ALAMAT: ORIGINS

[Addendum 5]

As I've mentioned in the earlier addenda, I relettered the AVATAR issue, and remastered HORUS.

Doing so afforded me the opportunity to see the pages before printing proper.

I did not get the same chance with DHAMPYR.

So I got to see the DHAMPYR section at the same time most everyone else did: when they got their copy of ALAMAT: ORIGINS.

Now, for a bunch of reasons, I have yet to read through the DHAMPYR section page-by-page.

But while I was randomly flipping through ORIGINS, I did note that the page sequence of the DHAMPYR section was... wonky.

So, for those of you who may have been confused with the apparently teleporting/time-travelling characters blinking in and out of scenes, please refer to the page sequences below:

225-234 / 237-238 / 301-302 / 239-298 / 235-236 / 299-300 / 303-306

The DHAMPYR section in ORIGINS runs from page 225 to 306.

We're fine with the initial section (pages 225-234), then we need to jump to pages 237-238, then jump to pages 301-302, then back to page 239, all the way through till page 298, etc, etc.

(Just follow that string of page numbers to read the story in its correct sequence.)

I've made the pertinent parties aware of the wonkiness, and hopefully, these errors will be rectified in any subsequent print runs of ORIGINS.

For now though, if you find yourself scratching your head at the way characters blink in and out of scenes, then please refer to the page numbers string above, which should clarify things nicely.

you can't drink just six,

Dave

ALAMAT: ORIGINS

[Addendum 4] (3 of 3)

In prepping ALAMAT: ORIGINS, Budjette Tan conducted a trio of Q&A's with me covering AVATAR, HORUS, and DHAMPYR.

Some of the Q&A content made it into the story Intros in ORIGINS.

Most, did not.

So I'll be posting the Q&A's here, uncut, so you can all see what was left on the cutting room floor.

Third up: AVATAR.

1 Same question – what’s your elevator pitch for AVATAR?

 

A beloved hero’s “best friend” (ala Jimmy Olsen)/youthful sidekick, crippled during a brutal supervillain battle, is given a chance to become that hero, oblivious to the sinister machinations going on behind the scenes of his very own “origin” story.

 

2 At this point in time, you’d already written Horus (and maybe Bathala?) – what was your approach to writing another guy with a cape? What was the impetus that got you excited to tell the story of Avatar?

 

One of the many things I’ve learned over the years is to never question the inspiration.

If an idea presents itself, and I’ve kicked all the tires and deemed it sound enough to take out on the road, on a journey that appears worthwhile, headed towards an intriguing and interesting destination, then I just slam those keys home, rev the engine, and head out on that highway…

 

So when AVATAR popped into my head, I didn’t really stop to think, “Well, it has to be different from those other Superman archetype characters I’ve written”; that consideration comes later, in the molding of the material.

Trust the process is another thing I’ve learned, so you drive down that highway the inspiration has presented to you, and you trust that the journey will be different from those you’ve taken before.

 

Plus, AVATAR (one of whose core ideas is: what if someone whose ability to move freely had been taken away from him, was suddenly given a chance to fly*) came around after a significant amount of time in which I wrote nothing, a sustained period where no idea seemed potent enough to pursue. It was a creative wasteland I was tired of inhabiting, and AVATAR was the rescuing hand that took me out of it.

 

So, really, there was no second guessing about me writing “another guy in a cape”. It was actually me leaning in and embracing all of that, an attitude that I’ve adopted time and again since then.

 

* In retrospect, given the creative rut I was in at the time, that metaphor is definitely not lost on me.

 

3 If AVATAR reached up to issue 100, what would he be doing? How would you make that milestone issue super special?

 

I imagine issue 100 would be the culmination of the whole “Terra Armada” subplot, when the fact that Tiercel is really a manipulative SOB who’s positioned all these heroes as pawns and expendable pieces on his chessboard has become common knowledge to Avatar and Horus.

The war they’ve been unwittingly trained for should reach its end at that point, and, well, it really isn’t actually a happy ending, honestly…

Would that make it “super special” enough…?

:P

 

And there you go.

While I also re-lettered AVATAR, it was more for the sake of readability.

Because the original publication was oversized, it was essentially shrunk down to the dimensions/proportions of ALAMAT: ORIGINS.

If I'd left the original lettering as it was, the issue would have possibly been a difficult read. So it was a matter of increasing the font size, rather than a full-on remastering ala HORUS.

Additionally, since the request was for "first issues", that's what appears in ORIGINS; the main story in AVATAR issue 1.

