Creating supply with little or no demand

This is the "Information" age and not the "entertainment" age. In our country particularly where so many people are politically, socially, and economically disenfranchised, their only hope, their primacy weapon in fighting off corruption and exploitation, is knowledge and information. Information that is, of the right kind. And it is this kind of information that is in high demand right now, not entertainment.

With the right kind of information, people would learn how to think, act, and empower themselves. Comics could help initiate and elevate the literacy level of our functionally literate populate by providing information that matters in visual narrative format. And as previously discussed, the costs would be shouldered by financially able companies and associations who have a stake in national development. In this possible set-up, comics creators would be paid a tidy contractual sum prior to their work going to print. Their livelihood would not be dependent anymore on fickle sales figures and discriminating advertisers.

Today's generation of Filipino Komix creators are indeed talented. Their talent lies in a more technical familiarity of the graphic narrative's aspect of telling "entertaining stories". In short, they are oriented and favor more, the entertainment aspect of the comics medium. Unfortuantely, sales and advertising revenue for printed "entertaining" comics, whether local or foreign, pale in comparison to the humoungous revenues generated by other competing "entertainment" media such as television, movies, radio, computer games, animation, the internet, cellfones, and others. In short, today's generation of Filipino Komix creators are not meeting the demand for more information-based content.

The information and education based komix so far produced could certainly benefit from the more modern and refined draftsmanship of today's komix creators who have gained fame and fortune in the United States. Sadly however, their orientation and inclination is more towards the traditional and globalized form of entertainment in comics. In effect, these people are unwittingly creating product with little or diminishing demand. It is--pardon the expression--a tragi-comic situation.

To stress, the demand is in information. If not from individuals then from paying corporations or associations who have a need of disseminating their information to the public. Yet, the supply for this particular demand is scant. This is opportunity in crisis but are today's komix creators up to the task? Do they have the intellectual open-mindedness to learn new things beyond their limited knowledge of art? Only time will tell.