published by Meganon, is onlypages and contains only five chapters, I dont think Meganon published a second volume, thus the story remains hanging, This is in black and white and I think it would have been better in full color,
The complete story was published in color under the title “Maktan” by Visprint which completely closed in, Sadly, the Visprint edition is hard to find, Anyone who has the Visprint edition, please let me borrow, I want to know what happens in the story!! Summer Komikonspecial
I just attended my second straight Summer Komikon and it was a blast.
For the second year in a row it was held at the relatively swanky Bayanihan Center located in a big pharmaceutical firms compound, Any time the rest rooms have bidets in the water closets, that place qualifies as swanky,
Summer Komikon has definitely grown from its humble roots, A key indicator was attendance since there were more people this year than the last, The Center was a great place to hold a convention, It has immaculately clean bathrooms and arctic airconditioning, The airconditioned venue by itself was a great attraction for anyone wishing a momentary reprieve from the often oppressive tropical summer heat,
Summer Komikon was one of two yearly events to get the lowdown on whats happening in the Philippine independent comics or komiks scene.
This year, part of my haul was the first collected volume of Tepai Pascuals Maktan, This was released in November last year, during Komikonbut I vacillated in getting one, This time around, I didnt hesitate and bought my own copy from the creator herself,
Maktan is Pascuals solo gig and she saved her best work for her own project, She has another title, sitelinkMarkVerse, where she does the art and gave it a manga visual, Her work in Maktan retains the manga and anime influence but with a more realistic rendering, Pascual utilizes both a fine line to draw more distinctive facial characteristics on the characters, She also uses big, bold blacks to convey mood and give it a gritty feel,
This being her solo project, Pascual has a lot of say in the story direction, She has a great story sense and she definitely isnt afraid to juggle an expansive cast, Her story is a retelling of a key point in Philippine history, the first time its native meet Europeans during Magellans expedition, It has an East versus West them and she plays it well, The native show a lot of heart pitting their swords and spears against Spaniards guns and armor,
I definitely like this better that MarkVerse, It has a lot of action scenes, The language slows my reading speed, but that only served to help me savor the story,
Story isn't too good, but it's very wellresearched, which I appreciate, Was LapuLapu really a Bisaya or was he a Muslim That's up in the air, and I don't even know why I mentioned it here.
Ignore my incoherent and useless rambling, Good graphic novel, though. Great art, very evocative and very grimey, very raw and gritty, Something that fits that era, Sometimes too dark, but I'm no artist, More than the story, one thing that separates comic books/graphic novels from a novel is the graphics, drawing, coloring, etc, I didn't like the colors and the drawings, It was dark and unrefined at some parts, The colors weren't vibrant or stunning, Historical fiction komiks tungkol sa labanan ng mga katutubong Pilipino sa pamumuno ni LapuLapu, at ng mga Kastila sa pamumuno ni Magellan, Ikinuwento ang naratibo sa perspektiba ng mga katutubo, sa halip na sa pananaw ng mga Kastila na siyang madalas mangyari sa pagkukwento ng kasaysayan.
Maktanin National Bookstore Why not!
Tepai Pascual's cinematic art style in Maktan, though heavily influenced by anime is commendable, The aesthetic details and colorful costume designs contrasted with mostly dark toned panels are perfect for the bloodbath fight scenes and stealth stories, Tepai Pascual's panels are undeniably great to look at, She is truly an artist,
That is where the problem starts, Although admittedly her fine arts undergraduate degree thesis, it is perfectly understandable that the material itself weighs heavily in artwork, But personally, before publishing, one should have created a killer story, right Maktanunfortunately settles with good artwork and a shitty story,
Please don't get me wrong here but Maktanis deeply flawed, The story is so generic and sometimes disjointed you cannot root for any of the characters in the story, You can even say that it is a rehashedgraphic novel with Shikamaru in it, What I am pointing out is that it is a mashup of influences and is filled with war movie cliches, It lacks the originality that Lapulapu deserves,
What is unforgiveable in Maktanthough are the speech bubbles, Very, very horrible speech bubbles, Now, some may cringe on what I have said but some will also understand why,
I cannot really not compare this with Mervin Malonzo's Tabi Po, If you get the chance to see both of these and you only have to choose one, always go with Tabi Po, Both are equally beautiful artwise with Pascual winning on action and movement, but Malonzo's style is so original that you'd certainly feel and smell history and the past.
Tepai Pascual is one of the best artists I have seen in our present local comics industry, partnered with a brilliant storyteller, they may deliver the best stories the graphic novel medium can give.
OMG! This is the best local noir comics I have seen so far!!! I fell in love with the noir art, . . ang linis!!! So pulido!!!
and the story, . . SOBRANG GANDA, NAKAKABITIN!!!
This is a story every filipino can relate because this is about our history, . . our story A great retelling of the Battle of Mactan, It's wellresearched and I like that
we are introduced to more characters other than LapuLapu, including his son, Sawili, Here we get to know LapuLapu as a father and as a fellow leader to the rest of the datus of the community, I like how the characters are illustrated although they are a bit difficult to distinguish from each other,
But alas, we can't find the next volume, Bitin kaayo! We want to know what happens next, We want to read about the battle between LapuLapu and Magellan,
Please have the next copy printed, Quoting my friend, sitelinkKhonie's review:
MaktanVolume, published by Meganon, is onlypages and contains only five chapters, I dont think Meganon published a second volume, thus the story remains hanging, This is in black and white and I think it would have been better in full color,Teps and Maiks are like coffee and cream: perfect combination, Dark and gritty and will hold you hostage til the last page, Wellresearched but I think it needs a bit more refining in terms of telling the story, Maktan. Isang islang pinamumunuan ng tatlong datu: Datu Zula, Datu Umindig, at Datu Lapulapu, Tulad ng isla ng Sebu, sagana rin and Maktan sa likasyaman kung kaya't talamak din dito ang makipagkalakalan sa mga dayuhan na nanggaling pa sa iba't ibang dako ng mundo.
The complete story was published in color under the title “Maktan” by Visprint which completely closed in, Sadly, the Visprint edition is hard to find,
Isa sa mga dayuhang ito ay ang mga Kastila mula sa Espanya na pinamumunuan ni Fernando Magallanes, Sa tulong ng kanilang tagapagsalita na si Enrique, ipinamahagi niya sa bawat balangay ng isla ang kanilang layunin na makipagkaibigan at makipagkalakalan, Ngunit, sa likod ng kanilang pakikipagkaibigan ay ang kadiliman na naging simula ng pangaalipin at kamatayan, .