To be youthful is to be idealistic...
I'd still like to believe the world runs on passion. That, once people start realizing the heart and sould you put into your work, people start to respect what you do and treat you with a little more dignity.
I'd like to believe the comicbook industry has at least a fighting chance in this age of interactivity and instant information. That, there is still a romantic string inside people's hearts that keep them from totally abandoning the tangible for the electronic.
I'd like to believe that despite being underpaid, that people(specially those higher ups who think this is nothing more than a cash cow) start to see the value of it as a medium that inspires, informs and entertain. That it is more than cape and cowl heroes and villains that pointlessly kill and be killed time after time again. That characters that change society like Ibarra or Simoun can come from a medium such as this, that comics is intelligent if it chooses to be.
I'd like to believe that artists and creators take resposiblity for their brain child, that they actually take time to nurture and develop them to their outmost potential. Not just draw without passion and have a pay check as the only source of gratification from it.
I'd like to believe that we can actually get the entire comic community together, to reeducate both the old and the new comic makers. Since we both lived at different times, we need to understand each other more if we are to move forward.
I'd like to believe a lot of things...simply because I know there has to be something to look forward too.
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Yes....a couple of months into the Philippine Comic book industry...I have to say it is such a big mess right now.
Take the company I work for alone. There is so little respect for the job we do, we have little monetary compensation, and yet we lose both copyright and creator's rights of the work we produce. We're treated so low that right now most of the marketing schemes and ideas have to come from me and my friend. No marketer, no circulation manager, no editor. We find ways to publish our own crap. We might as well sell our souls to the devil.
I don't blame them though for thinking that way, the artists created that for them in the first place. My friend who brought me into the industry may actually be the only one fit enough to work as a comic artist. The rest....damn lazy talentless bums! For crying out loud, you're 3MONTHS behind your deadline despite asking for 2 (TWO!!!!) cash advances, have everyone shoulder the pages you don't want to do, you play DOTA on office hours, you steal reems (not pieces, entire REEMS of bond paper!!!!), you have the gall, to play a practical joke and use up all the printer ink, you draw horribly, you have no passion for anything comics, and YOU want to be called a COMIC BOOK ARTIST?!....I honestly can't blame the owners for treating spoiled brats like that since those people don't deserve the priveledge of having their work bought by people with their hard earned money. I'd pay money just to have my work published for people to read, these kids get them published and get paid for it, i don't see why they at least TRY to make it worth the people's money.
I'd like to believe I can make a difference. I don't believe I can draw as great as I like to, but I really hope I can sway their minds into trusting us to be professionals and give us the compensation we rightfully deserve. I can't believe that despite being really new, I actually have a bigger say than those who've stayed there since it's start.
And don't get me started on the Komik Kongress....the biggest farce of the decade!
YES, get a bunch of old comic artists clamoring how the youth have lost its touch in doing comics the old way, and instead of trying to lead by example by...I don't know, pitching in to print old comics...or actually do new comics with their so called "right way"....they opt to ask the help of the NCCA and KWF and hold an exibit and a contest which is geared towards making these old timers win.
Then since NCCA is a government office, PGMA, Manoling Morato, and a whole bunch of politicians all of a sudden are interested in komiks! GMA even awarded the national artist awards to some dead comic legends...the only non dead one being Carlo Caparas (yes, you may be a legend...but by god....if you're idea of ressurecting the industry is by holding a contest....wow.....such brain power...).
THe first meeting for that ended the way most government meetings end - with politicians making a scene, with flowery words powdered around, and ABSOLUTELY NOTHING accomplished! Yes, no resolution, no artist group, no open forum to the younger generation, no tax exemption proposal. Just old men indulging themselves, think they are still relevant, and having politicians massaging their egos. Where was the passion for comics??????????
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I'm glad i still have youth at my side....I still have fight left in me to try to change all this....
After all....To be youthful is to be idealistic...
Currently feeling: sad
