Decades ago, the Pinoys discovered their colorful komik solution by going to their nearest sari-sari shop, where they can simply hire or borrow the latest weekly issue. Decades later, conventions encouraged incubators. .
But this year, COVID-19 closed the lecture circuit, and one would assume that this would cause the komiks to create a dark scene, but that is not the case. Komiks digital platforms have multiplied, providing their loose content to curious and not easy readers.
Perhaps the most unexpected story is that of the recent top, Penlab (penlab. ink), which temporarily gained only titles and creators, but also followers, which befits its “Pinoy Komiks in One Place” motto.
“We have over a hundred exclusive Komiks titles and over a hundred registered creators, some of whom have not yet made their platform debut,” said Bernie Mercado, Penlab’s editor-in-chief. “We are in constant contact with other creators in the hope of making Penlab a virtual file for our komik community. “He estimated that lately they had 200,000 views since its launch on September 5.
Other people in Penlab love to use the word “collaboration,” not only between them, but also between creators. As Mercado explains: “Penlab is a non-profit network assignment designed to make the collective success of our komiks network bigger by grouping our quality komiks into one platform. “
Mercado is an independent editor and filmmaker who graduated from the University of the Philippines Film Institute in 2015 with the honors of the most productive thesis film. Market enjoyed manga as a child, he was passionate about Shonen Jump. She discovered the local komiks, scene, and I sought to be a component of her. “I had been looking to make my own paintings since 2012, but I was an offline editor with the komiks scene, so I didn’t know where to start. “
When two projects (a comedian’s e-book and a low-budget horror film) failed, anything had to be done. “I looked to have more information about the content I was producing,” he said. “I took the path of independent komiks more seriously and formed an independent publishing organization that can handle the artistic facets of komik creation and marketing and intellectual property construction. We were originally members of a university film organization and all with experience in movies, media and advertising. invited artists to register with our organization to create artistically owned collaborations that we can build as a next-generation IP komik and subsequent multimedia franchises.
Kalabaw Kolektib is born: Nina Torralba, Nissie Arcega, Sampay, Carlo Carpena, David Sysing, Hans Dimapilis, Chen Lapuz and Dan Salita, the band that celebrates its first anniversary on November 19.
From the coast (hehe) of Kalabaw Kolektib came here Penlab. “In November 2019, as we sought to locate the maximum productive platform to publish our own work, the maximum of existing platforms did not attract us, so we sought to create one that in particular was addressed and advertised to Filipino readers. “As this account makes clear, they conceptualized Penlab before he hit the pandemic. Penlab seeks to take komiks out of the virtual virtual world and take them to the mainstream and put them in places like the classroom. for independent creators to gain the popularity they deserve from classic creators.
“In the most sensible of that, we need to digitally archive komiks of all eras and even house the old independent komiks who were more sensitive to production. We have to turn it into a genuine position where quality Pinoy komiks can be discovered in one position. That’s why The Family Circle of Tony Velasquez, father of Filipino Komiks and author of Kenkoy, chose Penlab to host the tribute page for Velasquez’s 110th birthday on October 29.
When they established Penlab Development, the team necessarily paid the prices out of their own pocket. “We get donations, which we divide between long-term progression spending and marketing,” Mercado said. “We’re not looking to take credit for Penlab either. We just need it to be self-sufficient and can pay everyone who works on the project, as well as make sales for our creators. But we also have to be realistic, we’re able to stay in that area for many years, we’re fine. “
However, you can donate to Penlab and you can donate it (penlab. ink/donate).
But what Penlab needs is for you to come and participate in the fun, scary, quirky, dizzying, bloody, personal, depressing, inspiring, triumphant, emo and everything you can find on Penlab. We have a segment of Hot Ink, on our homepage, which shows which titles are viewed/read at most. The 8 most sensitive in the world are ‘Katipunera Warrior’, ‘Nagmamahal, Maria Clara’, ‘Super Proxies’, ‘Uwian Na’, ‘Dapit Hapon’, ‘Nang MaInlove Ako sa Isang Sakristan’, ‘The Hotdog Prince’ and ‘In His Universe’.
Mercado is recently co-entering one of those titles (“Katipunera Warrior” with Torralba), among several others lately in the and several more to come.
And Mercado needs this to be clear: “As for our agreement with the creators, Penlab is just a distribution platform. They retain all rights to their work, we give them an area on the interwebs. “
And before any statement about “printing is dead” was released, Mercado sought to be transparent that Penlab insists on this point: “Digital is for all printing, not to update it. However, many creators also prefer to publish by loose digitally, “he said. ” A lot of them were already doing it on Webtoon / Tapas even before we got here. With a local platform like ours, we can offer those jobs to Filipino readers. “
Penlab’s new visitors deserve not to be defeated by the impressive number of titles. Just browse; locate what’s right for you.
And Mercado said that Penlab is not a pandemic solution for personal komik readers (while providing komiks to pandemic readers). “When the pandemic is over, Penlab will continue to function as is,” he said. “Actually, we didn’t. Proposing Penlab as a pandemic measure. We probably would have sued Penlab anyway; the pandemic just accelerated our plans.
Bernie Mercado, who saw Penlab jump out of everything they just imagined in a collective that fuels the artistic famine of a generation of komik-hungry Pinoys, has a boy on a mission. “For me personally, it has a kind of baptism through fire. Being entrusted to everyone’s komiks means that you now have a duty that is greater than yourself, and what you originally expected for komiks, and I hope our team is meeting it so far. “
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