But there's actually a Prologue chapter, which ran in the final issue of PANTHEON, with art by the one and only Carl Vergara, where we see Tiercel make the offer to the crippled Saul that turns him into (the new) Avatar.

Maybe (hopefully?) we'll get to see that one reprinted too, somewhere down the line...

I think that's all I've got for now...

Honestly not sure if I'll be back with more ORIGINS posts, but if you have any specific questions (about AVATAR or HORUS or DHAMPYR) then that would ensure my return...

So, any questions, please feel free to leave them in the Comments section and I'll see what I can do to answer them.

you can't drink just six,

Dave

ALAMAT: ORIGINS

[Addendum 3] (2 of 3)

In prepping ALAMAT: ORIGINS, Budjette Tan conducted a trio of Q&A's with me covering AVATAR, HORUS, and DHAMPYR.

Some of the Q&A content made it into the story Intros in ORIGINS.

Most, did not.

So I'll be posting the Q&A's here, uncut, so you can all see what was left on the cutting room floor.

Second up: HORUS.

1 Same [first] question – what’s your elevator pitch to get people to read HORUS?

 

You’re a gifted college athlete, and you wake up one morning with a tattoo on your arm, a tattoo that allows you to change into a freaking SUPERHERO!

Crazy-awesome insanity ensues!

 

2 What inspired you to have twins as your main characters? And what kind of tension did you have in mind by having only one of them get the powers?

 

I’ve long been fascinated by the Beloved Executioner motif; the idea of betrayal coming from a loved one, like a brother, or more pointedly, a twin. It’s an idea I revisited in BATHALA, where I took it to some dark conclusions.

My end point for the Daly twins in HORUS is certainly not as dark as what we see unfold in BATHALA, but it would have hopefully been a torturous emotional wringer for both brothers to undergo before emerging on the other side.

Some of the bones of contention between the brothers begin to rear their ugly heads in the published HORUS stories, one seed in particular foregrounded in the story reprinted [in ALAMAT: ORIGINS], while the static of growing up unable to escape the shadow of a more popular sibling (a twin! So why aren’t we exactly alike?!) plays constantly through the narrative background.

 

3 Which version of Superman inspired you in your writing of HORUS?

 

Definitely Superman: The Animated Series, from the second half of the ‘90’s. (I’m also really enjoying My Adventures with Superman, BTW.)

The fact that I gave the main character the last name Daly (after STAS Superman voice actor Tim Daly) is a dead giveaway.

 

For those of you who were with Alamat from the early days, you may note that HORUS is really TATTOOED, but filtered through an Egyptian myth/STAS lens.

I loved the foundational idea of TATTOOED so much that I thought it would be interesting to take that core concept and apply it to a more all-ages title, and thus, we have HORUS.

 

4 If HORUS could have a cross-over with any comic book character, who would it be and what would they do?

 

Given the STAS influence, definitely Superman, who has become, over the decades, the comic book/spandex archetype of the Solar Hero (among many other things, of course).

They’d settle into a mentor/mentee set-up (one of the many things I frequently return to in my comic writing) and battle some darkness/shadow-themed villain, probably Set… 

 

And there you go.

Since the opportunity to re-letter HORUS presented itself, I took that shot to effectively remaster the story, polishing up the text (or, in some cases, writing new material), to further underscore plot points or themes.

So even if you'd already read this issue in its original incarnation in PANTHEON #1, the story as presented in ALAMAT: ORIGINS should hopefully be a more fulfilling read.

BTW, on page 339 of ORIGINS, the cover Tony used for HORUS is actually the back cover of AVATAR #3, art by Kai Legaspi. (Since we didn't have an actual HORUS #1 cover.)

Plus, on page 340, the creator credits should read David Hontiveros and Carl Vergara.

And, having mentioned AVATAR (also co-created by Carl!), the Q&A for that should hopefully go live sometime in the coming week.

If you have any questions about HORUS (or DHAMPYR), please feel free to leave them in the Comments section and I'll see what I can do to answer them.

you can't drink just six,

Dave

 ALAMAT: ORIGINS

[Addendum 2] (1 of 3)

In prepping ALAMAT: ORIGINS, Budjette Tan conducted a trio of Q&A's with me covering AVATAR, HORUS, and DHAMPYR.

Some of the Q&A content made it into the story Intros in ORIGINS.

Most, did not.

So I'll be posting the Q&A's here, uncut, so you can all see what was left on the cutting room floor.

First up: DHAMPYR.

