The Philippine Comics Art Museum was set up by Gerry Alanguilan because "a lot of Filipinos, specially the young artists reading comics and trying to enter comics as a career, are not familiar with the great Filipino Komiks Masters of yesteryear" (1 August 2004). Perhaps a reason for this lack of familiarity is society's low regard for comics—or "komiks," as it is spelled in Tagalog—as seen in the fact that when brought by students to school, comic books are more likely to be confiscated by teachers, rather than studied.
The museum features Filipino artists and samples of their works (i.e., panels, strips, or covers of magazines or comic books), which appeared in local and foreign publications from the 1930s to the present. Trivia question: What was the first comic book published in the Philipines? Click here for the answer =)
More news and images are available at the Komikero Comics Journal. Don't forget to check out the links to websites devoted to Filipino comics and/or artists (e.g., Pugad Baboy, Darna, Larry Alcala).
Series: Filipiniana Online
FO: Comics
