Filipino komiks will rule the world

No one does the walk-and-talk quite like Paolo Herras, the co-founder of Komiket, a non-profit that’s advocated for Filipino Komiks since 2015. On the last day of this year’s Philippine International Comics Festival, held at Megamall Trade Hall, he does a deep-dive, walking us through all the new releases, international comics on sale (Palestine has a special exhibit, with sales donated to war victims), big-name artists (like Pulitzer finalist Renren Galeno, whose Sa Wala is one of the most translated works in Philippine history), and director Jay Ignacio, whose new documentary Komiks with a K is being screened at the festival. At the back, comic readers are seated at a table, acting out komiks panels flashed on a screen to a room of fans in colorful garb; over on the right, a special space is devoted to Mars Ravelo, creator of Darna and Captain Barbell.

It started at the Frankfurt Book Fair around 2021 for Herras, who noticed few of the Filipino comic titles he represented got sold. He had an epiphany: “I discovered this is not a cultural exhibition, this is not like the World Expo where you show a big basket; it’s a business networking event for publishers from around the world that are in the serious business of buying and selling rights.”

Specifically, selling rights for translation into German, French, Turkish, etc. Like most things, selling artists’ rights can be either an exploitative thing or greatly beneficial: when comic artists negotiate limited use, approval rights, and royalties for themselves, they’re in a better position to own their work and have it spread globally. We know Filipino artists’ work is exceptional: the key is, people at book fairs want to know what they’re actually saying in the panels; translation rights are crucial to locking in sales.

Herras did other research at book fairs: “I learned that other countries’ book specs were more professional—everybody else was hardbound. We were softbound. And for comics, we were, on average, 96 to 130 pages, while the rest of the world is 200, 300 pages.” Herras shared his insights with his own Komiket artists and whoever would listen: Filipinos need to tell longer, more involved stories. “I said, if you want to go international, this is the book specs, and it can’t be stretched like a teleserye. It has to be organic.”

This is literature, after all.

Flash forward to Angoulême International Comic Books Festival in France, a few years later: “We performed the best out of all rights markets. We had 200 plus leads, 13 animation leads, and we held a small rights market, where eight publishers flew in,” he says.

Other trends emerged: superhero stories are kind of “out,” but Komiks genres are now wide-open: sci-fi, horror, nostalgia, personal memoir, alternate history, romance, even erotica.

Renren Galeno’s Sa Wala is about a superstrong fighting cock discovered by a boy who then enters it into sabongs with nasty results. “RenRen is based in Davao,” points out Herras, “so the future of comics is female and regional, which is fantastic.” We meet Galeno at her booth, a shyly smiling artist who just happens to have done artwork for the Washington Post investigative story “Searching for Maura,” which was turned into a book and got on the Pulitzer finalist list last year.

What Komiket does is run its own creator’s lab, a kind of “Cinemalaya for Komiks” where they select 10 or so artist and writers’ submissions, and develop them over a year (sometimes longer) into books. We walk around a wall of PICOF Official Selections with panels and covers from this year’s publications: stories about cats (Arli Pagaduan’s Cat Cafeteria); books about dog people (Aso); an early primer on Marxism (Strike the Spark); educational books and ones about lizard kings in ‘80s Pasay (Wincy Ong’s Butiking Pasay). Komiket and Vibal Foundation even created their own anthology, Tuwa, featuring 92 komikeros, as a giveaway with PICOF tickets this year.

Another aspect of PICOF is bringing in international comics—the reverse of Filipino artists selling abroad. This year featured a special Palestine comics exhibit, “Enter the Mulberry Tree and Fly Free,” with comic artist Sofaa Odah’s book Sofaa and the Tent a highlight. Odah had been driven into a refugee camp during the bombings of Gaza and, lacking sketchbooks, she drew comics on the inside canvas of her tent, which became her book. Proceeds from book sales go to the artist, and merch and film ticket proceeds go to Medical Aid for Palestine. 

Lots of goodies were laid out for PICOF ‘25, including an artist Caricature Corner, a hagod brush-drawing session by Rudy Valiente, limited-edition merch (signed posters by JP Cuison, Komiket art toys with blank faces to draw on), plus free masterclasses.

After the walk-and-talk, I sat down for Jay Ignacio’s screening of Komiks with a K, which is not quite ready for release but still absorbing. The National Book Winner for Alandal and director of The Bladed Hand guides us through the history of Filipino comic artists and modern-day Komiks, from the late Tony DeZuniga (who once dashed off my caricature in a drawing class) to Whilce Portacio, Alex Niño, and Gerry Alanguilan, to Alfredo Alcala (who, when his new Marvel Comics bosses told him he’d have to produce 40 full pages of art a week, asked “What level of quality?”; so they showed him a page and said, “This level of quality,” to which Alcala replied, “Oh, that level of quality? That, I can do 80 a week”), to Trese and beyond.

It’s a rollicking tale, and looking around at PICOF and Komiket, it isn’t anywhere near finished. As Stan Lee says in the opening scene of Komiks with a K, “There must be something in the air in the Philippines.” Indeed, there is.