The Philippine Online Chronicles

There are some works of literature, where the title of the work remains a mystery even after you've finished reading the whole story. Others have a figurative significance, which only becomes clear once you've truly understood the underlying theme of the book or series. And then, of course, there are those works which seek, in their titles themselves, to capture the very essence of what the story is all about. Three guesses as to which category Kevin Justin Ang's "Zombies in Manila" (from Scratch Comics) falls under.

The literal title is actually rather common in zombie stories, whatever the medium--movies like "Dawn of the Dead", comics like "The Walking Dead", books like "Pride and Prejudice with Zombies",  video games like "Dead Rising"--at least where the creator doesn't want to keep the presence of zombies a big secret until a later reveal. A title which makes it very clear that a story will contain more than your usual daily allowance of rotting, moaning, shambling, and brain-eating makes a good deal of economic sense, as there is a sizeable community of fans out there who seek out and, well, devour, zombie stories. Creator Kevin Justin Ang is evidently one such fan, and "Zombies in Manila" is very much a labor of love, born out of  what, in the note at the end of Issue One, Ang calls: "the sad fact that despite the immense popularity of the undead breed, they have yet to make any major appearance on the local comic book scene."

With regard to Ang's goal to create the first komik focused squarely not just on zombies, but a zombie post-apocalypse, he's certainly succeeded. While zombies have popped up in Budjette Tan and Kajo Baldisimo's acclaimed "Trese" series (in Case 6: "The Outpost on Kalayaan Street"), and in short stories such as Yvette Tan's "Waking the Dead", but at the moment, there is nothing quite like "Zombies in Manila" in the local market (and even if more were to follow, it will retain the distinction as being one of the first, if not the first).

That being said, zombie fiction is not a monolithic phenomenon. There are different types of zombie stories, with factors ranging from the type of zombie, to the cause of the outbreak, to the overall tone of the story. What's clear from the first two issues of "Zombies in Manila" is that it is a story more in the gory-comedy vein of the recently released "Zombieland" rather than the more horror oriented "Dawn of the Dead" or "28 Days Later". While the Kapitan has a speech about "despair" versus "hope" in Issue One, despair is an emotion pretty much absent from the actual narrative. The characters in "Zombies in Manila" can be angry, manic, playful, worried… but they don't despair. To despair is basically to give up, and even when they are surrounded by a ravenous horde, even when a friend or a sibling perishes, giving up seems to be the farthest thing from the minds of the characters. In fact, Issue One opens with the series protagonist, Jason Lee, wading into a group of zombies, barrels blazing, with a smug joy that would make Bruce Campbell proud.

Another thing that Ang's komik shares with "Zombieland" is a penchant for pop culture references. In fact, Ang classifies "Zombies in Manila" as "a socio-political comedic love-adventure story with zombies". Some of the komik's most entertaining ideas come from the integration of notable  elements of the Philippine cultural landscape with a post-apocalyptic landscape: the "Z-Mobile" jeepney, decorated with machine guns, barbed wire, and severed zombie heads rather than metal horses and bumper stickers; a Jollibee within the walled city of Intramuros as the headquarters of Jason Lee's merry band; a character taking a piss on the rubble of a wall, the only portion of which that still stands bearing the standard "Bawal Umihi Dito" warning. The well designed color covers of the two released issues--one featuring Manny Pacquiao and the other a zombified version of a recognizable political leader--were the first things that really drew me to the komik.

However, the inclusion of current day personalities and issues also results in some of the weakest moments in the two issues. While making Manny Pacquiao play a major role in the series is fine, Lee's two page dissertation about why the "Manny" they find can't possibly be the real Manny Pacquiao seems rather pointless (especially since, in the end, Lee flat out states that he doesn't care whether or not this Manny is the real Manny--the one page spent on Lee's "theory" could have been completely dispensed with, to no ill effect). More importantly, the premise behind Lee's mission so far is that he has been tasked to rescue the President of the Philippines--a woman who, it is clear, many of the survivors hate because she was the cause of the zombie outbreak in the first place. It's never made clear why Lee agrees to the mission: Lee thinks that the President is already dead, and, while on one level Lee is doing it because otherwise the Kapitan would ride out himself, one would think that Lee would demand more of an explanation before risking himself and his team. Yet the Kapitan doesn't explain anything on-panel, and there is no indication that any discussion takes place off-panel. Given that the reason Lee takes the mission is so ambiguous, Lee's decision to lie to his team about the real goal of the mission becomes almost incomprehensible. While the light-hearted tone of the story makes it so that certain inconsistencies do not rupture my suspension of disbelief (or, as Benjie the driver says to Jess the mechanic in Issue Two: "Where's the door? I mean, you think of miniguns and armor plating before putting doors? Really?"), I found it difficult to stomach that Lee, who otherwise seems to be a caring and competent leader, could so easily lie to his team to get them to go on a dangerous mission to rescue a despised woman who he believes is already dead.

That major issue aside, the writing is action-movie fun, with lots of banter and tough-guy (or bad-girl) one-liners (although "get off your ass" or some variant thereof is used a few times too often). There's a lot of posturing, verbal and physical, and not a lot of character development so far (save for the confrontation between Jess and Anna), but in an action-comedy, changes in character don't usually come about until Act Three. The dialogue has bits of grammar awkwardness, but generally works well given the context, although sometimes the light tone is out of place given the situation (a character going from outrage at a zombie attacking his brother to saying "Oh dear" because he ran out of ammo, was kind of jarring).

The art is a strangely mixed bag, in that I felt the art in the first issue was much better than the art in the second issue. The first issue made use of thicker, smoother, darker lines and gave the art a slick, professional quality which was largely absent in the second issue. Maybe in part because of that, certain issues with perspective and physical proportion become more distracting in the second issue. One thing that remains excellent in both issues, however, is the way that Ang frames and splices the action, using a lot of different points-of-view, panel layouts, and cinematic angles. Ang really seems to think about the flow of a page, and the placement of panels; these make his action scenes pop out of the page.

At the end of the day, if you're a fan of light-hearted, action-oriented zombie stories--or if you simply enjoy a bullets-and-blood Hollywood style action movie--you'll enjoy "Zombies in Manila". And maybe, if enough readers enjoy it, it just might start the trend that Ang so dearly hopes for. He's certainly proved that Zombies + Manila = a whole lot of gory fun.

Zombies in Manila is available at Comic Odyssey and Sputnik. You can also contact the creators through any of the following emails: skylore_ang[at]yahoo.com, iron_pe1921[at]hotmail.com, jr_friends4ever[at]yahoo.com

[Image source: Paolo Chikiamco]