REPLY TO MACOY (HIM AGAIN!) AND GERRY ALANGUILAN (WHA?!)
hi aklas,
there you go again throwing up your usual
smokescreen of digressions and related information while glossing over the main
issue at hand.
i'm glad you took the time to google a definition of industry; now no one can claim that we are arguing based on differing definitions.
now, let's look at mainstream publishers (visprint, summit, precious pages, psicom, anvil) who have published local comics. going by your own criteria:
"commercial production of goods and services?" check.
“diligence”, “systematic work” and “habitual employment”? check, check, and check.
"trade or occupation?" check. (and may i add that the multi-disciplinary list in part 2 of your epic saga: "the business capitalist owner or entrepreneur, paid or salaried business managers, circulation managers, distributors, accountants, researchers, statisticians, banking people, professional negotiators, lawyers, public relations people, advertising people, salespeople, drivers, printers, paper and art suppliers, newsstand dealers, insurance people, and others," is satisfied buy these large, mainstream, real, actual komiks-publishing publishers as well.)
let's not even get into how well these komiks sell (*ubo* NBS bestseller list *ubo*), the MERE FACT THAT THESE BIG 'OL CORPORATIONS ARE MAKING KOMIKS SATISFIES THE DEFINITION OF KOMIKS INDUSTRY. and all your chikka and insider information cannot change that fact.
your move.
------------------
THE REPLY
THE REPLY
You know Macoy, in your first comment you
admitted yourself that the so-called “mainstream” and indie comics scene
combined are small, disorganized and sporadic. Therefore, you don't have any basis in even qualifying this as
an “industry” under the definition provided under the Free Online Dictionary.
sa nakikita ko, nakailang subok na ng komiks ang summit media (kwentillion, underpass). anjan din yung tiktik na base sa pelikula. anjan din ang indie komiks scene na papalago ng papalago napapansin na ng mainstream (at foreign!) media. so... MERONG industriya. maliit, di organisado, sporadic ang output, pero MERON.”
sa nakikita ko, nakailang subok na ng komiks ang summit media (kwentillion, underpass). anjan din yung tiktik na base sa pelikula. anjan din ang indie komiks scene na papalago ng papalago napapansin na ng mainstream (at foreign!) media. so... MERONG industriya. maliit, di organisado, sporadic ang output, pero MERON.”
And in your
wonderful little site, you confirmed
the present smallness of the operation in both
mainstream and indie/komikero scenes as nowhere near the “industry” size status
of local komiks in the 1950s to 1980s:
“komiks may be struggling--no one can deny it's currently nowhere
near as big as it was during its heyday in the 50's and 80's--but it's struggling
upwards after long stagnation. and guess what, the best is yet to come.”
A so-called “industry” that is “struggling” upwards towards
industry status HARDLY constitutes an industry by definition of the Online Free
Dictionary.
HOWEVER in
this second comment of yours, you make an abrupt about-face and strain to claim that this ‘mainstream’ list of publishers (i.e., visprint, summit, precious pages, psicom,
anvil) minus
the indie/komikero scene, now miraculously make up a huge industry.
"commercial production
of goods and services?" check.
“diligence”, “systematic work” and “habitual
employment”? check, check, and check.
"trade or occupation?" check. (and may i
add that the multi-disciplinary list in part 2 of your epic saga: "the
business capitalist owner or entrepreneur, paid or salaried business managers,
circulation managers, distributors, accountants, researchers, statisticians,
banking people, professional negotiators, lawyers, public relations people,
advertising people, salespeople, drivers, printers, paper and art suppliers,
newsstand dealers, insurance people, and others," is satisfied buy these
large, mainstream, real, actual komiks-publishing publishers as well.)
Two contradictory statements cancel each
other out, Macoy. BOTH cannot be true at the same time. Is it small or big? One of these has to be false.
Is it the first or the second?
Everyone here agrees it’s the second
statement that is false. And you can’t just deny it outright in favor of a
totally opposite statement. One who initially claims as true a prior statement cannot later
on deny or assert anything to the contrary. Others may even go so far to
consider this as mental dishonesty. Lying. Not a way to hold a discussion with
a “close-minded” and “anonymous” blogger, wouldn’t you agree?
