In my last blog post, I had mentioned that even though Noli Me Tangere had already closed, we still had 2 special shows during this month's 2nd weekend. In between the 2 shows, we had the Saturday off, which gave time for me to check out the Visprint WIT event at the SMX Convention Center.
My agenda was just to attend Carlo Vergara's talk on "How Theatre Helped Me Make Good Comics," but because I arrived pretty early (I was worried that I might not get in due to the limited slots available), I ended up sitting inside and listening to the earlier talks.
The first talk was supposed to be Eros Atalia's "Ikwento ang Kwentong Pinoy," but because he was running late, Paolo Fabregas was given the go signal to start his own talk, "Clear Then Clever: How To Create Comics The Advertising Way." I loved his rule. First be clear, then be clever. Because of how he used his graphic novel, "Filipino Heroes League" to discuss conceptualization of comics, I'm now intrigued to buy it, haha.
Eros finally came after Paolo's talk. I then realized that he was the author of "Ligo Na U, Lapit Na Me," which also became a Cinemalaya film this year. His talk on writing what you want to write was super witty, but very informative. It was straight to the point, and I liked that. In a way, I was a bit struck by what he said. "Kaya ka agsusulat, dahil gusto mong magpaintindi." When I first starting writing these blogs, it was just for therapy, not for any audience. But when I realized that there are people reading it, it made me want to write more about my thoughts, and wanted people to read it because I needed input, other people's points of view.
Creators of "Trese," Budjette Tan and Kajo Baldisimo came next. They talked about the influences that helped them create their graphic novel, with Budjette giving a backstory about his childhood experiences with the supernatural. Kajo also gave 13 tips for the lazy artist, ending with a 13th saying to not follow all his tips, ahahaha. I liked how he said that there's a difference between "Magaling ako" and "Mas magaling ako sa kanya."
Finally, it was Carlo Vergara's turn. He gave a backstory about his experiences in theater, from high school, to college in DLSU, and with New Voice Company, such as improv exercises (and I was the only one nodding, understanding, ahehehe), saying that theater acting gives you so much possibilities and options. Haha, he even gave references to playing old school tabletop games like Dungeons and Dragons. And I can't believe that even I could relate to this, because my brother once forced me to play the tabletop role playing game before when we were kids. Anyway, he talked about his creative process and all that, and then he showed some of his works, of course including "Zsazsa Zaturnnah." And what's funny was that he also showed a few photos of the last staging of the musical, including a photo of Tad as Didi, ahahaha. Anyway, his talk was a good, brief 20 minutes because it was close to lunch time already, so after his talk, I immediately approached him to chat for a little bit and have a photo taken with him. Haha, thanks to Siege for the paparazzi shots while Carlo and I were talking.
Unfortunately, after that, I had to leave SMX because I was meeting up with Tin and Peachy for an afternoon in Powerplant Mall, so I missed Siege's reading, and Bob Ong's slideshow message (but thank goodness it was uploaded on YouTube). But I was glad I caught a few more talks than I had hoped for, as it had inspired me to write more, and this won't be the last event similar to this that I will be attending.
