the history of philippine comics
Renowl
The term “komiks” is derived from the English “comics,” which refers to
an art form that emerged in the United States at the turn of the 20th century.
Setting the comics apart from other art forms were a number of conventions that
in time became the distinguishing features of the new form: illustrated frames
depicting a set of characters, their actions read from left to right; balloons
containing words that accompany the action of characters drawn according to the
textual and visual message, such as round balloons for dialogue, exploding
balloons for highly charged context, cloud balloons for thoughts, and the like;
visualization of action, such as exploding lines for violent impact or light
bulbs for sudden ideas; and calligraphic or emblematic designs that help
differentiate the male or female heroes from the villains.
History
The first komiks character in the Philippines was Kenkoy, whose name was a
corruption of Francisco, a common name. Created by Antonio Velasquez initially
with writer Romualdo Ramos, Kenkoy first appeared in 1929 in Liwayway magazine,
then the most popular weekly, first as a filler composed of only four frames.
Later, the adventures of Kenkoy and his friends became a full-page story in the
same magazine. In this series, Velasquez used parody and caricature to depict
Kenkoy, a man-about-town, a typical dandy, whose numerous encounters reflected
the changes in values and mores effected by the American regime, including the
phenomenon called “carabao English,” a local version of pidgin.
In the 1930s, the komiks section had grown to include the adventures of Saryong
Albularyo (from herbolario, a village doctor who works with herbs and other
traditional medicine), Goyo and Kikay, an amiable couple whose names typify the
local folk; Lukas Malakas, a big-muscled, civic-spirited, clean-living, and
good-looking fellow who helps people in distress; Huapelo, a stock figure of
ridicule with racial undertones; and other characters whose zany antics tickled
the readers’ funnybone. The language used was Manila-based Tagalog
In its initial phase of development, the primary goal of the komiks was to
purvey fun and laughter by regaling the readers of Liwayway with accounts ~f
mistaken identities, coincidences, foibles and fumbles, all comic situations
that eventually led to browbeating, fistfights, and arguments in a dazzling
display of humor and wit. In this sense, the komiks was risible reading
redolent of American slapstick and slap-thigh printed funnies.
By the 1920s, a new generation of Filipinos, exposed to American cultural fare,
had emerged. In 1933, Francisco Reyes’ and Pedrito Reyes’ creation, Kulafu,
came out also in Liwayway. Kulafu was clearly derived from the phenomenally
successful character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan, a white man
brought up by apes in the dark, mysterious forests of Africa. In the local
series, Kulafu was a hero who fought his numerous battles with people and
nature amidst the country’s mountain ranges.
A radical change in the format of the komiks took place after WWII. Instead of
inhabiting the pages of Liwayway, the komiks as supplement was transformed into
an independent magazine. The earliest venture, which proved to be short-lived,
was Halakhak Komiks, 1946. Although it attracted the fledgling industry’s
biggest names, such as Francisco Reyes, Francisco Coching, Jose Zabala Santos,
Malang Santos, and Larry Alcala, it folded up after its 10th issue.
Undaunted, Don Ramon Roces, of the influential publishing family, decided to
put out Pilipino Komiks in 1947. After the initial success of this venture,
three other Roces publications came out: Tagalog Klasiks, 1949, Hiwaga Komiks,
1950, and Espesyal Komiks, 1952. These comprised the highly successful quartet
of Ace Publications’ komiks, which featured the country’s leading writers
and illustrators. In addition to those mentioned above, the most famous ones
were Mars Ravelo, Alfredo Alcala, Nestor Redondo, Ben Alcantara, Jim Fernandez,
Deo Gonzales, and many others. Other publishers followed suit in the 1950s and
1960s which saw the emergence of Extra Komiks, Romansa Koiniks, Lagim Komiks,
Wakasan Komiks, Wow Komiks, United Komiks, Ravelo Komiks, Kampeon Komiks, among
others, most of which failed to survive the competition offered by the
Roces-owned komiks magazines.
For the reading public used to traditional narratives like the awit and korido,
komedya and sarswela, and the popular novels and short stories of magazines,
the newly formatted komiks appeared to be merely extensions of familiar reading
fare. No longer a mere addition to the established weeklies, the komiks in
these postwar years underwent several transformations even as various komiks
writers played countless variations on the established formula that had
attracted millions of readers and listeners before the birth of the komiks in
1929.
