a toast to the new year

Here's to your new year.
May you find the road that will bring you further;
discover the path that will bring you answers;
find the one that will bring you home.

Alexandra vs Ketsana

This is our contribution to the Renaissance project -- the benefit project organized by Whilce Portacio, Philip Tan, and Ernest Hernandez of Hobbylink.

Whilce recently did an interview with USA TODAY about the project / event which will happen on January 9, 2010 at the Megatrade Hall:

Whilce said, "We're working on an event right now called Renaissance. It's a charity auction that's going to be held on Jan. 9 that will provide money to some of these artists who have fallen on tough times. I got the top Filipino artists together to create pieces for this auction. Their mission was to create a Filipino superhero. I told them, 'You're world-class artists, make a character that kids in the Philippines can look up to, can be inspired by.' I want these kids to see artists creating heroes that look like them and that live and interact in local places that they recognize. It's a key part of establishing that sense of history, pride and legacy. If we can do that while providing support for artists in need, then we're accomplishing two worthy goals at the same time."

More details about the event in the coming weeks!

READ THE COMPLETE INTERVIEW AT:
Filipino comic book artists unite for heroic cause
By John Geddes, USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/life/comics/2009-12-14-filipino-artists-unite_N.htm

TRESE in Powerbooks.com.ph

You can now order the complete set of TRESE at
http://powerbooks.com.ph



Just click on the links below:

TRESE: MURDER ON BALETE DRIVE
http://powerbooks.com.ph/webinternal/products.asp?product_id=4204

TRESE: UNREPORTED MURDERS
http://powerbooks.com.ph/webinternal/products.asp?product_id=4770

TRESE: MASS MURDERS
http://powerbooks.com.ph/webinternal/products.asp?product_id=5049

down the other dark corridor: CONSTRUCTING "UNDERPASS"

A pedestrian walkway.
A SIM card.
A beauty clinic.

These and other ordinary things become more than what they seem in “Underpass”, a full-color graphic novel recently launched by Summit Media.

“Underpass” brings together such established names in the local comic book industry like Gerry Alanguilan, David Hontiveros, Oliver Pulumbarit, Ian Sta. Maria, Budjette Tan, and Kajo Baldisimo, who come up with urban legend for a new generation in stories like “The Sim”, “Katumbas”, “Judas Kiss”, and “The Clinic”.

“In a strange and twisted way, I hope it’ll bring back some wonder and sense of the fantastic in their lives,” Tan adds. “Technology has made the stuff of science fiction a reality. It’s not fantastic anymore. It’s just common place. We don’t see haunted-looking houses these days. We are surrounded by condos and high rises. Maybe we can take such things and make them mysterious.”

READ THE COMPLETE INTERVIEW AT:
http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/233564/a-sense-fantastic

Trese 1031

Read the complete TRESE: MASQUERADE at
http://tresekomix.blogspot.com/2011/01/trese-masquerade-complete-story.html

start them young

I got this text : Hey budj!! I'm in Bohol airport,sitting beside a pink-studded tweener. She's reading Trese instead of Twilight.

And that just made my day.

But I do wonder how Trese's younger readers are liking the book. Most of the people who email and blog about it are already in college or are already working.

Last Christmas, my boss bought TRESE for her nephews and nieces. The day after Christmas, she started getting text messages from her sister, saying, "Why did you give my kids this comic book? It's scary and violent!"

Couple of months ago, a similar thing happened. A friend got his kids copies of TRESE and I got a text about how his two boys were now sleeping in the same because they got scared after reading the book. It took that as a compliment.

At the recent comic book conventions, a 12-year old girl approached the table and asked for our autographs. Her mom was standing right behind her. The girl looked nervous. Her mom was smiling. I wasn't sure if I should've warned her about the contents of the book. I thought, "Hey! She bought it with parental consent, so it should be okay!"

So, far I have not received any complaints from parents about their kids running around pretending to be Trese and the Kambal; no complaints of kids trying to poke the eyeballs out of their friends in an attempt to cast a scrying spell.

Anyway, just wanted to remind you that, with Christmas closing in, I'd still highly recommend that you give your inaanak a complete set of TRESE, now available in your local bookstore and comic book shop.

when crimes takes a turn for the absurd...

Lydon Gregorio originally uploaded this story at:
http://beerkada.deviantart.com/





See more BEERKADA comic strips at:
http://www.beerkada.net/

Check out Lyndon's first Beerkada graphic novel!!!


