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Devil car
Lan turned out to be a very fast learner, a fearless experimenter, and a stickler to the story’s panel “guides” (instructions of the writer on what the artist should draw per scene or frame). We hit it off immediately as a team. Devil Car became even more popular obviously because of his inspired and innovative artistic presentations. And, by the time we finished the novel at chapter 150 from the 79th issue he picked it up from, he had become one of the most sought-after serial illustrators in the business. Lan and I did several other all GASI hit novels, among them ‘The Yum-Yum” in 1986 also in Holiday Komiks, “Twilight People” likewise in ’86 in Pinoy Komiks, then the reprise “Devil Car, The Return” again in Holiday in ’88, “Zortija” in 1990 in Thunder Komiks, and finally ‘House of Horror” in the mid-90’s in Aliwan Komiks. “Devil Car, the Return” like its predecessor, also became a certified hit though no longer as lengthy—this time I ran it for only an even 70 chapters.
As for Lan Medina, there was no looking back, from that eventful day I gave him his first real break. He just kept going at it, and not even the death of the local comics industry has stopped him from continuously doing the work he loves and knows best. To this day he still keeps dishing out those superb illustrations of his; the only difference is that he now does it for DC Comics and other dollar-earning U.S. comics publications. And by the way, not so very long ago Lan even won the “Will Eisner Award” a prize of recognition they give away in the States to the most outstanding comics illustrators—worldwide. Not bad for a kid who started out in the business merely as a replacement
…which was the lucky day for a certain very young, very talented, but still very inexperienced artist. ‘Vic”, Cescil Torres, another GASI “youngblood” staffer and newly appointed editor of their most prestigious comics-magazine Aliwan Komiks, said to me “How would you like to take a chance on this new artist we’re trying to develop? His name is LAN MEDINA and though he’s still a beginner, he’s an exceptional one. He’s really very good and I think his style will be perfect for your Devil Car.”
“Hmm” I replied, not having really seen any of Lan’s drawings yet at that time, “you must have a lot of faith indeed on this kid for you to recommend him so fearlessly in such a major project.”
“Its not just me,” Cescil explained. ‘Ollie and Mrs. Paguio are both very much impressed with this newcomer’s work. I’m the one who sort of “discovered” Lan first and that’s why I’m playing advocate in his behalf. But Ollie says he’ll approve of Lan’s teaming up with you should you agree to try him, and Mrs. Paguio in fact encourages the idea. But then of course, this is just if you still don’t have any other replacement in mind yet for Carl.”
Cescil then showed me some of Lan’s short story illustrations and they were indeed outstanding work for a newcomer. Novice or not, he sure looked ready to take on a novel already. I consented, on the spot, to try him as my new teammate for Devil Car. Cescil was delighted. A thing like that was unheard of; no top rate comics novelist risked putting his weekly serial in the hands of just any artist, let alone a still untested and virtually unknown one. In my case though, I thought I could afford to take that gamble: First, one look at Lan’s work and as I said, I immediately saw that he indeed had a lot of potential; Second, I thought that if he was good enough for Ollie and Mrs. Paguio, then he was good enough for me; and lastly, let me tell you that in that little world of ours, as in every other area in life, playing a bit of POLITICS was unavoidable if you were smart and wanted to get ahead. Well, I shrewdly foresaw that Cescil was going to be an important player in the GASI editorial hierarchy in the days to come, and it wouldn’t hurt to get in her good graces early in the game, would it? So I thought I was doing her a favor by acceeding to her suggestion. In the end though, I realized that it wasn’t Cescil—but actually myself and Devil Car--- whom I had done a favor by acquiring the services of Lan.
There were a few writer’s tricks up my sleeve which I applied to Devil Car and earned me some pretty gratifying results. It had always been my contention that for a comics novel to click, it just had to grab the readers by their throats at the earliest possible time, perhaps not any more later than its 20th issue. The writer achieved this by immediately pouring everything he’s got, every initial power-ideas he has thought of for his novel, into those first, second and third chapters and not get worried about not having anything juicy left for later (some colleagues I knew were so short of ideas that they tended to stingily hold on as long as they could to their miserably few bright ones for fear of being unable to produce any more for later). My reasoning is that once you’ve caught the reader’s attention early on, he will still continue following your novel even if it waned a bit in intensity later on, as long as your writing didn’t turn lousy, and provided too that you could still surprise the reader with even just sporadic flashes of brilliance. But if your weekly story installments continually failed to show any signs of life after having already wasted the reader’s time and money for five whole months, then forget it-—no amount of flooding your remaining chapters with even the faintest of your concerved ideas would entice the reader to still take a belated look.
Another wily trick I did which I became happy about was deciding beforehand never to show the readers the interior of Devil Car, thus keeping them greatly intrigued and perpetually guessing as to what the devil must really be the contents of the damned auto. (Although in the sequel, Devil Car, the Return, which I was requested to do in 1988 again in Holiday Komiks, I could no longer avoid exposing completely the innards of the murderous machine in the closing chapters.
But let me share with you the greatest trick of all in making serialized comics novelas (and this can also well apply to the “telenovelas” that now seem to have taken over as the “masa’s” most favorite form of inexpensive entertainment since the comics serials became extinct). If you ask me, the real secret in being able to continually sell a serialized story lies in its most crucial point: in the “To be Continued” last frame of every chapter. The writer shold always keep in mind to try and end each episode with a scene wherein the reader will be asking himself: “What will happen next?” In Devil Car, I always tried to squeeze in a cliff-hanger of an ending whenever possible, in every issue. You always had to keep the readers guessing as to what is in store for them in the next chapter.
I’m often asked: “So what was the key to Devil Car’s success?” Well, simply put, I just tried to plan the scenes well for every chapter. I dug deep in my arsenal to try and come up with new and exciting gimmicks every time. The Devil Car’s supernatural abilities were supposedly limitless, so the real challenge lay in trying to invent different and unheard of evil powers for that diabolical machine. At the same time, it also had to have a few chinks in its armor, and devising those chinks kept me up nights into the wee hours of the morning. Thinking up innovative ways and means for the “bidas” of the story to use those chinks and stop an unstoppable villain even momentarily every other chapter or so was also taxing. And then there were those countless attacks of the Devil Car on its victims and confrontations with its pursuers—I had to make the circumstances in said encounters different each time lest the scenes repeat themselves, become predictable and monotonous.
Well, Devil Car, after having come out at only about its 10th issue, amazingly jumped up to a slot within the TOP TEN (I just don’t remember anymore to what number exactly) GASI-ATLAS bestselling comics novels. And as if that wasn’t phenomenal enough, it very shortly asserted full dominance over the lot by yet again shooting up, finally, to the Number One Spot! Once it got there, Devil Car steadfastly held hits ground, refusing to budge and remaining glued to that coveted position for an incredibly long time. It ultimately had to give way to some other novel of course, but it never dropped below the top 15 mark. In fact it was still somewhere high up that rating ladder, when I decided to already end it on its 150th issue. I didn’t have to end it yet. Since the advent of Devil Car in Holiday Komiks, the records showed a significant rise in the magazine’s circulation, so Ollie and Mrs. Paguio wanted me to go on writing it. But I felt that the novel had reached its zenith after having already run for more than three years. Just between you and me though, I just plain got tired of racking my brains out creating Devil Car scenes that would outshine the last. It was time to move on to other novels, other challenges…
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