With this new format, a komiks magazine had the freedom to go beyond laughter
and parody, to transcend the limitations imposed by being a mere supplement in
terms of material and theme. There was now room for other experiences: family
conflicts, jealousy and revenge, fantasy and adventure, romantic love,
oppression and class conflict, excursions into the nether and futuristic
worlds, sports events, crime and punishment, and other aspects of actual as
well as imagined lives.
The form taken could be that of a filler for the first and last pages of a
magazine devoted to humorous episodes; a short story called wakasan, with a
wakas or ending for those who wanted the stories completed in sitting; a
serialized novel; or an ongoing series like Kalabog en Bosyo (Kalabog and
Bosyo), with a completed episode every issue.
In the late 1960s and 1970s, another world of make-believe invaded the pages of
the komiks. Famous stars appeared on the magazine covers; columns focusing on
the goings-on in the film industry formed an important section of the komiks
magazine. A magazine was even named Superstar, an obvious attempt to attract
the millions of fans of Nora Aunor, first actress in the country’s movie
history to be awarded “superstar” status.
In 1972, Ferdinand Marcos declared Martial Law and in its wake, new guidelines
were devised by the KPPKP (Kapisanan ng mga Publisista at Patnugot ng mga
Komiks-Magasin sa Pilipino) as an act of self-censorship, and as a response to
the directive from the government-controlled press bureau. The komiks had by
the 1970s spun out of control even as the stories and the series dealt with
corruption, criminality, sexual passion, varied forms of perversion, and the
many faces of poverty in a language that was racy and raunchy and illustrated
with such verve and vigor.
The new guidelines prohibited most of the “errors” of the pre-martial law
days: nudity, cuss words, sex orgies, political corruption, crooked cops,
clerics in love, among others. The result was a komiks world become antiseptic
and dull, because the energy that flowed into the stories simply disappeared.
However, this developmental thrust could not be sustained for a venture as
commercial as the komiks. Eventually, the writers renewed their creative
activity and dealt with the most horrifying creatures from the country’s
legends or imitated popular Hollywood movies such as Jaws and The Exorcist. By
the mid-1970s, the komiks was in its usual elements as it took the public by
the hand into a world of mayhem, blood and gore, fantasy, thrill and the many
forms of vicarious pleasure.
The komiks as it evolved provided more than just occasional humor and
lighthearted fun. In the 1970s and 1980s, komiks stories by Elena Patron, Gilda
Olvidado, and Nerissa Cabral explored melodramatic stories of love, which
became immediately popular, inspiring film versions by major directors and
companies. The serial novel even insinuated itself in the country’s
newspapers and tabloids, which presented make-believe stories side by side with
hard news and opinion columns.
Content, Form, and Function
In search of materials for their komiks stories, the first generations of
komiks writers—Pedrito Reyes, Clodualdo del Mundo, Francisco V. Coching,
Pablo Gomez, Mars Ravelo, Fred Carillo, Jose Zabala Santos—could easily go
back in time. From the 19th and early 20th centuries came the colorful
narratives of love and adventure, of handsome princes and beautiful damsels in
distress, of indios courageously fighting the conquistadores. From the
preceding decades came the series of mournful stories of unrequited love, of
persecuted maidens, of children caught in a crossfire of intrigue and crime, of
faithlessness and eternal love. They could also create local characters
inspired by American counterparts, like Tarzan, Archie, Nancy and Sluggo, Mutt
and Jeff, the Katzenjammer kids, and Dick Tracy. From the deep collective
unconscious emerged terrifying images of preternatural forces and horrible
creatures from the worst nightmares. The present also provided useful ideas on
changing mores and lifestyles, on tradition pitting itself against
modernization, and on the worsening condition of society where various forces
were battling it out for power.
Different devices and strategies are employed to convey these varied
perceptions of the real and imagined world. Where the novel relies on the word,
the komiks has to use an array of visual and verbal tools to communicate its
meaning. Where description suffices in a short story, things must be acted out
in the komiks with little or no ambiguity. For these visualizations, the komiks
produced a group of competent illustrators, such as Elpidio Torres, Jesse
Santos, Francisco Coching, Ading Gonzalez, Jim Fernandez, Federico Javinal, and
Tony Velasquez, among others. In many cases, the writers were themselves the
illustrators; thus, the writer had complete control over his material.
In a world created by the komiks writers and illustrators, it is easy to be
overwhelmed by the creativity and imagination displayed by the creators, and
lose sight of the patterns which have shaped this make-believe universe.
Patterns do exist-formulas that have determined thousands of narratives and
story lines and countless characters, some of whom have become part of the
collective mind. These patterns, on the other hand, have been formed by what
the writers understand as the function of the tales.