GO BEERKADA
now available at
bookstores and
comic book stores

SkyLeague13 at Sputink

my FHM interview

Q&A with comic writer Budjette Tan
INTERVIEW BY: GELO GONZALES
October 18, 2009
http://www.fhm.com.ph/entertainment/interviews/article/1797/

Ever had a comic book to movie adaptation offer?
Trese has had an offer or two, but we’ve been holding them off because we wanted to finish book three. So maybe now it’s a good time to start talking to those guys again.

We’ve told people we made Trese episodic, so it might be good to adapt it to TV. The thing I’m worried about though is the production quality of our TV shows. A producer asked me once: “Wala bang love interest si Trese? Baka pwede naman natin siya bigyan ng boyfriend.” I told them I’d think about it. (Laughs)

Would you really compromise?
As long as it doesn’t involve giving our characters a talking cat or dog just because it’s cute, sure.

After Underpass, what’s next for you?
We’re hoping Underpass does really really well that readers will ask for more. Definitely, there’s more to the dark side of Manila and the Philippines to explore. So more of Underpass, we hope. And definitely more of Trese.

I would love to do a superhero book, given the chance to try again because I’ve been a big fan of the Avengers and the Justice League since I was little. It’s something I never really got to do. I’ve never been able to write specifically about guys in tight outfits hitting each other. It would be great to do a superhero comic book in the future.

If you could be any comic book superhero, who would you be?
Bruce Wayne, for his money and his great looks. (Laughs) But my high school answer would have been Martian Manhunter from the Justice League because he can turn invisible, read minds, change shape, is invulnerable, has laser vision, and heat vision. So he’s like Superman and Professor X combined. From Marvel, Wolverine is another favorite character, because he gets to say the stuff you can’t. He can get into trouble, and it doesn’t really matter because he can heal quickly. From any other book, Sandman comes to mind, but I don’t exactly want to be him, or someone from the Dreaming.

You can be Desire.
No! (laughs) I look more like Despair. So yeah, no. (Laughs)

How about a supervillain?
Good question, I’ve never though of that. I’m not too sure if I want to be Magneto or Doctor Doom because they’re like full of themselves. They really think that “I know the answer to life, and I will rule you…” That sort of thing.

I’d choose The Kingpin I think, because he was so powerful he’d just order villains around, and he was fat too. So I said, hey I could be this guy, I don’t have to learn karate, and I can just sit around and just order people around. He’s shrewd. He’s cunning, and the last thing he would do is get his hands dirty. He has everything set up around him.

READ THE COMPLETE INTERVIEW AT:
http://www.fhm.com.ph/entertainment/interviews/article/1797/
http://komix101.blogspot.com/2009/11/fhm-interview-budjette-tan.html

TRESE: nominated for the Madrigal-Gonzalez Award

UP ICW ANNOUNCES BEST FIRST BOOK NOMINEES FOR 2009
by Arvin Abejo Mangohig

The UP Institute of Creative Writing and the Madrigal-Gonzalez family are pleased to announce the nominees for the Madrigal-Gonzalez Best First Book Award for 2009. The nominees are: The Proxy Eros by Mookie Katigbak, Stories From Another Time by Benjamin Bautista, Antisipasyon by Victor Dennis T. Nierva , The El Bimbo Variations by Adam David , Girl Trouble by Alan Navarra, Trese: Murder on Balete Drive by Budjette Tan and Kajo Baldisimo, I Hate My Mother by Perpilili Vivienne Tiongson and Playing It Safe by Gerry T. Los Baños.

This year's selection mirrors the changing landscape of Philippine literature as it includes the bestselling graphic novel Trese, a collaboration between Tan and Baldisimo—a possibly controversial inclusion among purist circles.

READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE AT:

http://panitikan.com.ph/newsarchive/monthly/november2009.htm#bestfirst

far away, so close

The 2008 National Book Awards was held last Saturday night at the Ayala Museum.
TRESE: UNREPORTED MURDERS was the only nominee in its category.

We did not win.

We did not get the unanimous vote of the judges.

We did get to bring home some nifty certificates of recognition that say TRESE is the Finalist for the Best Book in Graphic Literature category.



Below: Kajo, my partner-in-crime; Nida, our publisher and willing accomplice; and me



We keep on writing.

We keep on drawing.

We try again next year.



thanks to Wella for the pictures and for being there

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

TRESE: Happy Halloween 2009

As of this writing TRESE: MASS MURDERS is now available in Comic Odyssey, Robinsons Galleria & Ermita, Powerbooks, and Pandayan Bookstores. It will be available in bookstores and other comic book shops by next week and will be available nationwide by the end of November.

