It was a no brainer really. It is the most decent thing I could have done, given the life that I have squandered here on Earth.
When the news finally came in in trickles, I was on the floor with a couple of coleagues, doing graphic duties for the news. The few images we got gave me an enormous feeling of dread and helplessness. All those complaints and grievances I harbor seem to be all too petty and weightless compared to the loss of lives in the wake of Yolanda. And knowing that a friend, whom we share the apartment with, and doing what a reporter does on site, was incommunicado at the time, the stark reality didn't really hit like a thunderbolt, but like a slow poison eating you up and killing you inch by inch, nerve by nerve.
I have to do something.
I did. But it seemd so mall an effort. Too little. And too late for that matter.
What I'm writing and illustrating with what is supposed to be launched at the Komikon this coming weekend, is a re-imagining of life here, and there was some panels and scenes that I will have to rewrite and redraw given the big similarities with what just happened in the Visayas. I just had to decide it would be very insensitive of me to publish something that is so close to the bone.
I started to write and illustrate my own novels in comics form, dreaming of acknowledgement and acceptance as a comics artist. But that would have to wait. There are more important things to do than think about my delusions of grandeur at this point.
I have done my part, and will continue to do so, with the relief for survivors of Yolanda. You can contribute by getting the information HERE
I urge you to do the same. However small. Anything will be a bigger help than you can imagine.
