Thursday, September 01, 2005

Nick Manabat (1972-1995)

Image hosted by Photobucket.com (Nick's sketch of Maul, above; unfinished Cybernary drawing, below)

He lost a terrible battle with lymphoma ten years ago. He would have been 33 tomorrow, Sept. 2, had he survived.

There are just some people, regardless of their proximity to your life, who challenge you to do better. Nick Manabat was one of those persons for me. The quiet, soft-spoken guy was an artistic genius. And it wasn’t just me that he affected positively. My friends from Lakan, who love comic books, and art in general, immediately knew that he was a gifted yet humble person. His tremendous talent made us aspire to be better artists and thinkers. Whenever I look at his works, they still make me smile. And gasp. Or vice versa.

Thanks for inspiring us, Nick!

13 comments:

rmacapobre said...

shes HOT! .. i love the horns

OLIVER said...

Yeah the horns look great. :)

gene said...

Manabat was incredible. I wish there was more about him online.

OLIVER said...

Hello gene- Yes, he's got a bunch of drawings that are really impressive. Gerry, a friend linked at this blog, is planning to post his works eventually. Watch out for it. :)

bong abad said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
CajunCasey said...

I'm glad to see this page devoted to Nick Manabat. I honestly don't know much about him beyond his amazing art and story on Cybernary, but that's about all I need to know in order to miss him. I was greatly saddened to hear about his death, especially when he was just getting started on his creation. Here's to you, Nick.

OLIVER said...

Bong- hi, thanks for visiting. :)Hey, your comment vanished! Sorry for this late response.

psychedevil- he was a very talented and nice person. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on his art, too. :)

OLIVER said...

Thanks for sharing that, Sunderland. Glad that his art affected you profoundly, too.

Pedro Canhoto Pontes said...

So this thing was posted like, what, 6 years ago... I´m still an aspiring comic book artist just the same as I was back in the early 90s... and I´m still inspired by Manabat. I think I always will be.

It is a serious concern of mine to do this guy justice. I mean, this is insane, but somehow I feel like he´s left this torch for a few of us to carry and I hope to be one of these people.

- Pedro Pontes, from Brazil

OLIVER said...

Glad to hear from a fellow fan. Thank you for sharing that, and best of luck in all your endeavors.

Unknown said...

I followed Cybernary. Nick's great. Sad we lost him - he was a great comic artist. Him and Jae Lee's are my fav - big fan.

Pedro Canhoto Pontes said...

Along those lines, I think we can also think of Bill Sienkiewicz, Simon Bisley (GOD!), and, a bit more recently, the great Leonardo Manco.

CitizenX said...

I just found this site, after seeing the Cybernary art again. For all these years, I never knew what happened. I'm sure he would have been one of the all time greats if he was still with us.