Stories In A Graphic Mode:
An Interview In Six Panels With Arnold Arre
by Luis Joaquin M. Katigbak
(4/4/2001 - Legmanila.com)

Imagine a comic book page, with its colorful illustrations and hand-scrawled captions and clean white borders. Imagine that it has six equal-sized square panels arranged in a grid, two panels to a tier. This is the first panel, in the upper left-hand corner: a young boy is sprawled on the floor, on his stomach. His chin rests in his hands; a comic book is open on the floor before him. He is looking at the pages with utter fascination.

Arnold Arre is one of our foremost comic book writer-artists. He is perhaps best known for his four-part opus, "The Mythology Class" (1999), which told an engaging story that combined creatures and characters from Philippine folklore, epics, and lower mythology, with our present-day world of fast cars, big malls, and electronic gadgetry.

He has also received favorable reviews for his latest work, a one-shot piece entitled "Trip to Tagaytay" (2000), a love letter of sorts that unfolds within his vision of a late 21st-century Phlippines. Aside from his comics work, he has done numerous design and illustration jobs for various clients, and has even had a one-man fantasy-themed show at the Crucible Gallery -- but the comics medium is still the one he feels closest to.

Arnold was born in Sta. Ana, Manila in 1971. He took up a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, and started working as an artist at Ace-Saatchi & Saachi while still in college.

Why did he leave a promising career in the world of advertising to work in a medium that is still largely perceived as only being fit for children to appreciate? How does a normal-sized human skull come to contain hordes of sword-wielding valkyries, an entire bestiary of mythological creatures, and vast futuristic cityscapes? What is, to use a phrase familiar to comics fans, the Secret Origin of Arnold Arre?

"Comics are a lifetime love of mine," he says. "When I was 4 or 5 years old, I would borrow -- make that steal -- them from my brother. I didn't even know how to read! I would look at the pictures, and I would know the story right away."

This was his apprenticeship in the art of storytelling -- by absorbing how the panels were composed, how the action flowed from one panel to another, how the expressions of the characters were drawn, and all the other elements of comics' visual power, he learned lessons that would serve him well much later. It was not long before he would learn how to skillfully handle words, as well.

"Writing added a new dimension," he says. "I won a couple of essay contests in high school." He goes on a little bit more about his stay in Cainta Catholic High -- basically, he claims, "I was an outcast. I was very much into sci-fi, comics, Arthur Clarke, Asimov, Alan Lightman, Heavy Metal. Everyone else was dating," he says with a laugh, "I was a geek."

His fascination with Heavy Metal marked a shift away from his interest in superhero comics. As a child, he read the usual four-color fantasies -- Superman, Hulk, Avengers, X-Men -- but in his teens, he started looking for more extreme material that would explore other aspects of the medium he loved.

The fantasy stories in Heavy Metal, much of it from European comics artists, contained overt sex and violence that shocked the young Arre at first. "But it was something new," he stresses. "I've always wanted to check out new stuff," he says, to discover "something people have never seen or read before." (The Heavy Metal influence may be seen most blatantly in his first published comics work, "Age of the Valkyrie" -- a tale with half-naked warrior women that would raise the hackles of some local feminists.)

His disenchantment with superhero-oriented stories continues to this day. This may come as a surprise to those who assume that superheroes are the be-all and end-all of the comics medium. "I refuse to write superhero comics," he states plainly. "The market is saturated. So many people wearing underwear outside their trousers -- they've got that covered," he quips. "I want to tell stories of my own."

The second panel, in the upper right-hand corner of the page, depicts a series of three figures -- a boy, a teenager, and a man, walking in single file. The strong similarities in their features make it clear that they are all the same person, at different ages -- it is an "evolution of man" type of sequence. The boy is holding a comic book, the teenager is holding a science-fiction book, and the man is carrying a T-square, along with other artists' tools.

Over the years, Arnold would absorb various influences, among them the works of famed European comics artist Moebius (a.k.a. Jean Giraud), Punch cartoonist Graham Laedler, better known as Pont, various Japanese animators, and Syd Mead, who calls himself cinema's first visual futurist -- a term he coined for his groundbreaking pre-visualization work on the movie "Blade Runner." (Mead also worked on "Tron," "Star Trek: The Motion Picture," and "2010.")

