Big, ambitious movements in Philippine comics are few and far between. In the decade or so since Atlas Publishing closed its doors, we’ve had two: Carlo J. Caparas Komiks, which ended in ignoble failure, and the Philippine Komiks Convention or Komikon, which, while still a niche event, is reaching new heights every year.
Espresso Comics just might make a third.
As its caffeine-laced moniker suggests, Espresso’s aim is to jolt awake the mainstream reading public through weekly 40-page doses of the best in Pinoy independent komiks. And the best part? They’re giving it away for free.
The ad-supported free publication model isn’t a new idea; titles like the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s Libre! have been around for years, catering to a specific kind of reader—LRT commuters—and converting them into a viable advertising market. With its initial print run of 50,000 copies, Espresso Comics aims to get a good chunk of those train-bound readers interested in Pinoy komiks again, while at the same time providing upcoming komiks talent with an unprecedented opportunity to gain exposure and potentially attract a readership.
Of the forty pages Espresso will be putting out each week, half will be set aside for Mars Mag--a continuing, in-house comics story--while the other half will feature a comic by a guest creator/s of the week. Each guest story will be a self-contained one-shot, saving Espresso from the potential headache of having to hound indie komiks creators--most of them busy with days jobs--for new installments week after week.
Espresso is the brainchild of Ria Lu (the same Ria Lu behind Project 20:10, an initiative whose aim is to promote both the creation and consumption of local artistic output) and the rest of Komikasi Enterprises, a young publishing company that Lu started with high school friends Martin Jimenez, Jon Infante, Kenneth Guevarra, and Nicoy Cenizal.
Komikasi found early success with Talecraft (a story-creation card game that has built up a following among hobbyists and enthusiasts) but comics were the friends’ first love--ever since their high school days when they would write and draw their own comics and then critique each other’s work--and so it was to comics that they would return. In 2007 Espresso was released in its first iteration online, as a webcomic. This met with poor success, and so the group agreed to look for a different approach. It was Lu who had the notion to try the ad-supported print format.
This set the friends off on the painstaking and often frustrating task of finding advertisers. They ran a gauntlet of cold-calls, extended vigils in various offices’ waiting areas, and bouts of bureaucratic pass-the-solicitor until they had exhausted all their business contacts. At this point Trese writer and advertising exec Budjette Tan provided valuable assistance by helping the group gain a toehold into the advertising industry. Still, potential advertisers were reluctant to fork over their ad money to a little-known company selling an untried idea. “The most common response we got,” says Lu, “was: ‘It’s a good idea and we’d like to advertise, but first we’d like to see a first issue.’” It was the same chicken-and-egg conundrum experienced by so many startups: cautious investors want to see the product before actually committing their funds, but the startup can’t produce any product without the investors’ funds, and so on. Currently, the group is considering publishing a special preview issue just to show fence-sitting investors that it can be done.
Content-wise, according to Lu, things went much more smoothly. Komikasi went to the 2010 Summer Komikon at UP and handed out business cards to indie komiks creators that caught their eye. They also posted an online open call for submissions which made its way around the relevant blogs and websites, and encouraged students in Elbert Or’s comics-related classes to submit. The overall response, though not perfect, was promising. Says Lu, “There were great stories, there were stories that still needed a bit of fixing, and there were stories that were good but we decided not to accept because after we’ve censored it, nothing would be left.” Censorship was an unavoidable editorial concern, as the LRT management reserved the right to pull out, without warning, any of the publications being sold or given away on its premises, if found objectionable. So you can’t blame Komikasi for being on the cautious side.
As of writing, Espresso has two months’ worth of stories slotted for publication, and has just posted a second open call for submissions on their website. Some of the soon-to-be featured artists/creators include Jayron Zapanta, Ramon Salapado, artists under the Komikero Komiks Anthology banner, and—full disclosure—this author. Accepted comics creators will receive P10,000 as payment for their work, and in exchange will hand over reprint and selling rights to Espresso for a period of six months, meaning they can’t sell their work anywhere else within that time. At 18 to 22 pages per one-shot komiks story, that comes out to a page rate of about P500. Perhaps not enough to attract big-name creators (and indeed Lu has yet to receive submissions from established Atlas-era komiks veterans), but it’s a windfall for struggling indie artists, for whom it could take years to earn a comparable amount selling their wares at local comics conventions.
As for the works that didn’t make the cut, Lu observes that many of the artists seemed to lack the benefit of frank and unbiased peer review. They didn’t seem to have a support group to tell them what they were doing wrong. “Sometimes,” says Lu, “you could tell they were just drawing their favorite scenes from some anime. [Other times] they had a good concept but just couldn’t pull it off. When I would ask them to tell me in one sentence what their story was about, they couldn’t do it.” Still, the Komikasi team took the time to discuss their concerns with the artists involved, with the intention of helping them submit better work in the future. Lu sees their role not just as that of a publisher, but also that of pro-komiks advocates: “It’s a good feeling, giving hope to indies.”
