By Anna Valmero
Inquirer.net

The creators of the comic series Aporia as well as Kraust and Ninja Girl Ko! all share one thing: passion for comics.

Comics, as a medium, convey stories with fewer words and instead, make the best use of panels, lines and drawings to convey stories. These features contribute to the uniqueness of comics as artwork. A comic lover myself, I see comics as the mother of animation (and increasingly of live action titles as well).

For Mangaholix, comics provide an avenue for their interpretation of art. The roots of the Mangaholix team can be traced from BlitzWorx, a high school comic club that later formed Mangaholix, under Groundbreakers Inc. In the local comic industry, pricing is a big factor so to be sustainable the then high school enthusiasts tied up with a corporate house and the rest is history, according to Emmanuel Javier one of the founders of BlitzWorx and now senior VP and editor-in-chief of Mangaholix.

To promote comics as medium for artful story telling, the group entered the local market last year and at present, is eyeing to gain inroads in the international market as well.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to limit yourself to the local industry, especially if you are a pure comic book artist,” said Ian Cang, president and senior art director of Mangaholix. “It’s always a very challenging industry and it’s nice to be always open to cater to other markets as well.”

It is no question that the Filipino comic artist is world-class. Artists such as Whilce Portacio, Lan Medina and Eric Canete have worked under big international comic houses and have proven the Filipino talent worldwide.

As for Mangaholix, Cang shared an anecdote in which they promoted the Mangaholix magazine at Singapore and it was actually thought of as comparable, if not equal to Japan-made comics. This shows huge potential for the Filipino comic artists to make it big internationally. I believe aggressive campaign is needed for this.

The Mangaholix team does its share of helping budding comic artists via free workshops. High schools and colleges can contact them via email. Cang said, it is their way of thanking its followers as well as promoting their magazine, the seventh issue of which is set to be released soon.

During the afternoon that I tagged along with the Mangaholix crew, I’ve learned that to survive in any industry, it is important to have passion for what you do and to not lose sight of what you want to be.