stoking passion

There are a lot of wonderful artists who are in the process of finalizing their work for Siglo: Passion, our annual grafiction anthology (to be published in full color later this year by Nautilus Comics, Kestrel IMC and Quest Ventures).

As I see more and more artwork coming in, I get excited all over again, like when Vin and I did when we began to plan this edition last year (how cool is a story written by Nikki Alfar, illustrated by Lan Medina & Reno Maniquis and colored by Ed Tadeo?).

One of the people I really really wanted to work with was Jeremy Arambulo, a very talented Fil-Am whose art explodes with indie sensibilities. My barkada and I were fortunate enough to meet and get to know him during his visit to Manila (talent runs deep in the blood of Marco's family).

We teamed up to do a story for Siglo: Passion and Jeremy's initial designs have floored me. I love the lines, the nuance of expressions - gah, I'm blathering like a fan boy - and the way it reminds me of Mike Allred without being derivative. We're trying something different with the narrative form.

Our story is one of two set in the future, breaking the symmetry of stories set in a century (the other one is by Luis Katigbak and Jonas Diego).

Geez, I can't wait to see the final thing.