TRESE: BLOODLINES Volume 1

TRESE: BLOODLINES Volume 1 is now available to order on Shopee.

I had originally intended to make that announcement in a new Out of the Gutter post where I was going to talk a bit more about one of my contributions, but alas, some Personal Life Upheaval stuff raging, so I'll try and get around to that particular OotG at some point.

For now, my contributions are as follows:

The Fr. Matthias Trese case, “That Kind of Hunger” (art by the mighty fine Brian Balondo) and

the Fr. Trese and Dakila Deviation, “Iunctura” (AKA DEVIATIONS Issue 1; art by the mighty fine Marvin del Mundo).

If "Iunctura" makes you want to see more Dakila (and I really hope it does), then kindly click on down to the Indies section of the Avenida website, where you'll find these 'Verse goodies...

Support independently published local comics!

In the meantime, let's continue to trudge through this liminal space, leaving the massive dumpster fire that was TFNY 2020...

Hopefully, 2021 will be kinder to the human race...

With that said:

 

Stay safe.

Stay sane.

 

you can’t drink just six,

 

Dave

OUT OF THE GUTTER (4) “Iunctura”

OUT OF THE GUTTER (4)

“Iunctura”

David Hontiveros / Marvin del Mundo

[Contained in TRESE: BLOODLINES Volume 1]

This piece originally appeared in the DEVIATIONS issue 1 “Iunctura” floppy release.

It appears here at the Iguana for any readers who will be reading the story in BLOODLINES Volume 1 for the first time.

 

When Budjette asked me if I was interested in writing Fr. Matt, I very quickly landed on having my first script be a team-up between Fr. Matt and Dakila.

There are a number of reasons for that, and these are two of them.

One:

The only established foundation for the character of Fr. Matt was the “Linda Blasco” story; I was given free rein in terms of not just his personal backstory, but also the finer details of the type of demons he faces as well as the further specifics of the organization he’s a part of.

 

And while the relatively open slate I was presented with eased away some of the pressure on one end (there wasn’t much I could possibly contradict, given the single issue worth of story that was my, ahem, Bible for Fr. Matt), it also compounded the pressure on the other (because in the final analysis, this was going to be all me).

 

So I felt I needed to ease into the character of Fr. Matt, and having another character there, someone I’ve been actively thinking about and writing for a whole slew of scripts and issues and years, was sort of my security blanket.

If I knew exactly what Dakila would say and how he’d react to any given situation, that would free me up to focus on Fr. Matt, so I could discover who he is as a person and an individual, and I would then, in turn, eventually know what Fr. Matt would say and how he’d react to any given situation.

I wasn’t just discovering Fr. Matt from my viewpoint as the writer; I was also discovering Fr. Matt through Dakila’s eyes, and that helped the process tremendously.

Two:

The thought of chronicling how a priest would react to meeting a superhero who happens to be “the champion of God”...

That was a no-brainer and too, heh, tempting an opportunity to pass up.

So I opted to have IUNCTURA be the first Fr. Matt script I wrote.

 

And yes, for those of you who super-parsed that sentence, there are more Fr. Matt scripts that have already been written, some focusing more on Fr. Matt (and which lean more towards the horror end of the spectrum) and some featuring the further adventures of the Divinely Dynamic Duo, Dakila and Fr. Matt, both types of stories working in tandem to help build out the world of the Mercy Seat and the Malevari.

 

So we all hope you enjoy this first step that takes us deeper into the world of Fr. Matt, where demons buzz and shriek with the voices of the once-possessed, and where priests can be trusted to kick Evil’s ass for the Lord...

--dave (Space Monkey)

October 2019

And with that dispatch from the Long Ago sent out into the wilds of the Interwebz, let me leave you with:

 

Stay safe.

Stay sane.

 

you can’t drink just six,

 

Dave

TRESE: BLOODLINES Volume 1 contains both

“Iunctura” (AKA DEVIATIONS Issue 1; art by the mighty fine Marvin del Mundo), and

“That Kind of Hunger” (art by the mighty fine Brian Balondo).

TRESE: BLOODLINES Volume 1 is now available for preorder at the Avenida website.

There's still time to preorder (20% off cover price), so long as payment is made by December 17, 2020, which is tomorrow, so chop chop!

Shipping starts on December 21, 2020, Monday next week.

And while you're down Avenida way to preorder, it would be greatly appreciated if you also check out the Indies section, where you'll find more Dakila in these 'Verse goodies...