After college, Arnold worked as a "visualizer" at the Art Department of Saatchi & Saachi. He describes himself as fairly content in those days, and yet -- "There were just so many things, so many stories I wanted to tell but I couldn't tell in advertising. During lunchtime I was always sketching, I would just doodle."

One of his friends at work told him that he loved his drawing style, and that he should just pursue that, just do what he wanted. It was as if a door had opened somewhere within the young artist's mind. Why not? Why not devote his time to exploring what was possible with the medium he had loved since he was a child?

Panel three: The man is surrounded by fellow comics lovers, all clutching copies of their favorite titles and talking. Above their heads is strung a banner with a logo that looks like a stylized sun emanating lightning-like rays.

Arnold soon got together with a bunch of like-minded individuals, and they formed a group that would eventually be known as Alamat Comics -- not so much a company, exactly, as a support group, a bunch of friends whose goal was to create a brand of world-class and yet distinctly Filipino comic books.

It was the mid-90s, and the comic book industry in the United States was enjoying unprecedented sales success -- new companies and imprints were being launched all the time, not to mention new titles -- and some of that excitement spilled over into the comics-loving community here.

Arnold, despite his less than enthusiastic attitude towards superheroes, found himself working as the artist on a comic book called "Batch '72." The high concept was this: in some alternative-world Philippines, super powers are about as common among adolescents as, say, acne.

"Batch '72" follows the story of a college barkada whose members possess powers that range from flight to invulnerability to telepathy, and who also happen to have formed a band -- think "Josie and the Pussycats" meets "The X-Men."

The people in Alamat wanted to differentiate it from the more violent, gaudy, and action-oriented superhero comics that were popular around that time. ("No spandex!" Arnold insisted.) And "Batch '72" was certainly better than most of the previous local efforts at superhero-oriented titles, which on the whole displayed their American influences too blatantly.

The comic was, at least in its conceptualization stage, a group effort -- Arnold's main contribution was the "look." The other members of Alamat would pitch ideas, usually plucked from real life, and he would render them. For example, they said, "Draw a Goth girl! Like Karen Kunawicz!" -- and he drew the dark-haired lass known as Kadi, short for Kadiliman.

The party-girl character, Pam, was based on Pam from local band Kelts Cross, and so on. (Arnold would like to set the record straight about the band leader character called Kupcake, however, whom everybody assumes is the result of some Cookie Chua fixation. They asked him to come up with a sort of hippie girl for the '90s, and he came up with the look of the character before he had ever heard of Chua, or her band Color it Red. She would be named later, by another Alamat member.)

He also pitched in a character he dreamed up way back in grade school, called Astig -- a boy who is invulnerable, who cannot be killed, but who sees his invulnerability as a curse, because as the years pass, all around him other people wither away and die. ("Pretty morbid concept for a grade-schooler," I commented).

Arnold turned in the pencilled art pages for the first issue of "Batch '72" in 1995, while he was on vacation in Germany, but it finally came out in 1998, in a format that no one, especially Arnold, was particularly happy with. It was essentially several sheets of long bond paper, folded in half and stapled -- no cardboard covers, no glossy paper.

It must be said that this first issue, which had been eagerly anticipated by the local comics community, was something of a disappointment. Aside from the throwaway format (understandable in terms of keeping costs at a minimum; after all, to this day, the artists and writers of Alamat pay for the publishing costs out of their own pockets), the story and art were not quite up to par. The characters were underdeveloped, and mostly stereotypical -- a party girl, an angsty poet, a comic-relief character, and so on -- and some of the captions and dialogue could have used an editor. (For example, the first page contains the meaningless phrase, "In some equidistant future...")

Arnold's illustrations, while possessing an undeniable charm, seemed to lack a certain polish. "Batch '72" was, however, certainly better than many of the aforementioned "X-Men" ripoffs that had plagued the local market earlier.

It was while working on "Batch '72," however, that the shiny dream that Alamat Comics represented began to tarnish, at least for Arnold Arre.