The komiks have served many purposes. For most people, they are entertainment
fare that provides the reader temporary relief from the unbearable monotony or
oppressiveness of life. For many, the komiks also serve to release deeply
suppressed emotions—such as anger, hostility, and hatred—without inflicting
damage to society. For many critics, the komiks is a site where the battle
between good and evil are played out systematically with the forces of light
eventually gaining victory over the forces of darkness.
As a further proof of the komiks’ usefulness, the komiks writers themselves
have argued that because of the tremendous popularity of these colorful
magazines, millions of Filipinos from Aparri to Tawi-Tawi have learned the
national language. The Tagalog used in the komiks is the simple language of the
marketplace, of the streets, of the home, and not the formal, elaborate
language of Balagtas and Lope K. Santos. Another argument used in defense of
the komiks points out that the komiks in the native language is a foil to more
formal texts in English perceived as the language of the ruling class. Where
the upper and middle classes have their higher-priced, imported reading fare or
Philippine texts in English, the lower classes have their ubiquitous komiks
answering their various needs—emotional, psychological, and cultural.
An art form selling simplifications of complex reality has indeed become a
powerful institution in Philippine life. Its diverse influences on Philippine
culture and consciousness have still to be assessed systematically, and its
impact as a cultural artifact analyzed rigorously. Nevertheless, it is an
incontrovertible fact that for more than 60 years, the komiks has been
fascinating millions of readers who buy the colorful, relatively cheap
magazines as some kind of weekly ritual that lightens the burden of daily
existence.
Types of Komiks
From the very beginning, the komiks have been perceived as the cheapest means
for getting a good laugh. There are lighthearted fun and gaiety brought about
by verbal witticisms. There is laughter provoked by the delineation of the
foibles and weaknesses of the characters. The first serials in Liwayway were
meant to make the readers laugh, and for this reason, the public was treated to
the spectacle of a village herbal doctor dispensing all kinds of medicines for
all kinds of sickness, including the dread disease of febrile passion; of a
Chinese vendor in pigtails, speaking fractured Tagalog as he sold his wares; of
perpetually warring couples; of young men with modish affectations, surviving
through sheer grit. Getting into ridiculous and often batty situations and
wriggling out of these predicaments constituted the stuff of most of the early
serials, with the characters getting their comeuppance in the end.
Deo Gonzalez’s lovable Saryong Albularyo and Tony Velasquez’s Kenkoy and
his cartoon friends—Talakitok, Nanong Pandak, Rosing, Ponyang Halobaybay,
Sarhento (later Medyor) Dikyam, Mang Terong, and a host of memorable
characters—would survive into the postwar years. They were eventually joined
by such characters as Tipin, the modern girl from Pobres Park, Kalabog “en”
Bosyo, the lovable and zany duo who got into exciting adventures; and such
personalities as Betia, Rita Rits, Pompa, and Susanang Daldal.
Constituting a formidable group of funny characters are those who suffered from
some physical or emotional defects. Kurdapya and Baby Bubut were female
characters afflicted with a handicap—one was “ugly” by popular standards,
the other simply refused to grow up (“bubut” means a stunted fruit).
Bondying and Fefita Fofonggay, on the other hand, were male characters with
similar “aberrations”—the one an overgrown boy dressed in mameluco, the
other a stereotype of the Filipino homosexual, and both finally transformed
into “healthy” males when fully roused by heterosexual feelings. These male
and female characters were depicted as butts of society’s jokes as they found
themselves in many embarrassing situations. This mercifully ended when the
right man or woman appeared to save them from further humiliation. The series
Jack and Jill is probably one of the clearest examples of the neat solution
that love provides to characters confused about their sexual identities.
Comic relief through funny talk and slapstick was the focus in a number of
cartoon creations like Jose Zabala Santos’ Popoy, Menny Martin’s Pe, Ver,
Milyo, and Mr. Pid, Mars Ravelo’s Buhay Pilipino (Philippine Life), L.P.
Calixto’s Mga Kuwentong Barbero (Barber’s Yarns), Pat Reyes’ Kuwatog,
Butsoy, Bokyo, Niknok, and other long-running series. One magazine called Funny
Komiks aims at children, and usually features children or animals as main
characters, either in a series or in completed short stories.
Apart from the series or stories that provoke laughter, another category of
texts utilizes characters and situations that are nonrealistic and fantastic.
