver Pulumbarit. There is a magnetic quality to the violence found in Hontiveros’ and Ian Sta. Maria’s “Katumbas.” Vanity and fame come at a pretty price in “The Clinic,” from Tan and Kajo Baldisimo. “Underpass” is a sidetrip worth your attention as it is both disturbing and amazing. 

Read the other titles recommended by the Sunday Inquirer at:
http://showbizandstyle.inquirer.net/sim/sim/view/20100424-266190/Booking_Passage 

You can also read the complete story of THE CLINIC at:
http://tresekomix.blogspot.com/2010/01/down-other-dark-corridor-clinic.html

For more preview UNDERPASS pages, click the link below
http://www.summitgraphicnovels.com.ph/

TRESE in Karavan

I got this in the mail a couple of weeks ago. It still feels great to receive snail mail; to see a package on your desk with stamps from far away countries, to wonder what might be inside the envelope and hope it's not a bomb or an ancient curse passed on to you.

KARAVAN is literary magazine published in Sweden. One of their writers thought of doing a short review about Trese and here it is:



Many thanks to Anna Gustafsson Chen, who originally reviewed TRESE in her blog:
http://baodaobooks.blogspot.com/2009/08/trese-gothic-horror-fast-fran.html



KARAVAN http://www.karavan.se/
a literary magazine that travels between cultures

down the other dark corridor: WAKING THE DEAD

I’ve been looking forward to this horror anthology from Yvette Tan.

I first read her works in the pages of Rogue magazine. As I read her stories, I’d muttered “Hey! That’s my idea! Bad trip! She beat me to this plot!” Moments later, I’d burst out and say, “Bad trip! She did it better! Damn! That was great!” (Those two stories, “Boss, Ex” and “Seek Ye Whore” are included in the book.)

Ruel de Vera recently reviewed the book:

EYES wide with wonder and flushed with fear, the individuals at the dark heart of Yvette Tan’s stories are unsuspecting people suddenly touched by an inexplicable yet irresistible phenomenon – just like the readers who gingerly approach Tan’s first collection, “Waking the Dead and Other Horror Stories” (Anvil Publishing, Inc., Pasig City, 2009).

That is because Tan has laced her 10 precision-machined stories with elements of horror which are neither contrived nor telegraphed. She takes the mundane and turns it into something menacing.

The first story, “The Child Abandoned,” exemplifies Tan’s approach. Set in Quiapo, the tale centers on the unusual child Teresa, who seems to have an eerie connection with the despoiled Pasig River and the profound change the Pasig undergoes. While it was not obvious at first, the events in this story are the lynchpin of the collection, essentially making the others possible.

“The Bridge” takes that conceit even further, taking a political figure called Madame and the bridge she built at San Juanico into decidedly darker territory: “The presence rode the air, slithered past me, whispered in my ear. It was all I could do, not to bat it away, to run screaming from the room. I could feel my heart beating fast in my chest. I have always been comfortable with my abilities, never been afraid of the beings I could see and hear and feel, until now. I knew what an enkantada was, and a duwende and a kapre. I did not know what was in the room with me.”

Tan’s narrators and protagonists are mostly young yet transcendent, and perhaps the most fascinating thing about “Waking” is how all of Tan’s stories seem to occur in the same parallel Philippines: “Making one’s way through a Quiapo crowd is never easy, especially today. At one point, I found myself in the arms of a tikbalang. Legend has it that before the saint gave life back to the river, the city belonged only to humans. Sta. Teresa’s miracle had opened the doors for the folk of the Other Country… until Quiapo became a melting pot for different species.”

Tan’s stories rise like the enchanted river to meet their readers, the words like brackish water suddenly turning clear. Something is awakened in this book, an irresistible trap of terror and talent from Yvette Tan, whose seductively scary stories will make readers glad they acquiesced when offered this fateful bargain: “Drink, and your eyes will be opened.”

Anvil Publishing will launch “Waking the Dead and Other Stories” by Yvette Tan at 4 p.m. on Aug. 15, 2009, at PowerBooks, SM Megamall.

READ THE COMPLETE REVIEW AT:
http://showbizandstyle.inquirer.net/lifestyle/lifestyle/view/20090810-219533/Dead-and-loving-it

TRESE in Supreme/Phil.Star

Lucky 13
READ NOW By J. Vincent Sarabia Ong
Philippine Star, SUPREME, August 1, 2009
http://tr.im/v1r9

The number thirteen doesn’t need to be unlucky. This is true for Budjette Tan and Kajo Baldisimo’s comic book Trese that has gained an occult following and sold over 8,000 copies in Powerbooks alone. Trese follows the adventures of private investigator Alexandra Trese and his bodyguards, the Kambals, who investigate the not-so-friendly aswangs and tikbalangs in your neighborhood.

