Nostalgic for Pinoy (funny) comics

Monday, 18 July 2011 01:32 Dennis Villegas

pilipinokomiks-3 Pilipino Funny Komiks started me into collecting Tagalog komiks. Back in the 1970s, my father used to buy all sorts of Bugs Bunny and Batman comics being poorly reprinted by National Bookstore, hoping they could speed up my reading abilities in grade school. But I never liked reading them. In fact I now have a bunch of them in my bookshelf which I will gladly give away to anyone who will take care of them.

On the other hand, I liked Pilipino Funny Komiks because it was written in Tagalog, and I can easily relate with it. Looking back I feel lucky that our family did not have the habit of throwing away things. We just keep everything in our old baul and bookshelves. Some of our collections have been destroyed due to frequent typhoons, but nevertheless most have survived. When I got a job in the late 1980s, I started augmenting our collection, trying to find the objects that were part of our childhood. And this included Pilipino Funny Komiks.

Pilipino Funny Komiks is a full color komiks first published in 1978 by Islas Filipinas Publications, Inc., a division of Atlas Publications, owned by Don Ramon Roces. Back then, Atlas was located at Scout Reyes Street, in Quezon City. (The company was later purchased by Mrs. Socorro Ramos of National Bookstore, and transferred to 20th Avenue in Cubao, just right across where I lived.)

For those who grew up reading Pilipino Funny Komiks, reading them now could bring echoes of nostalgia of the simpler days when children were happy reading a colored comic book, filled with beautiful stories about animal superheroes and endearing characters. Back then, there were no video games, internet, MP3, and home video. All we had then was a black and white television where we watch children's programs like Kuskos Balungos, Voltes V, Daimos, and Sesame Street. I only learned later that these television shows were shot in color and the reason they appeared black and white was that because our TV was black and white!

And then appeared Pilipino Funny Komiks, which changed the way we Filipino children lived at that time. It was only a comic book, but it was like going to a different, happier planet. And we loved it.

Let us travel back in time and revisit those good old days by viewing once more the most endearingly memorable characters we grew up with in Pilipino Funny Komiks. Pilipino Funny Komiks was last published in 2004. What I can show you now are the older copies I found in my komiks library.

It's good to be a child again once in a while to momentarily escape the boredom of being grown-up.