Where Kenkoy and Bondying appear as caricatures of real people, the characters
in such series as Darna, a superwoman; Dyesebel, a mermaid; Harimanok (King
Rooster); Petrang Kabayo (Petra the Horse); Darko, Silveria, Pungkuy and the
Magic Bilao (the last word meaning a winnowing tray), Kapteyn Barbell (Captain
Barbell), Karina Kariton (Karina the Pushcart Girl), Diyosa (Goddess), Super
Balulanig, Ada, The Hands, Mambo Dyambo (Mumbo Jumbo), Booma, Ang Pan-day (The
Blacksmith), and countless other tales inhabit a world looking only
superficially Filipino, for it is a world where time stands still and the laws
of nature and of logic are suspended indefinitely.
In such popular stories, sirens and nymphs fall in love with mortals; barrio
lasses and village blacksmiths are gifted with supernatural powers, horses and
roosters talk; magic bilao, fountain pens, swords, and pushcarts fly and zoom
into the air of their own accord; mysterious hands stalk and murder innocent
victims; vampires and other preternatural monsters haunt their prey; satyrs and
other creatures sow terror. In this world teeming with characters from the most
horrible nightmares and the most desirable dreams, readers follow with bated
breath the spectacular adventures of Captain Makisig or Captain Manila; cross
over into the phantasmagoric world of Dyesebel and Zuma; experience the
death-defying love story of Maruja; follow the exploits of Mong and the Magic
5; or hurtle into the future while traveling with Zarex, Astrobal, and Jeric,
the boy from Mars.
Although some of the characters are endowed with some realistic details (Darna
is an ordinary girl from the barrio and Karina is a scavenger), they are
eventually, transformed into glorious creatures ready and willing to fight all
kinds of enemies—people, nature, animals, and creatures from outer space.
Darna symbolizes the Filipino woman as superhero, defender of the oppressed,
fighter for some presumed ideal “Filipino way of life.” Yet, the
inspiration was obviously not some local historical heroine but any of several
pop-mythic icons—e.g., the Superman and Wonder Woman syndrome—imported from
America. For generations, Darna and her kind were just about the only mode of
female empowerment available to local imagination.
More than in the comedy series, this genre allows the imagination to wander
freely in the vastness of what could be. Limitations and constraints imposed by
natural laws are shattered as Clodualdo del Mundo, Jim Fernandez, Mars Ravelo,
Pablo Gomez, Hal Santiago, and others, continue to investigate both the
mysterious past, with all its tales of the macabre, and the future, with all
its uncertainties and promise of more technological advances.
In many stories the male or female hero, who is a defender of the poor and
oppressed, miraculously receives a magical gift, which could be a charm or an
amulet. The charm is given on the condition that it be used for the weak and
the downtrodden. In the battle that ensues, the forces of good and evil face
each other—the good human characters helped by the positive forces, the evil
ones supported by destructive forces. Thus, in this elemental fight, even
nature is divided into radically opposing forces as human beings are
categorized into good and evil people.
The representation of personal conflicts appears in endless variety in stories
which can be termed melodrama. The focus in such stories as Roberta,
Bittersweet, Pieta, Sinasamba Kita (I Adore You), Dapat Ka Bang Mahalin? (Must
You Be Loved?), Bukas Luluhod ang mga Tala (Tomorrow the Stars Will Kneel),
Malvarosa, Gilda, Eva Fonda: 16, Nobody’s Child, Bakekang, among the more
popular series, is the individual and immediate family, the forces that
conspire to bring about estrangement, suffering, and even death.
Mars Ravelo’s tale of the persecuted child, Roberta, is a clear indication of
this very powerful trend in the komiks: the preoccupation with the pain and
suffering of an innocent victim of cruelty and rapacity. This interest in
situations revolving around family conflicts has been given numerous
expressions. The plot can show the depth of a mother’s love as in Malvarosa
or Kapatid Ko ang Aking Ina (I Am My Mother’s Sister), Bakekang, or Wanted:
Perfect Mother; a young woman’s struggle to eke out a living, as in Eva
Fonda: 16 or Gilda; the ebb and flow of romantic love, as in Bittersweet,
Somewhere, Kung Mahawi Man ang Ulap (Though the Clouds Part); the plight of an
unwanted child, as in Trudis Liit (Little Trudis) and Nobody’s Child; or a
serious issue, such as homosexuality and how it invariably affects the members
of a family, as in Tubog sa Ginto (Gold-Plated) and Ang Nanay Kong Tatay (My
Dad Is a Mom).