1 For new readers, what’s your pitch that would get them interested In DHAMPYR?

 

You’re a half-human, half-vampire hybrid, who’s become quite adept at hunting down those blood-sucking freaks.

But you’re really looking for one freak in particular: your father…

Family reunions can be such a pain in the neck.

 

2 Aside from Vampire: The Masquerade, what inspired you to create these characters and that world of vampires?

 

As you’ve noted, Vampire: The Masquerade (and by extension, White Wolf’s World of Darkness RPG universe) was the main inspiration for DHAMPYR.

A key inspirational element here was the Vampire campaign I ran with a group of players that included none other than Carlo Vergara himself. DHAMPYR’s setting (that very particular Goth-drenched San Francisco spectacularly brought to (un)life by Oliver) was also influenced by that Vampire campaign.

 

Beyond that RPG inspiration, I also wanted to write about family dysfunction, and I felt that if I could write something fantastic, where you could actually strip away all the genre markers (the vampire/occult stuff) and still have a functional narrative (a son trying to come to terms with an absentee father and the wreckage of his family caused by that person), then I could possibly have a story worth telling.

 

3 If you created Dhampyr today in 2024, do you think you would end up with a different set of characters, a different layout for the world?

 

Interesting question.

Two ways to answer that.

 

One: if, for whatever reason, the specific idea for what eventually turned out to be DHAMPYR came to me today, it would then be a period piece, in that, there’s something very particular about the Goth scene in the ‘90’s, when the ‘80’s (and Goth’s “birth” in the late 70’s) were still a recent memory, before the drift of certain elements of the subculture towards the mainstream (see: emo).

 

So I can’t quite see that DHAMPYR narrative set in the present day, without having its, ahem, fangs filed down, certainly from a visual/aesthetic standpoint.

So the story we told in DHAMPYR, characters and all, would still probably be set in that time frame.

 

The other way to answer your question: if a general idea came to me to write about a half-human, half-vampire hybrid in the year 2024, that story would definitely not be the story we told in DHAMPYR, but another beast entirely…

I highly doubt that it would have that Goth aesthetic, either… so, at the very least, the characters wouldn’t look the same…

 

4 What do you remember from the night the book was launched in Synergy, during Halloween?

 

That sea of PDBs (People Dressed in Black).

So awesome.

:D

So there you go.

After all this time, I am still extremely proud of what Oliver and I were able to achieve with DHAMPYR.

The fact that DHAMPYR was the title that made the Manila Critics Circle establish a Comics Category is still both mind-blowing and humbling for me. Sure, we didn't win, because the Circle has a rule that the voting of the judges needs to be unanimous for a book to be considered a "winner", but that doesn't take anything away from the reality that DHAMPYR was the inaugural title for the Circle's Comics Category.

It broke through the ceiling.

Boom. 

The next Q&A (probably HORUS) should hopefully go live over the weekend?

If you have any questions about DHAMPYR, please feel free to leave them in the Comments section and I'll see what I can do to answer them.

you can't drink just six,

Dave

ALAMAT: ORIGINS

[Addendum 1]

So I got my compli copies of ALAMAT: ORIGINS (thanx so much to Rome for the coordinating) and wanted to note a few things.

Firstly, that this will hopefully develop into a series of posts centered on ORIGINS and the stories between its covers that I had a hand in writing. Random notes and observations to hopefully put those stories in the bigger context that they're a part of.

Secondly, in Karen's Afterword, she notes a conversation in which an "un-God" is mentioned.

Now, time and memory will do this to you, but I, for one, do not recall this conversation.

Time and memory.

And age.

It happens.

I do want to point out however, that the "un-God" is certainly not my idea at all.

Fans of Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol will recognize the description as that of the Decreator. (Still one of the most chilling things Grant has ever written, that sadly, did not quite make the translation in the TV adaptation.)

So, I dunno... maybe time and memory did the same thing to Karen (three decades ago, man! SMH.), but the "un-God" is not an idea I came up with.

The Decreator... that's all Grant.

Anyhoo.

Hope you picked up (or intend to pick up) ALAMAT: ORIGINS, which chronicles our early efforts at comic book writing.

Hopefully I'll be around here again soon with some more ORIGINS Addenda.

you can't drink just six,

Dave

THE MENU (September 2022)

 

THE MENU

(September 2022)

“Twelve customers, total.”

“A night? How do they turn a profit?”

“Twelve-fifty a head. That’s how.”

“You’re f*cking kidding, right? What are we eating, a Rolex?”