This is further bolstered by inaccuracies in that highly doubtful
checklist you made. You certainly sounded like a pilot before take off. Let’s
go over them shall we, Captain?
“commercial production of
goods and services? check"
Big EX Macoy. Let’s look at TRESE by way of
example. THREE THOUSAND COPIES is hardly voluminous and commercial. Look at the figures Budgette Tan
discloses on TRESE:
When we sold the very issue
of Trese (in all its Xeroxed glory) at the Komikon in 2005, we sold a grand
total of 50 copies. I was so happy that we got sold-out two hours before the
event ended.
When we sold TRESE:MASS MURDERS in 2009 at the
Komikon, we were surprised that we got to sell 300 copies in one day.
So, imagine my surprise when I found, that two
weeks after we launched TRESE: LAST SEEN AFTER MIDNIGHT we had already sold 1300 copies.
Barely a month after we launched this fourth book, we've sold nearly 3000 copies and have landed in National Bookstore's Bestseller List for Philippine Publications.
This was definitely a great way to start the week. All of which would not have been possible, if it wasn't for you, our wonderful, magical, diabolical readers.
thanks for all your support
and your most generous feedback!
And though we suspect approximately the same
thing with local sales of ELMER, ZSA ZSA ZATURNAH, AFTER EDEN, etc. put
together its hardly commercial production level. The book publishing business in this country only targets the tiny and affluent 7-12% of the population according to Antonio Hidalgo, Publisher and CEO of Milflores Publishing. But you know, this blogger
could be wrong. Tell you what. How about you, Gerry Alanguilan, Carlo Vergara,
etc. scan your Income Tax Returns or check vouchers signed by your respective
book publishers and then show them to us. Make a sworn/notarized declaration of
how many copies of your “bestselling” masterpieces were sold within a week or
month and we’ll take it from there. Unless that happens, it’s a big fat EX on
commercial production of goods/books/graphic novels.
“diligence”, “systematic
work” and “habitual employment”? check, check, and check.
EX, EX and EX, Captain Macoy. Jeez. How often
are these graphic novel books coming out anyway? Every two years? After Eden,
what next? Where’s the follow-up to ELMER?
Was that three or four years before
the 2nd Zsa Zsa Zaturnah came out? WHERE are the other titles? That’s
hardly diligent, systematic nor does it create “habitual” and “regular” employment.
You mean to say Alanguilan, Arre and Vergara are employees of Visprint, or some
other book or magazine publisher? They’re freelancers or are self-employed.
They have book publishing contracts with 15% royalties on net price for each
book actually sold. Or given a fee for
their magazine contributions. That’s not employment.
"trade or
occupation?" check.
EX again. Bet you ten to one Alanguilan,
Vergara, Tan, Baldosino, Sta. Maria and Arre have day jobs and its not producing
these graphic novels for the local Filipino market full time.
(and may i add that the
multi-disciplinary list in part 2 of your epic saga: "the business
capitalist owner or entrepreneur, paid or salaried business managers,
circulation managers, distributors, accountants, researchers, statisticians,
banking people, professional negotiators, lawyers, public relations people,
advertising people, salespeople, drivers, printers, paper and art suppliers,
newsstand dealers, insurance people, and others," is satisfied buy these
large, mainstream, real, actual komiks-publishing publishers as well.)
FALSE
and MISLEADING, Macoy. And you didn’t even check this! Your
list of visprint, summit, precious pages,
psicom and anvil are NOT local komiks or comics publishers but BOOK and/or
MAGAZINE publishers primarily. They are not komiks publishers PER SE.
Komiks for these people are a sub-branch, maybe even an experimental venue in
their overall book publishing operation. Their energy and focus is hardly
centered on local komiks publication. Remember the dictionary definition that human effort has been harnessed
as a force for the commercial production of goods and services? These book
publishers do not harness their efforts exclusively to the commercial
production of local komiks as a FORCE. Get it?
“let's not even get into
how well these komiks sell (*ubo* NBS bestseller list *ubo*), the MERE FACT
THAT THESE BIG 'OL CORPORATIONS ARE MAKING KOMIKS SATISFIES THE DEFINITION OF
KOMIKS INDUSTRY. and all your chikka and insider information cannot change that
fact.”
