Jonah Hex creator Tony De Zuniga believes Pinoy ‘komiks’ can thrive again

Posted at 2:30 pm November 23, 2011

Tags: Graphic Arts, Visual arts

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By Alexander Villafania

PASIG CITY, METRO MANILA – The heyday of Filipino comics in the 1970s and 1980s saw a number of artists working closely with major publishers to promote and distribute their creations.

In those days, artists were able to practice various styles in color or black and white. Also, here were quite a number of publishers and their revenues largely came from customer purchases.

Today, most, if not all, of those major publishers are gone. Comic books are published independently and through much smaller distribution channels such as friends or specialty shops.

Few locally created comics are sold in bookshop shelves, replaced by a deluge of foreign comic books from DC and Marvel.

Such is the nature of today’s local comic book publishing business that Tony De Zuniga, the Filipino artist who created Jonah Hex, described it as literally dead.

“As far as publishing is concerned, there are no large comic book publishing and distribution. Filipino artists are depending on their own skills to sell their comics,” he says.

In a conversation during the recently held Komikon 2011, Tony reminisced about the good old days when comic book artists and publishers had very close relationships.

Back then, advertising was minimal and revenues came mostly from a buying audience. Also, comics were being published weekly, unlike now when most local titles are published monthly.

“You’d know if you were good if a lot of your comics were being sold. If not, then you’ll have to become better,” Tony says.

While there is no single reason for the decline of the comic book publishing business in the Philippines, he attributes it to the changes in the entire publishing business.

Nevertheless, he still believes the skill level of Filipino artists’ have grown significantly, largely due to the availability of graphical sources for inspiration. In addition, computers have allowed equipment artists to improve their two-dimensional or 2D artistry and use their imagination to create new ways to draw.

Digital forms of publishing – through websites, social networks, and even the relatively new mobile and tablet PC devices – could also help contemporary artists to try and promote themselves while reaching to a much larger audience.

“I hope artists can tap this well because they won’t be trapped by the limitations of traditional publishing,” he says.

For now, as he hopes to see that things would be better for Filipino artists, he is trying to practice a different craft - painting. “I want to try out something new by doing the ‘old’ style of painting.”

So what does he think about the Jonah Hex movie adaptation? The legendary Pinoy comic artist says he still hates it.