Panel four: We see the man chained to a drawing desk, huddled over some half-finished comics pages. He is surrounded by darkness; the only light in this apparent dungeon shines from a lamp that is perched, vulture-like, on the side of the desk. The man has an anguished expression on his face, as if this is the last place in the world he wants to be.

While turning out page after page of "Batch '72" artwork, Arnold had a growing sense of being overworked, unappreciated, and even disrespected. He had given up a well-paying job to pursue his dream of making comics, and instead of the support and encouragement he had expected, he was made to feel, in his words, "like a slave."

This was due to the behavior of his main collaborator on the title, who rarely acknowledged Arnold's constant hard work, and who, when asked by an interviewer what Arnold did for Alamat, allegedly replied, "Nothing." Arnold comments, "I'd worked in several agencies, and I had never been treated like that."

(I ask him whatever happened to "Batch '72," and he says that he finished enough material for four or five issues. Alamat Comics, for reasons unknown, has yet to print issue #2.)

"If you work for a company and you don't like it, then you're doing it for the money -- but if you're not happy, AND you're not getting paid, then something is really wrong!" Arnold points out. Not that he ever expected to get paid by Alamat; producing comics was nothing more or less than a labor of love for all involved, after all. But he did expect to be treated with a certain respect, at least, not just as an artist-drone executing someone else's grand vision.

"I almost had a nervous breakdown," Arnold says. "I was having nightmares all the time, I didn't know where to go. I wasn't myself anymore, I was full of rage, there was no one to talk to." Even talking about it now, some time after the situation has passed, it is clear that he retains some residual bitterness and confusion about the whole situation.

"Despite that, being the optimist, I always thought -- things will clear up, he'll probably treat me better." But despite his partner's occasional reassurances, their working relationship did not improve. "I couldn't work with him anymore," Arnold says, "and I decided to do my own book."

Panel five: The man is riding on the shoulders of a giant half-man, half-horse -- a majestic tikbalang straight out of Philippine mythology, its body covered with sun and river tattoos. The man is staring joyfully up at a clear night sky.

"In 1997, I suddenly had this idea: 'The Mythology Class.'" Arnold says. In some ways, however, he had been carrying the inspiration for this story for about 18 years, ever since a childhood friend of his had demonstrated to him her utter belief in Nunos and Enkantos. One afternoon, she had coerced him into saying "May I pass" before stepping over a large anthill, telling him that he would be plagued by a terrible curse if he did not.

The idea that a magical world with its own rules and rituals existed below the mundane surface of ours was one that Arnold would not forget. It was only many years later, however, when a desire to commemorate the craziness, the good times and hard times, the fun and friendships -- yes, the magic of his college years -- would combine with this childhood memory and become the basis for "The Mythology Class."

Arnold's enthusiasm for his comics work returned. "The Mythology Class" was to be his "present to everyone in Alamat," his way of upholding "the ideals we had at the beginning." Not surprisingly, his partner on "Batch '72" was less than encouraging, but this did not matter so much anymore; he had other friends in Alamat to rely on, and his family, and of course, his own resolve.

"I did a few projects for Santiago-Puno advertising, and that helped to raise some of the money to publish four issues." He also engaged in some in-depth research: four months of it, to be exact, "to get the details right." He had always been interested in Philippine mythology, and he wanted to "pay respect to these stories that have been passed on for generations."

He did this not by retelling those same tales, but by integrating their concepts with a cast of young characters taken from the present day, coming up with what Ruel de Vera called "a combination of GenX-style angst and adventure with the multi-dimensional battle between good and evil."

It took Arnold a little less than a year to complete his graphic novel. "The first issue was launched in May 1999, and the fourth and final issue came out in December 1999."

"The short of it is," as Paolo Manalo wrote in a review for this magazine, "a college class on Filipino mythology turns into a whole field trip into the realm of the supernatural, where the barkada of heroes, under the guidance of Professor Enkanta, captures creatures who do not belong in this world and need to be returned to theirs."

"The Mythology Class" was well received by casual readers and professional critics alike, and it was generally perceived as the best Filipino comic book in English made up to that point. The Manila Critics Circle acknowledged Arnold's achievement by giving him a National Book Award in 2000. "It's a nice feeling to have made a connection with your readers," he wrote in an e-mail message. "Now I know the hard work was worth it."