Although this column has already spotlighted Trese last October, I was able to catch up with its writer Budjette Tan in his National Book Development Board (NBDB) talk about his creature creations at Filipinas Heritage Library last Saturday. The number 13 has been good luck for its creator as Trese has goose-bumped its way into many readers’ nightmares. This includes being the first comic book to be reviewed by the NBDB. For those who missed the talk, Budjette revealed many things for fans to scream about, including clues about book 3. Enjoy the 13 sacred elemental facts about Trese below that will keep you up at night.

READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE AT:
http://komix101.blogspot.com/2009/08/trese-in-supremephilstar.html

TRESE reviewed in POC's Booklat

Aswangs turn noir in Trese, Written by Mighty Rasing

Through the efforts of Budjette Tan and other graphic artists and storytellers, a new generation of Filipinos is enjoying the recreation and fresh interpretation of Pinoy folklore and culture. It is considered Filipino speculative fiction at its best.

Even the best stories in Pinoy komiks can be buried like the proverbial needle in the haystack of pop culture with the dominance of imported comics such as Marvel and DC. That is, if local audiences will not patronize and buy locally written and produced comics. In Budjette Tan and Kajo Baldisimo’s Trese, however, another world-class product by Filipinos is waiting to burst into the mainstream comics scene.

READ THE COMPLETE REVIEW AT:
http://www.thepoc.net/index.php/Booklat/Booklat-Features/Aswangs-turn-noir-in-Trese.html

TRESE (The Sunday Inquirer Review)

“Trese: Unreported Murders” is the second volume of the “Trese” series written by Budjette Tan and drawn by Kajo Baldisimo. What readers have to understand is that “Trese” is a set of four episodic stories featuring a “monster-of-the-week” plot, albeit one infused with local flavor and mythology.

Tan’s protagonist is a heroine who investigates supernatural events. The writer doesn’t explain much in terms of character but dives immediately into the action. What stands out is Kajo’s artwork.

At its best, “Trese” is unparalleled when it comes to the interplay of black and white. Kajo has a unique style that easily compensates for his lack in other areas, such as backgrounds. There’s a certain tension and terror in the artist’s technique that makes this a perfect title for the medium.

READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE AT:

http://showbizandstyle.inquirer.net/sim/sim/view/20090517-205449/Meanwhile-fresh-from-the-drawing-board

TRESE reviewed in COMICMIX

Thanks to Charles Tan, comic book reviewer and editor Andrew Wheeler got copies of Trese, Elmer, and Martial Law Babies and posted a review at: http://www.comicmix.com/news/2009/04/23/review-three-dispatches-from-the-philippines/

I think this was the first time TRESE got reviewed by a foreigner and it was interesting to see that the Filipino elements in the story didn't get in the way of the telling the tale. Here's the review:

Trese is an altogether more conventional series: it’s a contemporary dark fantasy with a nourish affect, both in art and story, about a young woman in Manila – Alexandra Trese – who’s called in by the police on supernatural cases. The plots are pretty standard for the genre, though Tan does tell them well, with a knack for tough dialogue and important confrontations.

But the art is gorgeously inky, with a sometimes scratchy intimacy and flow. And Alexandra Trese has a whole new world of supernatural entities to work with – vampires and werewolves and faeries and wendigos have been picked over for generations, but kambal and aswang, tikbalang and tiyanak, those are another story. Tan has an entirely different mythology to work with – one he and his original audience knows well, and which he explains just enough so that non-Filipinos can figure them out. But they’re still new and exciting, the way supernatural beings should be – they may have rules and restraints but we don’t know what those are.

So Alexandra Trese’s exploits are more exciting than even those of another tough female investigator with a mysterious past would be, even more intriguing than another story illustrated by Ka-Jo Baldismo would be. And these two volumes are already very good urban fantasy to begin with.

I won’t try to describe all of the stories here, but you know the general type – mysteries about the supernatural, with a heroine we slowly learn more about, a woman with a direct connection to these creatures herself…whatever the exact nature of that connection is. Tan tells those stories well, and Baldismo shows us that world, in black-and-white frames that look like a world illuminated by lightning.

TRESE in MANUAL

Book review: TRESE
Manual, December/January 2009 issue
RJ LEDESMA
http://rjledesma.net/

I hate Budjette Tan. Because he is living out my dream. No, no, not my dream of becoming a mutant porn star superhero millionaire. It's my other dream: To be a comic book writer. And, despite the fact that he has to struggle with a day job, Budjette still writes comic books.