Although a popular genre from the very beginning, the melodrama attracted more
readers in the 1970s with the entry into the scene of some of the most creative
female writers: Elena Patron, Nerissa Cabral, and Gilda Olvidado. If the likes
of Carlo Caparas and Jim Fernandez celebrate manhood and all the traits
associated with the Filipino macho ideals, the female novelists appear to have
trained their sights on women as central characters: the faithful wife, the
suffering mother, the torch singer, the grateful daughter, the other woman, and
the experiences these women undergo in the process of defining themselves. In
these stories usually rendered in realistic terms, the writers explore the
complexities of familial relationship and delineate intensely powerful emotions
that grip the different characters, particularly their desire for a person or
for a goal in life. Nerissa Cabral’s Tinik sa Dibdib (Thorn in the Bosom) is
one of the best examples of a contemporary melodrama which features a
protagonist confronting life’s any vicissitudes, symbolized by a deaf-mute
sister, an uncaring mother, and a cruel stepfather, with whom she co-exists in
the already demeaning condition of material poverty.
For long treated as a medium suited to inferior intellects for its gross
simplification, falsification, or distortion of reality, the komiks has assumed
the role of social critic in some of its creations. In such stories as Dirty
Politician, Sumpain Ka Nawa! (A Curse on You!), El Vibora (The Cobra), Magnong
Mandurukot (Magno the Dip), Tulisan (Bandit), Totoy Bato (Rocky Totoy), Angela
Markado (Angela the Marked One), among others, the writers succeed in
reflecting the more sordid aspects of society. Featured are corrupt
politicians, ruthless landlords, criminal syndicates, mulcting policemen, petty
thieves, the arrogant rich, all of whom use power to victimize the slum
dweller, job hunter, vendor, the innocent and provincial woman, the lowly
employee, or the defenseless tenant.
In these stories, what stares the reader in the face is weakness and gloom as
the characters continue to lead miserable lives in a decaying city or
war-ravaged barrio. The clear delineation of the victim of social injustice
seems to be the forte of a number of writers that include Carlo Caparas, Pablo
Gomez, and Ramon Marcelino. These stories are a dramatic foil to the
resplendence and charm of fantastic tales and lugubrious romances.
Aside from the comic, fantastic, and melodramatic, some komiks stories focus on
action stories, much like those in the movies. Fast-paced action involves the
male or female hero fighting a horde of enemies in a series of episodes that
are unified, like the traditional epic, by the sheer presence of one
protagonist. Included in this category are mystery stories such as DI Trece,
the local version of Dick Tracy; adventure stories such as Alyas Palos (AKA the
Eel) and Ang Panday; sports stories such as Mong, Juan Tornado, Magic 5, and
Brown Matador; narratives dealing with the colonial past, such as Barbaro
(Barbarian), Indio (The Native), Limahong (a Chinese pirate), Guardias de la
Torre (The Guards of the Tower), and Prinsesa Urduja (a mythical princess).
In the first decades of the komiks, the action stories penned by Francisco V.
Coching, Francisco Reyes, and Clodualdo del Mundo, presented heroes that were
ideally good. But over time, the nature of the protagonists gradually changed.
Action stories highlighted people on the wrong side of the law, fugitives
rebelling against, or escaping, an unjust and oppressive system. In the 1970s,
the sports heroes became the favorite characters in a large number of stories
of Carlo Caparas, Jim Fernandez, Teny Henson, among others.
The changing mores in the early 1970s gave birth to the sexually explicit bomba
komiks. Simultaneous with the rise of the bomba movies, a number of komiks
magazines, not produced by the established komiks publishers, came out and
presented a new view of sex and sexuality. The stories in these magazines, with
names such as Sek-see, Barako, Bikini, and Toro, featured themes dealing with
love licit and illicit, seduction and adultery, prostitution, and various forms
of sexual aberration.
The new breed of komiks magazines seemed to duplicate what films featuring
Stella Suarez, Merle Fernandez, and other bomba stars, dared to make
explicit—the pleasures and sensations of sexual love. The old komiks
visualization of sexual love tended to dissolve into images of a passionate
kiss, with accompanying acceptable moan balloons, or more euphemistically, into
a view of waves symbolically lapping at the shore on a moonlit night; or into
glimpses of the partners in bed covered in darkness and sheets. Now the stories
in the bomba komiks literally show male and female characters in various stages
of undress, cavorting playfully in bed; or in rape scenes, engaged in a fierce
struggle showing a lot of flesh.
