I wasn’t a particularly gregarious child.  All the kids in my neighborhood were a bit too old for me to play with, and so I’d always have to settle for observing the big boys play, my brother Roby among them, while I sat off to the side studying bugs… and the dirt.

I was three.

But every now and then, the big-boy world of competition and rough-housing would overlap with my world of little monsters and squinting.  That is to say… my brother would find spiders and have them fight on barbecue sticks.  For those of you who don’t know, this is a pretty common pastime in the Philippines, and it is probably one of my earliest and fondest of memories.  ——————————————-(picture below via The Telegraph)

The big boys would find spiders in my grandmother’s sprawling garden, which at the time felt like a huge forest.  Again, I was three… and pretty small for my age at that.  I was a runt in my brother’s pack, but when it was time for spider fights, I had no problem getting a good look as Roby would give me the front row seat, complete with commentary on the little arachnids’ jabs and blows.  There was humor, suspense,  and sometimes even drama.  The whole gaggle of kids would crowd around me and my brother, captivated by these miniature bloodsports.  To this day, I’ll take it over a boxing match.  The entertainment value of watching my brother pit spiders against each other  was probably one of the key factors that sparked my love for telling stories and designing creatures, and it’s all thanks to his giving me the best seat in the house.

I had picked up the skill of ‘projected dialogue’ …and it would later keep me entertained for hours on end when there were no spiders to be found and I was back to playing with bugs in the dirt.

This is my interim piece before i plunge into another ‘poster project’ … I’ve always held a fascination for World War II history and have long thought about doing a piece showcasing its top political and military leaders.

Below is one of my brother Roby’s new sketches featuring selected historical figures.  You can see the rest of the art here.

They didn’t plan this.

And the fries were soggy.

… … …. …  … … …

Lo.  Pan.

Playing hooky.

Brother’s Grip

Either I’ve actually managed to get some attention with some sequentials, or I’ve been enough of a loudmouth on the internet that some people just decided to give me some projects to shut me the hell up. Either way, I win.

But I fail, because my desktop has somehow detected my slight change in fortune and has so sonuvabitchingly decided to pay a little tribute to Murphy’s Law by developing narcolepsy. I shit you not. It’s not quite as bad as the blue screen of death, but it’s pretty damn close — my PC just shuts down without warning. No trigger. No detectable pattern to the instances. She’s just that big of a bitch.

So as great as it is having scripts on the way, having no way of actually working sucks. I’m on my brother’s laptop right now. Fine, I guess I could get some drawings down… but I’d get palpitations without music, and considering I got an ulcer last time I tried it… it’s probably not a very good idea now that people are actually paying me to do it. It’s my one quirk, okay? Shut up. I need music to work, and all my music is… you guessed it… in my computer. Which! Dies! At! Random!

I’ll probably do some sketches though, and tell you guys more about the writer(s) and project(s) in the coming days. But I will say that it’s not quite Marvel or DC just yet. But It’s a start, right? Oh also, I gotta ask how much I’m allowed to talk about here on Border Break. Gotta play these things close to our chests, yeah?

::: ::: :::

My brother just started his own work journal. It’s still pretty much a skeleton right now (and he’s using the same theme as me, the bastard), but pay him a visit and say hi —> clicky