Q & A Portion

Five questions from Dean Alfar. If you want me to ask you five tailor-made ones, please scroll down for the rules.

1. I know you've conducted a lot of interviews with various celebrities. Now what was the most embarrassing, stupid or inappropriate question you've ever asked anyone, the question you regret ever having asked?

I interviewed singer Kitchie Nadal last year. It went great; I was able to ask her smart questions and she was very generous with her answers. I was about to leave when I asked her about the tattoo near her knuckles. I queried, “What’s that?” and she and her manager laughed. “It’s a tattoo,” she smiled. Well, I knew, but the way I asked it must’ve sounded silly. I have trouble converting my thoughts verbally sometimes. I should’ve asked “What does it stand for?” because it looked tribal. I did ask her seconds later those exact words, after their giggles, so I guess it didn’t diminish the decent interview I conducted.

What’s quite embarrassing was a portion of a certain interview with another person almost two years ago. It’s not something I asked, though. It doesn’t happen often, but an interviewee hit on me, asked for my number and joked about liking mestizos. I didn’t know how to react. It was a little flattering but... okay, I’ll shut up now.

2. A "mondegreen" is a case of misheard lyrics, sort of like the ones horrendously printed in Jingle magazine. What song have you loved, despite the fact that you had the lyrics or part of the lyrics wrong?

I wrote down the words to Seona Dancing’s More to Lose when I was younger. At a nearby mall many years later, after much hesitation, I sang in one of those karaoke booths. I chose the song, and noticed that several phrases on the screen were different from what I knew. I ignored them and sang. The booth guy politely asked after, “Sir, malabo ba ‘yung mata n’yo?” I politely responded, “Hindi, mali lang lyrics n’yo.”

3. You and your partner of choice are cast in the latest TAR (Amazing Race). Would you win or self-destruct? What kind of Roadblock or Detour would really challenge you?

We’d win, of course. Heh. There are cameras rolling, so it would just look awful and sad if my partner or I self-destructed, and millions of people saw it. Bickerings should just happen behind closed doors, I believe. I hated Rob and Amber, but I liked how coolly and deviously they played the game.

Any challenge that requires me to ride a bicycle would just ruin my game, though. I never learned how to bike. Sad, I know.

4. What is the biggest difficulty that faces Filipino comic book creators? What steps can we take to address it?

This is a tough one. There’s no big money in it locally, as far as I know. If you’re a self-publisher, you have to be involved in all aspects of the job. You have to spend for a decent printer. This is a good learning experience, even if it can get tiring at times. Trying to break even is difficult. You have to move on to other practical endeavors eventually, even simultaneously. And for those who wish to make comics-creating a regular day job, the real money is in getting hired by the American companies. And even then, you have to get the high-profile projects to be really comfortable for at least several months.

One of the big challenges years back was that local comics-centric companies were practically non-existent. It’s a good thing that this is being addressed by the focused folks over at Nautilus (with Cast), Mango (with their one-shots and mini-series), and Culture Crash.

If someone, maybe a big publishing company like ABS-CBN or Summit can devise a way that creators are compensated for a new line of diverse, well-marketed comic books that regularly come out, and can guarantee competitive rates, then that’s good. That’s a start. We need someone big to lead the way. We’ll never run out of talented people to work on them if someone was willing to risk on a wide range of products and not just manga-influenced titles. If they can replicate the three comics companies' successes on a much bigger scale, it can mean the existence of a new industry. That’s what I can think of at the moment.

5. Choose one: An interesting life replete with ups and downs, complications, feast-or-famine and a shot at absolute happiness even if it comes very, very, very late in life; OR stable life, regular contentment, predictable rhythms - you're not insanely happy but you're not wallowing in despair either. Explain.

I’d choose the former. I’m actually living that life now. I’m far from being complacent. I’m stubborn that way. But the people I love and those who believe in me make it worth it. I can’t label anything as absolute happiness. Bliss presents itself in many shapes, tastes and textures and I’m just glad when that happens. When I’m older and wiser, maybe I’d be happy with the latter choice. For now, I’m improvising as best as I can.
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Here are The Official Interview Game Rules:
1. If you want to participate, leave a comment below saying “Please interview me.”
2. I will respond by asking you five questions - each person’s will be different.
3. You will update your journal/blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview others in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.