your colt .45 pistol against my bolo

Have you heard of a story that the American Colt .45 pistol was invented or developed because of the Philippine-American War?

I have, and I did not believe it at first. It happened this way, it was a regular drinking session with some highly opinionated friends who are also college professors. While enjoying the wonderful haze of a drunken' hour, we we're rudely interrupted by another drunk Korean. Naturally, my drunk professor friends reacted with a booze-enhanced courage and logic. Lucky enough, calm heads prevailed. Then one of the professors murmured something to the effect of 'don't they know that the colt .45 was invented because of the Filipinos'? So I did my research.

According to some books from the library and articles by Americans all over the Internet that I have read , the .45 pistol was developed because the .38 pistol, which was the standard sidearm for American troops, is simply not enough to stop a charging, bolo wielding Filipino.

The .38 is unable to stop any charging Filipino is just pure logic really. It is the same as how an almost bare naked Lapu-lapu was able to stop full armored Spaniards and probably one Portuguese in particular. Don't believe me? do the research, I don't want to ruin the surprise and let you miss those goosebumps. But being a nice person that I am, here's a little peek at one of my research:

according to Mr. Robert A. Fulton

"Like all good guerrilla fighters, the Filipinos were improvisers. They took advantage of the tropical topography with its exceptionally high grasses (well over six feet tall), dense jungles, and winding, constricted trails, to mount ambushes using a tactic called 'the bolo rush'. The Philippine bolo is a fearsome, short (16" to 18"), single-edged, razor-sharp cutting weapon, every farmer had one and knew how to use it, whether for harvesting crops, hacking trails through jungle, or taking off a limb in a fight. A large force, often 100-200 'bolo men' would lie hidden near a trail. When a smaller American patrol came along in a single-file, Filipino snipers would fire, forcing them to drop for cover. At a signal, the bolo men would rush the soldiers lying prone on the trail, inevitably losing many in their ranks to rifle fire but oftentimes overwhelming the Americans with their sheer numbers and the ferocity of the charge. Commissioned officers and sergeants, armed only with the Colt .38 revolver, were a primary target".

i am thor! odinson and god of thunder!

John Amor recently gave me comics to read and to study. When I received the comic books, I was thinking that I should first read the stories that I like the least. I love the character Thor, but I haven't read a good story about that Thunder God. It's always too corny or too full of words. So, I was expecting to read the same old story again.

On the very first page, I was surprised! I was so amazed at what J. Michael Straczynski (writer), Olivier Coipel (penciler), and Mark Morales (inker) did with the character. I have always seen Thor as an old but powerful and wise Thunder God as depicted on my Thor fan art. I find the young Thor lacking the 'god factor' but after reading the new Thor, I was floored!

The art is so good and perfectly compliments the story. This book has become one of my favorites overtime.

I owe John Amor big time for re-introducing me to Thor!

The Beatles! 'nuff said!

The Beatles. Need I say more? This scan is some sort of a newsletter that we released, with layouts using InDesign, during one of our tribute gigs.

I just can't praise The Beatles enough. Can't think of another band that have touched people from completely different generations. And no matter how often it happens, I would still have goosebumps whenever tough-looking, hard-core bands would name The Beatles as one of their influences. Who would have known?

It's amazing isn't it? How music can make someone immortal, how music can make these odd boys from Liverpool icons the world over.

I also love Elvis, but if I were to tell you the difference between The Beatles and Elvis, I would say Elvis is an amazing showman, but The Beatles are legendary musicians.

When I was a small little boy, the very first time I've heard of them English boys, I instantly knew that they exist for the same reason the Sun exist.

How lucky we are to be born after The Beatles.

men in black

Here it is! This is the first character design I did for the graphic novel that I am trying to do. They are supposed to be partner heroes of a certain City. I don't want to give out much, but the story is a little weird with heroes or champions from different Cities.

Very basic design with the Men in Black get up and some guns. The big guy is a little paranoid so he keep his guns on the ready with the safety off all the time. The little guy? well, it's a little surprise. I did the character design for about three days, one hour per day, including inks and all. Here's hoping that my attention don't get diverted to something else so I can finish this thing.

I am seeing the setting for the story as a post apocalyptic, steam punk./high tech hybrid world. The story is a one shot, it's more of a test job or something. But I am putting a lot of time on this one, so I hope it would turn out okay.

I will be self publishing this with my production outfit, crazymonkey productions. I have some friends who will be submitting some one shot works and some people who promised to help in distributing the 'book'. If you are interested to submit a story or two, tell me about it, let's see what we can do.

I will be posting more stuff probably by next week. I would appreciate some comments so that I would know whatever it is that I am doing wrong. Comments are for free, so comment away!

missing filemon and the missing spoon

Not that I am trying to stall on posting some artworks or something, I just feel it important to post some old works *snicker* And besides, what I am posting here is one of my favorites!

This one is a poster for a gig that we produced for one of the bands here in Cebu. Actually, it's a launch gig for Missing Filemon's second album.

What I did with the poster was I edited the picture of the foursome in Photoshop. I always wanted to have that old, photocopy feeling. But I'm not sure if I was able to pull it off though. Then, transported it to Corel Draw and added some texts and weird shapes. As simple as that!

A lot of my friends are still asking for a reprint of the poster so that could mean that the poster looks good or they are just die-hard fans of the band.

This poster represents one of the nightmares an event producer have. We never expected the turn out of audience to be so big. We held the event at a venue that can comfortably accommodate 150 souls, but attendees reached up to at least 300! People kept saying 'nice event, congratulations' or 'success, do it again' Yeah right! at the end of the last song and after a couple of beers, that's when we realized how big the problem was. There were so many broken glass and bottles, damaged tables and chairs, lost cd's, and missing spoon! Well, the things we do for music. And if you ask me if I would still do the gig with full knowledge of the outcome? Oh yeah!

related links

http://indiecultureonline.com/more.php?id=547_0_1_40_M1

www.insoymada.wordpress.com

mic test! test mic? soundcheck!

Soundcheck. it was a TV show that I produced and directed for cable channel BeeTV. The show folded due to some scheduling problems. There are some invitations to air the show again, but probably not this time.

Shown above is one of the brave bands that used the Cebuano dialect in their lyrics. They can make songs with english lyrics, trust me, but they opted to use 'bisaya' for so many reasons.

Well, there are a lot of 'BisRock' bands out there, but only a few have their hearts in the right place and their songs in the right tune. I no longer know whats happening on the local scene right now since it has been months since I produced an event or even went out to see one. Damn, I think it's high time to go and get back to music. Then again, I still need to focus on my so called 'art' and try to stick with the plan this time.

The picture that appears is the poster that we used for the show. I took the picture so basically I own the rights. The picture was taken near Marriott Hotel at Cebu Business Park. Did some tweeking using photoshop; if you notice, the background is a little blurry and the foreground is sharp, that's photoshop! I don't really feel comfortable with making BIG changes on the picture using photoshop because I'm not good at it. The text is added with corel draw and I'm done! I love the lonely road feel of the whole picture. But that's just me.