Yessiree, folks! It's that time of the month (
yes, our period!)
where we review yet another relic from the
SSM! Vault.
Kidding aside, we sincerely hope everyone's doing fine amidst your self-quarantine and
quite possibly your city's curfew/lockdown.
As mentioned earlier, this was straight from the vault and definitely inspired by
Naturalism's blog entry:
http://naturalismavrotor.blogspot.com/2019/07/my-childhood-glorious-age-of-comics.html
Upon googling either
Frankintin and
Cesar Asar, this would yield you with unsatisfactory or unrelated results.
Armed with the power of excellent blogging skills(
what skills?) and the necessary materials (
at exactly 2 newspaper's worth)
needed, we aim to both inform and entertain.
Similar to the
Drey comics article we did way back when:
http://silentsanctummanga.blogspot.com/2018/09/drey-comics-by-toni-m-bernal.html
And as always, these strips were all shot in dimly lit rooms.
For blurred and faded is the new hi-res after all.
Frankintin
and
Cesar Asar
are of course old (much emphasis on the
"OLD" part) newspaper strips from
Manila Bulletin.
How old?
Well, let me tell you how old.
THAT OLD!
Frankintin by Mr.
Mannie Villegas was about a Frankenstein's monster armed with sarcasm and witty remarks.
Most strips would feature either this witch character
or a random tambay (
loiterer).
They would usually banter back and forth within this 3-panel strip.
We also remembered him interacting with a
manananggal(
a type of
aswang that can separate itself) as well. But then again, we couldn't be too sure since
we don't have those strips at hand.
This character would also serve as a major inspiration for
SSM's very own
Frankenstein's monster type character named
Fronknonoy.
Straight from the pages of
SSM! Jet Komiks (
2011).
There is also a weird disconnect as the label appearing beside the strip would always be
Mannie Villegas.
And yet he'd (
or someone else) sign his strips under the name
Lito Ty.
Cesar Asar by
Mon Lee and
Rox Lee was a series of situational strips involving an almost mute character
(
whom we could only assume is Cesar himself) and his funny observations of everyday life and everything that encompasses it.
We don't know much about
Mon Lee but
Rox Lee is, of course, the iconic cartoonist (
Jingle Magazine), animator, filmmaker, painter, and our
Facebook friend.
An absolute authority and graces most art documentaries produced within this decade.
With his other work being nameless
Nose People
appearing in
Komikera anthologies.
Favorite Panel:
And later, with a collected book entitled:
Both strips are now discontinued.
Totally not like these two badasses:
Staying consistently on the first and second spaces up to this day.
Together with the two aforementioned strips were
Jerry Scott's
Nancy.
(
Now, there were two versions of this. We were a fan of the latter version.)
Russel Myer's
Broom-Hilda.
Greg+Mort Walker's
Beetle Bailey.
Jim Scancarelli's
Gasoline Alley.
And Finally,
Art Galindez's
Help Wanted
and
Q & A.
Help Wanted was an editorial strip between a barong wearing person and a snake.
With the punchline/bottomline being always delivered by the snake.
We were too young or naive to understand these strip at the time.
Q&A would also follow this same formula but in a more straight forward manner.
And that's about it for this entry.
Know of any other throwback topics we can discuss?
Feel free to suggest/recommend at the comments section down below.
Thank you and have a nice & safe quarantine, folks!
