lost page

One of the things I have filed away under the "Things To Do When I'm Disgustingly Wealthy" is to publish the last installment of my -ahem- "metatextual" comic book story "The Lost", most probably as part of a nice trade paperback that has the entire story.

During the heady days when I lived in Hong Kong and actually had money to spare (Sage was but a twinkling in my eye), I released the first two issues of the three-issue series. I wrote the main story, Nikki wrote the supplemental stories, while Arnold Arre illustrated everything - plus I had covers by Carl Vergara and Marco Dimaano (this is a roster that still makes me smile when I think about it because of the people involved, and saddened because I have this unpublished thing). But one thing followed another - which seems to be the constant thing with comic book publishing here in the Philippines - and I could not rationalize prioritizing the cost of publishing the book over, say, my child.

The page above is an interior page by Carl, which is part of sequence where Immacolata crashes through the various worlds of words; a conceit I used to invite other artists to show off different styles (the main art is all Arnold's). This is the style Carl used for an illustrated book with Nikki and me, "Ruin".

Anyway, I found this while rooting through my computer for a reference for a project, and it got me thinking. I still love comics even if I don't intend to do much in that direction this year... so maybe it's time to talk to a publisher or something. We'll see.