Coching's El Indio launched at Komikon 2009

Monday, 19 October 2009 02:52 PM Tinette Panogot

The “remastered” edition of Francisco V. Coching's masterpiece El Indio was launched on Sunday, 18 October 2009, at the Fifth Annual Komikon. El Indio was serialized in Pilipino Komiks from 1952 to 1953; the few copies that remain are in the hands of private collectors.

“I was a big fan of Coching mula noong bata pa ako [since I was younger],” said komiks artist and writer Gerry Alanguilan, who did the restoration of the popular komiks serial with the help of assistant Zara Macandili. According to Alanguilan, he was fascinated by the drawings of Coching, who is known as the “Dean of Philippine Komiks.” However, when he tried to look for Coching's works in bookstores, he could not find any. “Walang pagkakataong mainfluence ang present artists kasi wala na ngayong mabili [There was no opportunity for Coching's works to influence present artists because they could not be found anymore],” he lamented, adding that present artists looked more to Japanese and Western influences because they could not see the works of Filipino komiks artists of the past.

During the launch, Alanguilan explained the restoration process and showed a short demo video. Since there were no available original drawings of El Indio, all he had to work from were bound compilations of the original komiks, which were hard to scan. “Fortunately, the Coching family had separate pages which were easier to scan,” he said. However, the half-century-old komiks were already yellow with age. Alanguilan and Macandili had to scan the pages at high resolution and strengthen the black lines before they could proceed with removing the yellow tint and recoloring. The restoration of El Indio was finished in 2008, and it was published as a full-length graphic novel by Vibal Foundation.

A short video with a dramatized preview of El Indio was shown after Alanguilan's talk. Vibal Foundation also gave away two copies of El Indio, one each to whoever could correctly answer a trivia question about the book.

“I am really happy,” said grade 4 teacher Francis Nico Pastor, who won a copy of the book for correctly answering a question regarding the true identity of El Indio. He hoped that more of Coching's works would be republished. Researcher Johnny Danganan, who won the other copy of El Indio, was not ashamed to hug his prize.

“Siyempre Coching eh. Kaya nung nakita kong may ibibigay, tumakbo na kaagad ako. Saka I really like his komiks [Of course, because it is by Coching. So when I saw that there was a contest, I immediately ran. Besides, I really like his komiks],” Danganan said.

Francisco V. Coching passed away in September 1998. His widow, Filomena N. Coching, gave a short speech of appreciation during the launch, and later signed copies of El Indio for fortunate buyers.

El Indio is published by Vibal Foundation, Inc. (VFI) with permission from the Francisco V. Coching Foundation. For more information about the book, interested people may call VFI at 712-2722 or 712-9156.