OUT OF THE GUTTER (3) “That Kind of Hunger”

OUT OF THE GUTTER (3)

“That Kind of Hunger”

David Hontiveros / Brian Balondo

[Contained in TRESE: BLOODLINES Volume 1]

For the record: while “That Kind of Hunger” may be the first Solo Fr. Matt story penned by me that you’ll be reading, this isn’t the first Solo Fr. Matt (SFM, as opposed to a DEVIATIONS X-Over/team up) script that I wrote.

When DEVIATIONS launched at last year’s NovKon (in the Far, Far Away Time of the Long Ago), I had already completed first drafts of “Congrego” (aka DEVIATIONS issue 2) and “A Higher Decision of Instinct,” my first crack at a SFM tale, and a closer look at the ways in which the Mercy Seat operates.

But shortly after the Secret HQ event (thanx so much to all you mighty fine folk who dropped by for that), Budjette asked if we could launch the FATHER TRESE title with a more Fr. Matt-focused story.

I had a number of other SFM story ideas bubbling under the surface, and the one that rose to the top was “That Kind of Hunger.” (Or, as I referred to it in the script, the one with Fr. Matt, a couple of demons, and a bunch of rich A-holes.)

Under the “more Fr. Matt-focused” directive from On High, the rest of his Trinity are mentioned, but are firmly kept off-panel.

So, for those of you who may want to see more of Frs. Bronze and Alloy, as well as some other fresh Hilasterion faces, you’ll need to wait for whenever the originally-issue 1-but-now-going-to-be-issue 2 SFM script gets drawn and scheduled for release.

And any dangling plot threads visible at the end of “That Kind of Hunger” will likewise need to wait to resurface sometime in the hopefully foreseeable future...

(Thus are the wages of one of the other directives from On High, the “each issue needs to be a one-and-done.”)

And while the main bulk of the pages were drawn during lockdown by the mighty fine Brian Balondo, the “Hunger” script was indeed written back in the Long Ago, before all this tragic insanity descended upon us…

In a related aside, a first draft of DEVIATIONS issue 3 (“Liberatio”) is also already in Budjette’s Inbox, and DEVIATIONS issues 4 (“Deviatus”) and 5 (the double-length “Pestis”) are very nearly at the “first draft good to go” stage.

Meanwhile, on the SFM front, a particularly angry script, the bulk of which was written during the depths of lockdown (working title: “No Such Thing”), is also nearly at “first draft good to go,” and a script that picks up where “That Kind of Hunger” leaves off (working title: “Beyond the Rivers of Cush”), where we see the fallout of that bloody night at Olazo Elementary School, is gradually formulating at the back of my mind…

All these scripts of course, subject to scheduling based on the release plans from On High…

(Pssssttt… if you want to see these sooner rather than later, then bug Budjette on that newfangled thing called… “social media”? Did I get that right?)

I should also probably mention that the current working title for the SFM book is SANCTUS, and though it’s technically the “Solo Fr. Matt” book, it’s also meant to be a guided tour of the much wider stage upon which the Mercy Seat and the Malevari wage their ongoing war, so we also get to meet a whole lot of other Mercy Seaters in SANCTUS, as well as a host of other characters who color Fr. Matt’s life.

Okay.

I should be posting another OotG text piece soon (what was originally meant to be included along with “That Kind of Hunger”, if its initial release had been in floppy form).

In the meantime though, I’d like to acknowledge the following, for soundtracking the lettering process of “That Kind of Hunger”:

BAUMUSIK

808 State, Best Coast, Depeche Mode, Electric Owls, Propaganda, Rammstein, Ben Salisbury & Geoff Barrow, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Visage, and Xmal Deutschland

And with that said:

Stay safe.

Stay sane.

you can’t drink just six,

Dave

TRESE: BLOODLINES Volume 1 contains both

“That Kind of Hunger” (art by the mighty fine Brian Balondo) and

“Iunctura” (AKA DEVIATIONS Issue 1; art by the mighty fine Marvin del Mundo).

TRESE: BLOODLINES Volume 1 is now available for preorder at the Avenida website.

And while you're down Avenida way to preorder, it would be greatly appreciated if you also check out the Indies section, where you'll find more Dakila in these 'Verse goodies...

TRESE: BLOODLINES Volume 1

The anthology title TRESE: BLOODLINES Volume 1 is now available for preorder at the Avenida website.