This revised view of love invariably generated widespread outrage, not the
least from the legitimate publishers whose share of profits was decreasing.
This type of reading disappeared soon after the declaration of Martial Law, but
made a dramatic comeback in the 1980s, in the last years of the martial-law
regime. This time around, more magazines emerged and flourished with such
naughty titles as Hayop (Bestial), Bold, Lagablab (Blaze), Boobs, and
Sakdal-Erotic (Super Erotic). The last-mentioned was a revival of a 1950s
magazine that contained highly suggestive illustrations to accompany the spicy,
often explicit text describing purported “true life” police stories about
sexual crimes, such as rape and adultery. What the bomba komiks did in the
1960s, the succeeding crop duplicated as they continued to present a different
view of sexuality and gender relations to the reading public.
Because of its popularity, the komiks has been used for “developmental”
messages or outright political aims. In the 1950s, the komiks promoted the
government’s anti-insurgency campaign especially in areas where the Huks were
quite strong. In the 1960s and 1970s, the form was used by a number of
government institutions, such as the Department of Health and the Population
Control Institute. During the martial-law period, the komiks became the outlets
for stories selling the idea of the Green Revolution, birth control, the
beautification of the “City of Man,” the decongestion of Metro Manila, and
other messages. At present, the komiks are utilized to explain to the people
the whys and wherefores of the country’s staggering debt to the World Bank
and the International Monetary Fund, and the horrendous implications of such
indebtedness.
Komiks and the Movies
One popular art form whose history is inextricably linked to the komiks is
film. Film producers from the 1950s to the 1990s have discovered how deeply the
collective consciousness has been steeped in the komiks culture such that the
popularity of any komiks story is a guarantee of the success of its film
adaptations. Ever since the film industry started depending on this other
highly visual medium, the komiks has been preparing the groundwork by
presenting to the public a set of characters in a series of dramatic or comedic
situations, often reflecting themes already proven as box-office hits. The film
producer buys the rights to the widely popular komiks story and magnifies the
appeal of the komiks characters by casting whoever are the most popular, hence
“bankable,” actors at the time the movie is made.
In the 1950s, the producers of the Big Three film companies—Sampaguita, LVN,
and Premiere Productions—used a lot of komiks stories in their movies; in
some cases, unknown actors and actresses were catapulted to stardom because
they played the roles of characters who left their imprint‘s on the public
imagination. Tessie Agana starred in Roberta and became an instant hit; Lolita
Rodriguez and Dolphy reprised the roles of Jack and Jill in the series of the
same title and achieved instant success; Fred Montilla was the boy who refused
to grow up in Bondying; Rosa del Rosario first assumed the role of Darna; and
Edna Luna became the first Dyesebel.
The three studios were later joined by Lea in making movies out of komiks
series with other stars of the 1950s and 1960s. Memorable roles were assumed by
Susan Roces in Maruja and Susanang Daldal (Talkative Susan); Boots Anson-Roa
and Snooky Serna in Wanted: Perfect Mother; Romeo Vasquez in Bobby; Rita Gomez
in Diyosa (Goddess); Bernard Bormin in Alyas Palos (Alias Palos); and Chiquito
in Kenkoy. Other successful stories made into films included Ang Panday (The
Blacksmith), which later starred Fernando Poe Jr.; Barok (Caveman), Chiquito;
Super Gee, Nora Aunor; Alakdang Dagat (Scorpion of the Sea), Elizabeth Oropesa;
Bukas, Luluhod ang mga Tala (Tomorrow the Stars Will Kneel), Sharon Cuneta;
Sinasamba Kita (I Adore You), Vilma Santos and Lorna Tolentino; Lilac, Snooky
Serna; Angela Markado, Hilda Koronel; Bakekang, Nora Aunor; Zuma, Max Laurel;
and Totoy Bato, Fernando Poe Jr. Dolphy has starred in commercial successes
that were first serialized; among his memorable roles were those of Fefita
Fofonggay and Facifica Falaypay.
In the 1980s and until the 1990s, the most powerful producers have regularly
mined the komiks magazines for material containing the ingredients for a
successful (i.e., profitable) movie project. Regal, Viva, and Seiko Films—the
Big Three of the present era—continue to adapt komiks stories deemed
eminently “filmable,” which could use the talents of such personalities as
Sharon Cuneta, Gabby Concepcion, Christopher de Leon, Lorna Tolentino, Maricel
Soriano, among others. Komiks stories have been the basis for many of the films
directed by the late Lino Brocka, Ishmael Bernal, Laurice Guille
