Carlo Caparas Comics--- finally saw it

Before we were interviewed by Rated K yesterday(plugging bwehehehe) showed me the 5 Comics that was recently produced by Sterling and Carlo J. Caparas… Suffice to say, having a large company backing up comic book production, I was expecting a P10 (0.22 USD) comic book to be of satisfactory quality.  Printed on newsprint, and in BW, is probably the only thing one can do at that cover price… but… meh

Back in college, our course has been rearing us to be obsessed with perfection.  To us, perfection is something quantifiable and attainable, but of course we would never know it until we get it. When I broke into comics I thought whatever I learned back then was flushed down the drain.  But turns out, college or no college, those same principles are actually useful.  Artists are never happy with anything they create.  Anything we produce is most probably half of what we have gloriously imagined in our heads.   Knowing our own limitations, we are motivated to do better the next time---  Continuous Improvement or some of you may know it better as “Kaizen” (Japanese for “Change for the Better” ). A quality strategy I think first developed by Toyota… college life is all hazy now hehe… Dissatisfaction is a key to perfection.  

That’s why Travis Charest got that good, that’s why Adam Hughes became godly, Why became a top lister in Wizards Rankings, and Why won an Eisner Award.

However I personally want to credit “dissatisfaction” for the invention of the eraser and the undo button  

Although it isn’t just artists that has satisfaction issues; generally us humans are never satisfied (agree or not, it’s our nature), and thus sometimes our definition of perfection ends when satisfaction ends.  And that fact is never lost (or shouldn’t be disregarded) by a company.  A business’ main goal to survive is to satisfy their customers needs and want, and to have those customers desire their products (whatever it is).  And to be competitive in a market one must maintain a level of quality that is satisfactory to it’s target customers.  Some companies go beyond that and give customers certain things they never even thought they needed or wanted

They either adapt, or promote change.

So what does this have to do with the Sterling/Caparas Comics?  Well if you’ve seen it, it doesn’t really implore you to keep wanting it.  The 5 comics would benefit from a good graphic designer, EditorSSSS, and  strict quality control/standards.  

It could really use stories that are actually in tune with the times, and not rehash stories that would have been considered top notched back in the earlier decades of the industry.   I’m entertaining the thought that they just wanted to try to bring back the readers they left back in the late 80s, which they are assuming never changed or aged, and build up on that.  Well then again they wanted creative freedom...

They should have at least started with Panday (just me) after all Panday the TV series (however not good) is still fresh in nearly everyone’s memory.  Panday after all was created by Caparas and Artist Steve Gan.  I’m hoping that in the future they shift their focus on the younger generation (and again considering that times have changed as one article said; "12 year olds are the new teens" ), as these new crop of readers will ensure if the industry survives or not.  One way of knowing the current trend is "current events"    and hiring new blood  

++ edits: I just remembered this has Pres. GMAs blessing, so how far can stories go if for socially relevant stories...? ++

Just look at how comics in the west has grown up as it’s readers have matured.  And to cope with a possible future fan base (and probably noting how detached these classic characters have become to the younger generation), they decided to reimagine classic stories and charcters and give them a modern flare.  Something they know could hold up against the modern entertainment mediums.  These publishers adapt… they keep their readers (customers) happy, and they in turn make the publishers happy.  Also they tend to listen to criticisms however bad.  Good listeners can find a good suggestion from a negative criticism.

And I wish they try producing full issue stories as opposed to 3-4 pagers…. At least a series of finished full story adventures with underlying plots that continues on to other issues.  Not weeklies but monthlies (logistic cost would most probably be cheaper).

Aside from a few gems from the Caparas comics, storytelling needs to be watched over by an editorial team. Captions do not need to tell what the panels are already showing. Certain visual elements required for scenes shouldn't be barely noticeable as if it was a surprise item.  As a reader I was confused and at the same time treated like a 5 yr old.   

The printing quality is mediocre for an art book.  Comics Art is ART. Printing an artwork requires much more care that printing a photograph. From what I saw (of the pages), It looks like the art was scanned in grayscale, Then printed out into comic book size, and then photographed with screens for plate reproduction.  Either that or the negative for the etching was done through a laser printer.  Whatever the printing method used, it stripped the artworks of its crispness  and vibrance of the lines.  The lines the artists made as smooth and sharp as possible (except 2  artists that totally rushed everything, if memory serves).  

Along with the halftones, print quality was made worse by ink bleeds and blots (probably ink and paper compatibility or just unsupervised offset machines). So imagine those dots in the halfones blooming.   The art would have fared better if it was just photographed directly without screens.  Or used Computer to Plate printing (CTP)… safe to say magazines already use that here.  Alfredo Alcala’s son, Alfredo Jr. was  kind enough to let us hold a book his Father made.  It had all of Alcala’s intricate rendering but the lines remained sharp and could par with modern western BW or Japanese BW print quality.  And the fact that Alcala’s book used 60’s printing technology is baffling...

Well ancient Egyptians made the pyramids… we’re still trying to figure the whole story on that one

To be honest I’ve seen comic books used for Election campaigns that looked far better and in full color.  The elections btw were just for the mayoralty race and the book was just distributed within our town.  And then there are those gospel comic books which I see sometimes

The Cover could use a better layout and more time should have been spent on the colors… that’s it

In the back of my mind I’m hoping a competition emerges, because I hate to think that however unentertaining these books are to some of us, we have no choice but to buy them because we have no choice.   It’s like the network wars where some of us have no choice to watch this fantaserye because that’s the only channel we could watch.  

These comics are just the first books to be released by a major publisher in years, It’s safe to assume that it will improve. Although new products should always start off at their best standards… First impressions last, as they say.  Whether those impressions can be considered as an anecdotal life-changing experience or a vision of nightmares to come, is something we all have to watch in the side lines

Hindi pwede ang "pwede na"  
("It'll do" won't do)   --- tama ba?