It's 20% off for preorders, which should be paid by December 17, 2020 (that's this coming Thursday).

Shipping will start on December 21, 2020 (next Monday, a week from now).

There's a complete rundown of the contents of Volume 1 at the Avenida preorder link.

My contributions are as follows:

The Fr. Matthias Trese case, “That Kind of Hunger” (art by the mighty fine Brian Balondo) and

the Fr. Trese and Dakila Deviation, “Iunctura” (AKA DEVIATIONS Issue 1; art by the mighty fine Marvin del Mundo).

There should be an Out of the Gutter post or two about "That Kind of Hunger" that will hopefully go live here soon-ish...

In the meantime, while you're down Avenida way to preorder, it would be greatly appreciated if you also click on down to the Indies section, where you'll find these 'Verse goodies...

With that said:

 

Stay safe.

Stay sane.

 

you can’t drink just six,

 

Dave

DANIEL ISN’T REAL (March 2019)

DANIEL ISN’T REAL

(March 2019)

 “I had an imaginary friend when I was a kid. Umm… his name was Daniel, and he was my best friend. He was my only friend, really.”

The first nine minutes or so of Adam Egypt Mortimer’s Daniel Isn’t Real establishes just how pivotal the titular imaginary friend is in the life of Luke (Halloween’s Miles Robbins), and despite what he says to his therapist, what we see in those nine minutes is most definitely not, “… just, you know, kid stuff.”

Mortimer first made a significant impression on my geek radar with his comic book collaboration with Darick Robertson, Ballistic, so when time came for his feature directorial debut, Some Kind of Hate, I paid attention.

And continue to do so.

With his sophomore effort, co-written with Brian DeLeeuw (as Some Kind of Hate was)*, he’s again made me so happy I have.

As always, I am loathe to give too much away here at the Iguana, so let’s just say that the crux of Daniel Isn’t Real is the true nature of the imaginary friend, as played by Ah-nuld’s offspring, Patrick Schwarzenegger.

Is he really all in Luke’s troubled head? Or is there something darker involved here?

Check it out to find out!

Parting Shot 1: This one’s another ¡Qué horror! winner from SpectreVision, so Yay, Frodo!

Parting Shot 2: For any X-Philes out there, Robbins also played the teenaged William in a number of Season 11 episodes.

Parting Shot 3: For any Some Kind of Wonderful fans out there, Watts herself, Mary Stuart Masterson is here, as Claire, Luke’s troubled mother.

Parting Shot 4: Among those thanked at the tail end of the credits roll?

The Grant Morrison, as well as Kristan, and… Mr. NOBODY (who may or may not be the one from Doom Patrol… who knows?)…

“It was quite a spectacle, wasn’t it? All that blood…”

(Daniel Isn’t Real OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

* Though unlike Some Kind of Hate, which seems to have been written for the screen, Daniel Isn’t Real is based on DeLeeuw’s novel, In This Way I Was Saved.

POSSESSOR (January 2020)

POSSESSOR

(January 2020)

“I’m just here to fix your head.”

Brandon Cronenberg is back with the elegantly savage and caustic Possessor (released as Possessor Uncut), which finds Andrea Riseborough’s Tasya Vos up to her eyeballs in ruthlessly sinister corporate shenanigans.
Hi-tech assassination, murder by remote control, as Vos “interfaces” with a carefully vetted patsy, using their entire body to rather violently bump off whoever’s on her kill list.

Now…

To paraphrase Jennifer Jason Leigh’s Girder: “Consider (the face of) Colin Tate,” as played by Christopher Abbott, familiar to these parts from Trey Edward Shults’ It Comes at Night and Nicolas Pesce’s Piercing.
Abbott’s Colin is said patsy for Vos’ next job, which, wouldn’t you know it, goes horribly sideways…

“You might find this uncomfortable, but you just need to try to keep breathing.”

It’s been 8 years since the younger Cronenberg debuted on the feature stage with Antiviral, but he’s back with a whopper, which has a lot on its menu.

Some of the main courses: the gradual reduction--and inevitable corrosion--of identity through technology, and the interchangeability--and ultimate disposability--of the flesh.

All that, and it’s bolstered by a solid cast (you did see those names up there, right?).

So, check it out if it sounds like it falls neatly into your regular cinematic diet.

