Arre Mythic
by Patricia Barcelon
(May 7, 2000 -TODAY)

Can comic-book art truly be considered an art form? For those who have seen the work of comic-book artists such as Charles Vess (of Sandman fame) and the Japanese all-female manga group CLAMP, there is little doubt that it is.

Artist Arnold Arre may well be regarded as our own version of Vess, et al. Arre's artwork is strikingly different from the more familiar local comic art of Pugad Baboy and Little Pupung.

Straying away from the already familiar Westernized creatures of dreams, his Mythos series takes a leap into a modernized version of local folklore, fusing a fairly large cast of Filipino mythological creatures into the comic-book world.

Arre updates the looks of creatures like the manananggal by depicting them as everyday people. Thus Arre gives us the slightly horrifying idea that these creatures are living a hell of a lot closer to us than we think.

Better make sure next time you go to a rave that the chick in the midriff-baring shirt you're dancing with has her torso connected to the rest of her body. These are the stuff that our homegrown horror flicks should be made of.

Using watercolor and airbrush, Arre paints a vivid array of pictures without losing the essence that makes the creatures mythical in the first place.

Now on display at The Crucible Gallery, SM Megamall Bldg A.