While you wait for it to arrive in a store near you, here's a preview of the first chapter of the book.

Enjoy!

TRESE: MASS MURDERS 15-page preview
















More diabolical treats for you!

TRESE: The Devil's Playground
http://tresekomix.blogspot.com/2009/10/trese-devils-playground.html

TRESE: Masquerade (preview pages)
http://tresekomix.blogspot.com/2009/10/trese-gone-rogue.html

More TRESE art from Kajo:
http://exhibit13.blogspot.com/search/label/Kajo

TRESE: THE DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND

PAGE 1


PAGE 2


PAGE 3


PAGE 4


Happy Halloween!

This TRESE story was put together by the one-man production crew of Melvin Arciaga. I first met Melvin online at DeviantArt. He sent me a message, asking permission to cosplay Trese. I said yes and half-expected to see pictures of a girl wearing a trenchcoat taken in some dark alley. The pictures and scenes that Melvin later sent me just blew me away. (CLICK THIS LINK TO SEE THE PIX)

Couple of months ago, Melvin told me he'd like to do a four-page fumetti story featuring TRESE. He also made one request: his nephew Prince, a big Trese fan, wanted to appear in the story as an aswang. How could I say no to, probably, Trese's youngest fan. (Actually, he's a fan of the Kambal, according to Melvin.)

Anyway, this is just practice for Melvin, who's now gearing up to do a 200-page fumetti for his thesis. We've seen the preview art/pix and it looks great! Hope to eventually see that epic in some future Komikon!

Photographed and produced by MELVIN ARCIAGA
http://vinarci.deviantart.com/

TRESE : Gone Rogue

While you're all patiently waiting for TRESE: MASS MURDERS and UNDERPASS to be delivered to a bookstore near you, might I direct your attention to the lady black.



In the month's issue of ROGUE (with the bewitching Ornusa Cadness on the cover) you will find a brand new, 6-page TRESE mystery.

Kajo was busy working on Book3 and The Clinic when we got this assignment, so I was lucky enough to track down and dig up Mark Torres from his underground lair and convinced him to do this story with him. Mark had done a Trese pin-up before and we collaborated on another horror story (which has yet to see print), so I thought I already knew what kind of pages to expect from him.

You can image how blown away I was when he started to email me these pages featuring his new art style.





Aside from the Trese story, the issue also feature six haunted spots in Manila, as well as more pictures of Ms.Cadness. The October issue of ROGUE is now available in bookstores and magazine shops everywhere.

Read the complete TRESE:MASQUERADE at
http://tresekomix.blogspot.com/2011/01/trese-masquerade-complete-story.html

See more of Mark's art at:
http://mytymark.deviantart.com/

TRESE at the 2009 KOMIKON

During the 2005 Komikon, we launched the very first issue of TRESE. We sold that Xeroxed edition of TRESE: AT THE INTERSECTION OF BALETE AND 13TH STREET for P30.

Six hours after the gates of the Komikon had opened, we had already sold out all the copies of TRESE.

I excitedly texted family and friends that my comic book was sold out.

Great! Wonderful! Congrats! How many copies did you sell?, they all asked.

I replied : 50 copies!

In the recently concluded 2009 Komikon, we launched TRESE: MASS MURDERS.

Two hours after the gates had opened, we had already sold all the copies. I leaned over to Ella of Visprint to ask how many copies did they bring.

180 copies, she replied. That did not even include all the copies of TRESE Book1 & 2 that were sold.

So, if my 2009-version traveled back to talk to my 2005-version and told him we’d sell almost 1,000 copies in a single day, I would’ve probably told him he was insane!

Which would not have been surprising considering this whole TRESE experience started with an insane proposal from Kajo to do a monthly comic book.

I’m just more than happy that I was crazy enough to accept that challenge.

Another insane thing we experienced during the recent Komikon was soon after people bought the book, they started to text us about it. In just a couple of hours we were already getting reviews about the book. It was a strange, weird, and wonderful feeling to get such great feedback so quickly. People were already asking us when the fourth book is going to come out.

Actually, Kajo’s already bugging me to give me the script for Case #14. So, worry not, gentle reader, it might just all happen sooner than you think.

Before we get into all of that, we must say thanks to fantastic Team KOMIKON for putting together another successful event. (And thank God you finally decided to hold it in an airconditioned venue! Thank you very much!) Thanks to Nida and the Visprint crew for patiently waiting for us to finish the third TRESE book. Thanks to everyone who prepaid for the book and to everyone who bought the book (and multiple copies of it) at the event. We apologize to the ones whose names we misspelled (and forgot) as we signed your copies of the book.