One more thing:
While we won’t be returning to the regular annual ¡Qué horror! rundown stylings of the Long Ago anytime soon, this is still technically ¡Qué horror! (or the closest thing we’ve got to it for now), so, viewer advisory: also on the menu--a side order of frank sexual imagery and liberal dollops and spatters of ultraviolence.

It was, after all, released as Possessor Uncut.
You’ve been warned.

“Do you ever think of your wife as a predator? Hmm? Do you ever think of her that way?”

(Possessor Uncut OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

OUT OF THE GUTTER (2) DAKILA: Siyudad Issue 2

OUT OF THE GUTTER (2)

DAKILA: Siyudad Issue 2
David Hontiveros / Pyotr Mutuc

In the process of character creation, one of the key steps is getting to the core of the character.

I tend to think of this step as something similar to the Inside-Out actor’s approach to building up their character (as opposed to the Outside-In approach, which essentially utilizes the external, the character’s physical appearance, wardrobe, etc., to establish the character).

Getting to the internal core of the character will tell you who that individual is, and will serve as the foundation for the active inner life that characters need in order to hopefully achieve a well-rounded believability.

But when you’re talking about entities like the Seven Deadly Sins, getting to the core of, say, Greed, can afford a host of interesting possibilities you wouldn’t normally have access to if the character you were creating was a normal human being.

 

For the purposes of The Septet, I imagined Greed to be this bottomless hollow, just a pit that you could keep on filling with stuff, but would never actually get filled.

Its personality would possess it to compulsively acquire and hoard, and yet never be satisfied with what it already had, instead wanting still more, and more, and more.

(Which actually sounds like some “normal” human beings out there, but, hey, that’s a whole other conversation entirely.)

 

This bottomless hollow imagery will get a closer inspection in issue 3, as well as in KADASIG: Walanghanggan issue 2.

Both of these new releases should be available to order online sometime early next year.

At that point, we’ll return to this train of thought.

 

In the meantime, you’ve hopefully already picked up Siyudad issue 2, so you know what the plotz I’m talking about.

And if you haven’t, then please click on down to the Indies section of the Avenida website.

 

That should be all for now, all you mighty fine folk out there…

 

Stay safe.

Stay sane.

 

you can’t drink just six,

 

Dave

 

The new ‘Verse releases DAKILA: Siyudad 2 (art by the mighty fine Pyotr Mutuc) and KADASIG: Walanghanggan 1 (art by the mighty fine Romnick Magbanua), as well as 5 other previously released issues, are all available to order online at the Indies section of the Avenida website.

Click on down there to support self-published local comics.

OUT OF THE GUTTER (1) KADASIG: Walanghanggan Issue 1

OUT OF THE GUTTER (1)

KADASIG: Walanghanggan Issue 1
David Hontiveros / Romnick Magbanua

For the record:

In the Far, Far Away Time of the Long Ago, when Ian replied to my question of who was the bad guy he wanted Kadasig to face with "the Seven Deadly Sins", I had to give that a bit of a think.

Because I'd already previously done a version of the Sins in AVATAR.

 

During that period of consideration and deep dive research, the idea of leaning into elements like color and animal associations with the Deadly Sins seemed the way to go (since the approach I took in AVATAR was to anthropomorphize them).

In the end, I said "Okay," and The Septet came into being.

 

So while Magalit (Anger) is the Red Bear, Masakim (Greed) is the Yellow Frog.

(The full rundown of the Septet’s animal and color associations--as well as the reason why their names all begin with “Ma”--can be found in one of the in-between-chapters text pieces in the TATSULOK: A Vision of Dust compilation, art by the mighty fine Xerx Javier.)

 

Meanwhile.

 

When the idea of a demonic, sentient horror movie first came into focus, I immediately knew it would be an opportunity to nod towards a few of the subgenres that I feel a deep horrorhead affection for.

Thus, in issue 1, you have spotlights shined on giallo and the slasher films subsequently influenced by giallo, as well as the “disembodied killer hand” subgenre, as typified by Oliver Stone’s The Hand (an adaptation of Marc Brandel’s The Lizard’s Tail), Alfredo Zacarias’ Macabra (AKA Demonoid), Rodman Flender’s Idle Hands, and of course, Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead II.

(And though it’s a short fiction piece, it would be an insulting oversight if I neglected to mention Clive Barker’s “The Body Politic,” from Books of Blood. I haven’t had the chance to watch Mick Garris’ Quicksilver Highway, in which “The Body Politic” is adapted, so I have no idea if it does justice to the short story.)

