Super Debil Robot Comics History 101

Chummy Bertulfo, the man generally handling SDRC wrote a little history about how SDRC and the 1st Cebu Comics Convention came about. Below is a copy of what the man has to say about the whole madness:

Sorry for the lack of updates, I still have no internet at home and seldom nowadays do I go online and only if I am able, so this is a real excuse this time. As a boon or bane, this post will be friggin’ long so be forewarned.

The 1^st Cebu Comics Convention is in its wake, awesomeness reigned supreme last Saturday. It was a blast meeting all the comic book fans/artist/aficionados alike. The 1^st Cebu Comics Convention, or as aptly known as the 1^st C3 2010 was a huge success thanks to all of you guys who attended and showed their support. The comic book scene is still alive and thriving here in Cebu and in the Philippines altogether. Kudos to the Big Ape Design guys (Tom, Suede and Bobols) for spearheading the event and giving it their all to make it a reality in this here part of the Philippines. The Cebuano Komikero has come a long way and I do hope others will be inspired to creating their own comics and really make it a more thriving and diverse Cebu Comic book scene in the near future.

It all started with the comic book “Elmer” by Gerry Alanguilan. Way back early 2008 if I am not mistaken, Sir Gerry announced in his blog, which I am an avid reader and still am to this day, that his Elmer comics were now available for us Cebuano readers and he gave us a link to some guys blog where we can order them off. This guy happens to be Tom “Motex” Perez who bought a couple of Gerry’s Elmer comics for his own consumption and initiated to sell off the extra copies of his to us lucky guys here in Cebu, spreading the love so to speak and spread it he did. And from that link that Sir Gerry gave, me and Tom started to correspond and met up near my place to get my stack of Elmer goodies off of him and we started to talk comics and how it would be nice to copy what the Manila Komikeros did to their scene and somehow resuscitate the comic book scene here in Cebu which was in a dormant state since the later 1990’s. He was working on completing his own thing, a Cebuano underwear wielding, condom capered Superhero, and naturally I pitched in to help him work on the script and dialogues so that he can focus on the layouts/inks and penciling and finish what he started. After which we decided to come up with a name to stamp the comics front page and thus, Super Debil Robot Comics was born. Aptly named from the minions of the arch nemesis of some popular AM Radio drama show about a bronze covered boy superhero we grew up listening with. Then came Rey “the Suedemonkey” Siasar to complete the trio of the SDR Comics Crew. He was the man with the plan oozing and burning like wildfire. Where me and Tom lack he filled it up abundantly in terms of connections, he knew the who’s who in the Cebu gung-ho active artist links. He’s cool up there with the great Harvey Tolibao and John Amor and then some. He then invited us to join in on the somewhat irregularly scheduled weekend Drink and Draw formed by the Istorya.Net comics forum group and connected us to other Cebuano artist. By August 2009 Captin N12 issue No. 1 was released to the public and ushered in for SDR Comics to release some more with Sugbo Jam Nos. 1 to 4 to date. From there the ball kept on rolling until the possibility of a Cebu comics convention came to fruition after the meeting with Sir Jonas Diego with the SDR Boys sometime mid this year and the next is Cebu comic book history naturally. The expertise imparted by him and some Komikeros up there in Luzon (of whom we connect to online on Facebook, Twitter and to their respective blogs) for the advices and the push that ultimately gave way to the success of the Comicon here, their help was invaluable and their support unwavering. The gesture in by coming here at their own expense and help out in whatever they can (the likes of Sir Jonas Diego, Sir Gerry and wife Ilyn Alanguilan, the great Manix Abrera and Hazel Manzano, Ariel Atienza and the Komikon hordes and the bad boys of Philippine Comics namely Harvey Tolibao, Heubert Khan Michael, Carlo Pagulayan, Luis Antonio, Stephen Segovia, Ariel Padilla and their horde) made us feel the camaraderie, the fun and the seriousness of it all. The Philippine Comics Industry is alive and kicking and to be part of it once and for all is a very fulfilling vindication."

You may also check his blog for pictures and additional info.