"The Mythology Class" was many things -- a fun, exciting read, Arnold's celebration of his college years and of our rich storehouse of folklore and mythology, and his declaration of artistic independence. However, like all of his published comics work to date, it still bore the Alamat logo on its covers. This would change with the next story Arnold would tell.

Panel six: The man has his arm wrapped affectionately around a woman, and they are standing in front of a rocketship pointed spacewards. A ladder stretches from the ship to the ground by their feet, a bright arc of indestructible metal. The couple seem eager, happy, and ready to embark on their trip. On the side of the rocket is emblazoned an image of a stylized woman and a crescent moon. The moon seems to be shedding stars into the woman's upturned palm.

Arnold Arre may have won a National Book Award in 2000, but perhaps the most significant thing to happen to him that year was getting together with award-winning graphic designer Cynthia Bauzon. He had "always known her, ever since college," but it was only after they met again at the launch of a book promoting local designers and illustrators that they started dating.

Their union soon became professional as well as personal -- together, they formed Tala Studios, a graphic design studio of their own. "For now, we're focusing on the publishing side, on my books," Arnold explains, "but we've been getting projects here and there -- we did storyboards recently for an Eraserheads video." The first book that Tala Studios was to launch (in cooperation with Quest Ventures) was "Trip to Tagaytay."

Arnold's decision to leave Alamat Comics and publish his work on his own was at least partially a result of his sour experience on "Batch '72." He stresses that this was just his own personal experience, that his recounting of those events is not intended in any way as an indictment of Alamat Comics as a whole. "I still have friends in Alamat," he asserts, "people who have my respect."

It was during the launch of "Trip," in December 2000, that I first met Arnold. There was a table set up in front of the Comic Quest shop in Megamall, and copies of "Trip" were on display, along with numerous sketches by Arnold. Arnold himself was standing behind the table, with a broad smile on his face, and beside him was Cynthia, who not only designed the book's cover, but served as its main inspiration.

"I began writing and illustrating the book right after my girlfriend Cynthia left for Europe for a short vacation," Arnold recounts on the "Trip to Tagaytay" web page. It was a combination of "the uncomfortable experience of missing a loved one" and his long-time fascination with fantastic visions of the future -- "I used to make sketches of what Cubao might look like years from now," he says -- that resulted in a touching love story made unique by its being set in a future Philippines, a country molded by almost a century of strange changes into something barely recognizable on the surface and yet still oddly familiar.

"Trip" works so well as a comic book that it is surprising to learn that it was originally written in prose, as a short story. "I was going to submit it for the Future Fiction category," Arnold explains, referring to the newest category, introduced just last year, of the long-running annual Carlos Palanca Literary Awards. "I missed the deadline, and decided to make it into a comic -- you know that feeling, you're still on a roll, didn't want to waste the story!"

This news was particularly mind-boggling to me, as I happened to be one of the winners for Future Fiction in that same year. Immediately after attending the launch, in a bus bound for Philcoa, I read "Trip to Tagaytay" for the first time. Afterwards, I breathed a sigh of gratitude, glad that Arnold had missed the original deadline.

For one thing, comics afficionados everywhere would have been deprived of what I consider to be his best work yet in the medium. And besides, had he submitted it, I might very well have ended up being bumped off the winners' list, so I was lucky there.

And what does the future hold for Arnold Arre? "If there's one thing I want to say," he says with conviction, "it's that all I want to do is make comic books." When asked about his next project, he replies, "I'm coming up with a story for some time next year, in 2002 -- a sequel of sorts, or an extension, to 'The Mythology Class.'"

When I ask him about the reason behind his devotion to the comics form, he answers, "There is no other medium I know of for storytelling, where I can utilize both my writing and drawing skills, than the medium of comic books, or graphic novels... In the end, it's all about telling the stories that YOU want to tell."

Cynics would say that to cling to a pipe dream is a recipe for abject misery. Arnold has so far managed to prove the cynics wrong. He has, he admits, never been happier.

Check out Arnold Arre's new website at http://www.arnold-arre.com