 

But let’s step back and take a closer look at giallo, shall we?

When they hear the term, horrorheads will immediately think Argento, Bava, Fulci… but the term giallo originated from the world of literature.

And the meaning of the word giallo?

Yellow.

The term was used as a label for these pulpy mysteries and thrillers because the backgrounds of the book covers were uniformly yellow.

 

So, yes, I loved the serendipity of Walanghanggan also being about Greed (as per the long-standing Art Vs Commerce argument that has shadowed cinema since its inception), so that the story arc that featured giallo prominently within its narrative, would also happen to have yellow covers, like an old school giallo paperback…

 

Serendipity.

Mwah!

 

The next OotG post should be about DAKILA: Siyudad issue 2, and will probably go live at some point in the indeterminate future…

For now though, I should take this opportunity to note that one of the characters introduced in Siyudad 2 speaks with a font designed by none other than the mighty fine Edgar Tadeo, who drew the sh!t out of KADILIMAN: In Their Silent Shadow Carnival. (Hey, Ed! Howzit?)

 

Guess that’s all for now.

 

Stay safe.

Stay sane.

 

you can’t drink just six,

 

Dave

 

The new ‘Verse releases KADASIG: Walanghanggan 1 (art by the mighty fine Romnick Magbanua) and DAKILA: Siyudad 2 (art by the mighty fine Pyotr Mutuc), as well as 5 other previously released issues, are all available to order online at the Indies section of the Avenida website.

'VERSE UPDATE 2020 (2)

Aaaaaaand here we go!

Two new releases and a good mix of previously released issues, some of which are being made available to order online for the first time:

DAKILA: Siyudad Issue 1 (of 4)
David Hontiveros / Pyotr Mutuc
B&W / Wraparound cover / 24 pages / 5.5 x 8.5 inches / 100 pesos
 
The oikoumene is the physical plane we all live in.
But just beyond the Veil, there’s the Darkside, the diabul, where creatures from folklore and myth, entities divine and infernal, creatures undead and spectral, reside.
And Dakila’s about to enter the diabul--on Halloween, of all nights--to help young Maleck de los Santos with a personal quest.
What could go wrong?

DAKILA: Siyudad Issue 2 (of 4) [New Release]
David Hontiveros / Pyotr Mutuc
B&W / Wraparound cover / 24 pages / 6.5 x 10 inches / 160 pesos
 
Where Makati stands today used to be a swamp, a long time ago.
In the diabul, something’s about to rise from that swamp…
And it isn’t in a very good mood…

KADASIG: Walanghanggan Issue 1 (of 3) [New Release]
David Hontiveros / Romnick Magbanua
B&W / Colored cover / 36 pages / 6.5 x 10 inches / 230 pesos
 
There is a sentient horror movie, a diabolic film that constantly hungers to completely draw its audience into its narrative.
Literally.
And Kadasig is about to become its star attraction…

MASKARADO / DAKILA: Silver Like Dust
David Hontiveros / Reno Maniquis
B&W / Full color cardstock cover / 28 pages / 5.5 x 8.5 inches / 200 pesos
 
Maskarado: “Manila’s Masked Marvel.”
Dakila: his world’s “cosmic champion.”
These two heroes from different dimensions are about to face an enemy driven by madness and greed.
An enemy who wants all the power in the world for himself.
Including theirs.
 
And, for Brandon Ramirez, all the skintight spandex craziness starts here, in the 3-issue introductory arc…
 
DAKILA: Kapalaran

Issue 1
David Hontiveros / Bibo Reyes
B&W / Full color cover / 24 pages / 5.5 x 8.5 inches / 130 pesos
 
In which Dakila meets some corporate angels and the Devil…

Issue 2
David Hontiveros / Romnick Magbanua
B&W / 44 pages / 5.5 x 8.5 inches / 160 pesos
 
In which Dakila gets some training, we find out what’s up with his MIA mom, we discover which trusted ally is lying straight to his face, and the Devil does SPOILER!

Issue 3
David Hontiveros / Enel Lawrence Villegas
B&W / 32 pages / 6.5 x 10 inches / 190 pesos
 
In which we witness some cosplay, and Brandon’s official public debut as a superhero.
 
So there we go.
 
Please click on over to the Indies section of the Avenida website for more details (and preview pages), and, you know, to do the ordering…
 
Meanwhile, please stay safe and sane, people!

you can't drink just six,

Dave