On Gerry Alanguilan's Elmer

As I understand it, there was a time when Filipino komiks were a bit like Japanese manga in that they pervaded our local pop culture. In a a way, there's still some degree of pervasiveness, but I think it says something about the state of the art form that, from all indications, being a komiks writer or artist isn't something anyone in this country does as a full-time job. A lot of comic books being locally produced now are self-published and done by people who have made it their advocacy to keep the komiks industry alive, not necessarily people who are doing it for a living. There are some people, to my knowledge, who do work for American comic book companies so they can continue to afford to produce local stuff.

Anyway, I'm glad the local comic book industry has its champions, people who are out there trying to put out original, distinctly Filipino, top-notch illustrated entertainment. Probably foremost among these advocates is artist/writer/inker Gerry Alanguilan (of Wasted fame), who's set up an online museum of art of Filipino komiks legends like Nestor Redondo and Alfredo Alcala, to name a couple. In my opinion, Gerry's on his way to becoming a legend in his own right, especially considering the degree of recognition he achieved with Wasted, which caused even the foreign comic book community to sit up and take notice.

His latest work, Elmer, is, to put it mildly departure from Wasted, in that it moves from the extreme to the absurd; instead of a world in which an angry jilted lover vents his rage on everything he feels is wrong with the world, it envisions a world filled with talking chickens, including the eponymous Elmer, and the lead character, his son, Jake. It's the story of someone going back to his roots, as Jake leaves his not-too-successful life in the city to go home to the province and visit the ailing Elmer. The series takes a bit of a sci-fi twist from this point onwards as Alanguilan explains, through a diary kept by Elmer and through an old family friend named Farmer Ben how chickens came to talk in the first place.

Elmer, first and foremost, is a breath of fresh air in a marketplace dominated by superheroes and their derivatives. It's nice to see that Alanguilan is building on the success he achieved with Wasted by trying to come up with even more original and fresh concepts for storytelling. The premise is solid, and has a nice, Kafkaesque texture to it, whether or not that was his intention.

There are some problems in the execution of this premise, however. The idea of chickens walking and talking is actually rather priceless, and I honestly feel that to narrate this story, straight-faced, with talking chickens somehow existing in a human world adds a quirky, tongue-in-cheek inventiveness to the whole concept which would elevate the story even past the slap-in-the-face political incorrectness of Wasted.

Instead, Alanguilan tries a more "realistic" approach to the situation and devotes a bit of time to explaining how the world came to be this way, with chickens talking and walking. He throws in topical issues like racial prejudice which I view as another issue that wasn't handled very well for reasons I am about to explain. Although the history he has crafted for the talking chickens is admittedly quite intriguing and has me hanging on to see the next issue, I still feel that the story would be better served by exploring the themes of family ties which also seem to serve as one of Elmer's central story threads, rather than putting so much premium on this "White Event" that gave the chickens of the world their "powers."

Another problem is the persona through whose eyes we see this world. Just as the lead of Wasted was an angry young man, Jake is an angry young, well, chicken. The former did the things he did because he was extremely embittered about things that happened, and the latter is basically carries a chip on his shoulder-er-wing because he's a chicken in a man's world.

The thing about Jake's anger is that it feels a lot more nebulous. One would think he hates the humans for having once eaten his species, and this is the objection he voices when he finds out his sister is engaged to one (!), but then it seems as if the real reason he hates mankind is that he feels like an outsider, in that he identifies himself with them (even going to the extent of masturbating to a human "bold star") but never feels accepted by them.

Ultimately, whatever the reason for his angst, Jake comes across more as obnoxious than as sympathetic. It doesn't help that his dialogue is punctuated by what I feel is a lot of needless profanity. That kind of language was well-suited to the atmosphere of Wasted, but feels out of place here, especially coming from the mouth-er-beak of a chicken. There's nothing wrong with angry characters per se, but I honestly feel that this one could have been done better.

Though the script may in some respects fall short, however, the art does not. I remember Alanguilan's fantastic rendering from a short story he did featuring his Timawa character back in the 90s, and it's absolutely glorious to see two full-length issues of his artwork (so far) rendered with as much care and effort as he put into that little vignette. In an industry (especially the local one) dominated by manga rip-off artists, it's really wonderful to see someone developing and maintaining his own distinct approach to comic book art. It really gives me hope for the future of komiks.

I know a lot of my friends choose to read their comics off the web, and in the case of top-selling, foreign comics, that's perfectly fine, but please do me and the komiks industry a favor by buying Elmer at the nearest comic book store. It only costs about P50 an issue, and I can assure you all it's well-worth it.