Searchlight Pictures invites us to experience The Menu (or so the opening title cards tell us).

Mark Mylod, largely known for directing some major HBO titles (like Entourage, Game of Thrones, and Succession), takes a script written by Seth Reiss and Will Tracy*, and presents us with this darkly humorous, class conscious piece that sees Ralph Fiennes as noted celebrity chef Julian Slowik.

“Here, we are family.

“Each day starts at 6, with 5 hours of prep work.

“We harvest. We ferment. We slaughter. We marinate. We liquefy. We spherify. We gel.”

Slowik, who we are told has “… always been keenly aware of food as a history of class” has risen in the ranks of celebrated chefs and now runs an exclusive restaurant on Hawthorne Island (apparently named after the restaurant, the island is “twelve acres of forest and pasture” surrounded by “the bounty of the sea”, as explained during the guided tour).

A restaurant that charges largely self-involved, entitled richies $1,250 a head for the privilege.

A restaurant described by Slowik as his “entire life”.

A restaurant run obsessively by Slowik in a practically cult-like manner, on an island without a boat or phone service.

So many red flags…

“Trust me, he’s telling a story. That’s what makes his food so exciting. He’s not just a chef. He’s a storyteller. And he doesn’t give a f*ck about the rules.”

To say any more would risk ruining the “wonderful surprises” indicated on the one sheet featuring Fiennes, so perhaps we should leave it at that, for those of you curious enough to seek this title out.

Not exactly a comedy, but not really a full-on horror movie either**, The Menu is smart, biting commentary with a killer cast (yes, that is indeed Anya Taylor-Joy on the second one sheet) that just begs to be savored and relished, as Slowik would have it…

So go on and do just that, yeah?

“You will eat less than you desire and more than you deserve.”

* The script appeared on the 2019 Black List, alongside the screenplays for:

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (Kevin Etten and Tom Gormican);

Don’t Worry Darling (Carey Van Dyke and Shane Van Dyke; the screenplay as filmed is credited to Katie Silberman, with the Van Dykes and Silberman getting “Story By” credits);

and the upcoming Knock at the Cabin.

What appeared on the 2019 List was the initial draft, still titled The Cabin at the End of the World, adapted by Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman from the Paul Tremblay novel.

What we’re going to get with Knock at the Cabin is the script, as rewritten and directed by M. Night Shyamalan (on the one sheets, the credits read: Screenplay by M. Night Shyamalan and Steve Desmond & Michael Sherman).

** Even the awards-giving bodies seem torn; most of the film’s nominations fall under the Comedy category, but Colin Stetson was nominated for his score at 2022’s Hollywood Music in Media awards under the Horror/Thriller Film category…

To be fair though, the HMMA apparently has no Comedy categories…

And, for the record, Michael Abels took home that particular award for his Nope score…

(The Menu OS’ courtesy of impawards.com.)

BARBARIAN (August 2022)

BARBARIAN

(August 2022)

“That's not... An Airbnb. In Brightmoor?”

More so than any other horror film released last year that I had the opportunity to see, Barbarian is definitely the title that begs to be seen as arctic cold as possible, with the barest minimum of knowledge about what the movie is about. (Arguably, even more so than Jordan Peele’s Nope.)

And, for those of you who are familiar with the Iguana environs, you’ll know that I’d sooner say what the movie is actually about (its thematics) than say what the movie is apparently about (its narrative/plot).

The thing is, I can’t even get into Barbarian’s thematics without possibly spoiling what could be a very enjoyable and surprising horror ride for you, so, this is all you’ll get here:

Tess Marshall (Georgina Campbell) arrives at 476 Barbary only to discover that there’s apparently been a double-booking, with Keith Toshko (Bill Skarsgård, also an Executive Producer) already there.

Then… let’s just say things go on and develop from that starting point, leading to some very dark and twisty places, territories which are not for any sensitive, faint of heart souls…

“You’re just as put out as me.”

Writer/director Zach Cregger cites Jordan Peele’s Get Out* as a prime motivator for Barbarian (like Peele, Cregger has a background in comedy), which is just one more reason to thank the esteemed Mr. Peele for his role in helping enrich and enliven contemporary horror cinema.

Now, get on out there (heh) and seek this one out to see what all the fuss is about…

“No, you shouldn’t be there.”

* In Cregger’s own words: “[Get Out] is a perfect movie and it gave me permission to change genres, write for myself, be funny and have something to say.”

(Barbarian OS’ courtesy of impawards.com.)