Thank you very much! And let me just repeat what I said in the afterword of the book: that Book3 is definitely NOT the last Trese book. Believe me, we’ve got MORE stories to tell.

TRESE: MASS MURDERS should be in most Manila bookstores & comic book stores by first week of November and it should be in most stores nationwide by the end of November.

As always, if you can’t find copies of TRESE in your local bookstore, then just go to the Customer Service Desk and tell them to order you a copy. Give them the following info, so they can easily find the title in their system :

TRESE: MASS MURDERS
Published by Visprint
Authors: Budjette Tan & KaJo Baldisimo
ISBN: 971-94569-0-6

160-pages, black-and-white, P200

More about the other highlights of the Komikon in the coming days!

TRESE: MASS MURDERS

12 midnight at Metro Manila.

Try to remain calm if you suddenly spot a tikbalang speeding down EDSA or a manananggal swooping across the Makati skyline. While partying at the Fort, never ever let the enkanto at the bar buy you a drink.

Yet, there are deadlier things than walk the streets of this city.

One of them now demands blood and sacrifice.

When crime takes a turn for a weird, the police call Trese.

TRESE: MASS MURDERS contains the following:
Case 9: A Private Retaliation
Case 10: Patient 414 in Mandaluyong
Case 11: The Fort Bonifacio Massacre
Case 12: The Baptism of Alexandra Trese
Case 13: An Act of War

This book has an introduction by Mark Gatela, who was my co-writer in that horror radio show "The World of the Unknown". Mark was the one who thought of the name Anton Trese, so I thought it was only appropriate for Mark to do the intro to the volume where we all finally meet Anton Trese.

The backmatter of the book has more sketches from Kajo; more Exhibit 13 art from fans, friends, artists, and cosplayers; a note from Neil Gaiman; and my original pitch to Kajo on what "Trese" was going to be about.

This 160-page, black-and-white graphic novel retails at Php 200.00.

TRESE: MASS MURDERS
Published by Visprint
Authors: Budjette Tan & KaJo Baldisimo
ISBN: 971-94569-0-6

Now available at : Comic Odyssey, Robinsons Galleria & Ermita, Powerbooks, and Pandayan Bookstores, National Bookstore and Fully Booked.

READ THE 15-PAGE PREVIEW AT:
http://tresekomix.blogspot.com/2009/10/trese-happy-halloween-2009.html

NOTE: in case the copy you got has faulty binding, click here to find out how you can have it replaced with a new one http://tresekomix.blogspot.com/2010/06/how-to-replace-copies-of-trese-with.html


TRESE:MASS MURDERS by Ferdinand-Benedict G. Tan and Jonathan Baldisimo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Philippines License.

down the other dark corridor: SKYWORLD Book2

The Universe was created in seven days.

It took Ian and Mervin two years to finish this corner of Skyworld. Let us all pray to Bathala that it doesn’t take them another two years to finish the third and last book of this epic tale.

I must emphasize that the creation of this tome required the summoning of god-like powers; wherein time was carved out of their impossibly busy workdays. Like heroes on some noble quest, there were days (and nights) when they had to forego sleep just to reach their destination.

And I must say, the two years was worth the wait. And let us all pray to Bathala that … oh wait, I already said that.

Of course, this issue holds a special place in my heart since this is the first time Trese and the Kambal crossed-over to another graphic novel.



As kids, we’d have a geekgasm whenever superheroes from different teams would team-up. And our heads would just explode when Marvel and DC finally started doing company-wide-cross-overs.

So, it was during one of those drunken moments when me, Ian, and Merv said, “Hey! Wouldn’t it be cool if Trese and the Kambal had a stand-off with Makabo and Kayo?! Hell, yeah!!!” (Yes, we are such geeks.)

Makes me wonder if this is how Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko felt when they made Spider-Man guest star in the Fantastic Four title.

We are ever-so-slowly creating a new universe. Forgive us if it takes us more than the usual seven days to get it all done.

We are still accidentally discovering those roads that intertwine; that down the street from the Diabolical is the upward path that leads to Skyworld.

UPDATE : SKYWORLD: APOCRYPHA and SKYWORLD: TESTAMENT is now available at Comic Odyssey, Robinsons Galleria.

See more SKYWORLD art at:
http://iantoy.deviantart.com/
and at:
http://skyworldcomics.multiply.com/