READ THE COMPLETE REVIEW AT:
http://komix101.blogspot.com/2009/04/trese-reviews-in-manual-january-2009.html

TRESE in UNO

Trese in FREE PRESS

Where Adam David writes about his Best Books of 2009 for the Philippine Free Press (January 10, 2009)



TRESE By Budjette Tan and Kajo Baldisimo (Visprint)
A series of slick done-in-one stories, exactly like CSI, only it’s steeped in traditional Pinoy monsters and mythologies and the main protagonist is a goth chick with guns and emo hair. It’s a working off of the more common vein of action horror comic books and once you really read into it there is certainly a formula to the construction of the stories themselves. But Trese manages to rise above it all above it all by simply resorting to the most obvious thing: it spins us a good yarn page in page out. Tan and Baldisimo show us what can be done with formula, why formula work, how formula can work for you, all the while not making it seem like formula. Komikero all over should not only read this for the words and art but also study it for its craft as there is certainly craft at work here. There are currently two books out, both utterly smooth, available absolutely everywhere (with good reason).

TRESE reviewed by the Tres Komikeros

EJ, Alex, John have already produced and uploaded 12 episodes of their comic book review show. Really great that the guy decided to review TRESE in this episode. Many thanks!

Download the show at:
http://treskomikeros.wordpress.com/2008/12/05/tres-komikeros-14/

TRESE in Philippine Star

‘Trese’ comics are a worthy homage to Monsters, Mythology and Metro Manila.
by J. Vincent Sarabia Ong
Philippine Star : SUPREME

The spell both Budjette and his partner Kajo cast comes not from their influences mentioned in past interviews like the comic book “Planetary” or “Twilight Zone” but rather from Neil Gaiman’s “Sandman.” The heroine Trese calmly interrogates a rich dragon man who is heir to a Chinese mall empire and in another panel seeks help from a Quiapo merchant who can talk to cats. The world of “Trese” is a place where you must suspend your disbelief and accept that crime has taken a weird turn as the authors describe it.

Read the complete review at:
http://supreme.ph/2008/11/01/trese-a-haunting-homage/

Trese in FHM

No... it's not what you think.

Trese did not appear in the nude.

Trese also did not allow herself to be interviewed (but I think the Kambal were more than willing to attend the Jean Garcia photo shoot).

In the October issue of FHM, Marc Laurenze put together a Halloween alphabet of sorts and Trese was featured under the letter "U" for Underworld.

Thanks Marc!

TRESE (The Inquirer Review)

Spook Out Sister By Ruel S. De Vera / Philippine Daily Inquirer
READ THE COMPLETE REVIEW AT: http://showbizandstyle.inquirer.net/you/expressions/view/20080425-132699/Spook-Out-Sister

“My name is Alexandra Trese. I am nothing like my father.” Her father Anton dabbled in affairs mystical and mysterious; she—called “Little Trese” fondly and otherwise—has inherited his gift for the eerily unorthodox, with a difference. It is to her that Manila’s police turn when a crime scene confounds them, because there is no one like Alexandra Trese.

Stepping resolutely apart from the crowd of the commonplace, “Trese: Murder on Balete Drive” by Budjette Tan and KaJo Baldisimo (Visual Print Enterprises, Pasay City, 2008, 100 pages) is a graphic novel that stands apart from what has come before.

....

Tan provides a suitably street-level feel to the dark happenings, producing plots that feel like Warren Ellis’ Planetary, Mike Mignola’s Hellboy and Chris Carter’s The X-Files all melded together and contained in a fully realized Metro Manila avatar. “That will be the least of your problems,” the fascinating Alexandra Trese barks. “As the universe seeks balance, so does the underworld.” Full of sharp characterization and suspenseful revelations, “Trese” is clearly Tan’s best work, a transcendent product of modern spookiness.



There are some creations that really are better in black-and-white, and “Trese” is one of them. Baldisimo’s moody art, full of negative space, speed lines, a black grid and sharp angles, enthralls the reader.

.....

The elements present in the fortuneteller’s brew that is “Trese” are not new, but the seamless communion of Tan and Baldisimo’s talents imbues “Murder” with a palpable energy. Every few years, a completed Filipino-crafted graphic novel emerges from the mist to take its place among the work of greats such as Mars Ravelo and the Redondo brothers: Gerry Alanguilan’s “Wasted,” Arnold Arre’s “The Mythology Class” and Carlo Vergara’s “Ang Kagila-gilalas na Pakikipagsapalaran ni Zsazsa Zaturnnah,” in particular.

With a subtle glint of eldritch metal and a mystery woman’s steely relentlessness, “Trese: Murder on Balete Drive” by Budjette Tan and KaJo Baldisimo joins that potent pantheon, something that emerged burning brilliantly from the shadowy streets we assumed we knew so well.



TRESE: MURDER ON BALETE DRIVE
Budjette Tan & KaJo Baldisimo
Published by: Visual Print Enterprises
ISBN: 971-92574-7-4
B&W comic book
SRP: P140.00

Now available in Comic Quest, Comic Odyssey, National Bookstore, Powerbooks, Fully Booked, and Pandayan Books.

TRESE can also be ordered via the National Bookstore website. Click on the link below:
http://nationalbookstore.com/shop/products.asp?merchant_code=NBS&categ=95&product=19157