Five (5) book or magazine publishers on your
list currently publishing these indie titles that do not even meet the above
criteria hardly makes it an industry my friend. Sorry. The NBS bestseller list?
Where’s the official statistic? You mean you believe hook line and sinker that
those indie titles in book form sell at least 50,000 in a week or a month?
Where’s NBS’ proof? How does National Book Store determine if a book is a
bestseller anyway? You don’t care? Aw.
Its admirable and maybe even inspiring for
you and the other komikeros but please, do not DELUDE yourself into thinking
that AT THIS POINT IN TIME these book and magazine publishers are a KOMIKS INDUSTRY.
They’re NOT. You can speculate and conjecture that you MAY get there in the
future but please, don’t mislead people into thinking that its definitely going
to happen. You have no proof. Don’t increase the number of gullible idiots in
the internet. Komiks, becoming an industry through ‘book’ publishing?
And what is the state of book publishing in the Philippines anyway? In
answer why not let Antonio Hidalgo, President and CEO of Milflores do the
talking. Cited below is an exerpt from his 2007 paper read before the U.P. round
table discussion on Literary Publishing in the Philippines, 12th Biennial
Symposium:
Widespread poverty, which also causes low levels of education, is
a major constraint to selling literary titles in the Philippines. This is the
reason why a majority of readers can only afford to spend P200 or less a year
on books, which is the price of only one book, and why most readers buy
information, rather than literary, titles. In turn, the miniscule market for
literary titles breeds a vicious cycle whereby publishers are forced into
smaller print runs that cause higher unit prices that unavoidably result in
less sales. Print runs of 500 to 1,000 copies are fairly common for Philippine
literary titles. In contrast, the U.S. print run for the penultimate Harry
Potter book was reportedly 5 million.
An important problem is our postcolonial
situation, which has resulted in a highly fractionalized society. Scholars in
the indigenization movement in the University of the Philippines often refer to
The Great Cultural Divide (Ang Dambuhalang Pagkakahating Kultural) between the
elites and the masses. This divide explains why there is a mismatch between
what many of our best writers write and the needs and preferences of most
readers. Too many Filipino writers write in English, while most readers read in
Filipino; the best writers concentrate on writing fiction, while most readers
want information books; because of class differences in lifestyles and
experiences, the content of the best Filipino literature in English is often at
odds with what most readers want from fiction, so they turn, instead to
telenovelas, formulaic romance novels in Filipino, and lately, badly-written
ghost and horror stories in Filipino.
The tiny, but affluent, A and B market (variously
estimated at 7-12 percent of the population) should be the audience for
Filipino literature in English by the best writers. Unfortunately, again
because of our postcolonial situation, this segment is extremely Westernized
and prefers books by foreign authors. This is why our largest book stores all
carry many more foreign literary titles than local ones, often 20 or more
foreign titles for every local one.
The limited reach of book stores in our country is
another limiting factor. Selling through book stores is more efficient than
direct sales to the general public. In our case, 80 percent of our sales are through
book stores and only 20 percent are sales through agents or direct sales to
readers through launchings and other means. Therefore, our market for literary
titles is basically that portion of the market that has access to book stores.
In an article in the December 2004 issue of Book
Watch, Karina Bolasco of Anvil Publishing, Inc. (one of our larger publishers)
said that Anvil’s research in 1995 showed that there are, at most, 2,500 book
stores in the entire country, or one book store, on the average, per 34,000
people. The Anvil mapping of these stores showed that most of them are
concentrated in Metro Manila and the National Capital Region (NCR). In
Mindanao, there are far fewer bookstores and the average in our poorer regions
is about one bookstore per 200,000 people.
In our experience, the figure of 2,500 bookstores
is misleading, for most of these are marginal outlets that don’t have the
capital to carry many books and that often close down within a year or two of
opening.
On the plus side, however, is the fact that the
largest chain in the country, the National/PowerBooks chain of book stores, is
rapidly expanding. When Milflores started selling books, the National chain had
only about 40 branches. Today, we are selling our books through 109 National/PowerBooks
branches for this chain has nearly tripled in size in only eight years.
At the operational level, local printing, though
relatively cheap because of lower labor costs, is generally of poor quality due
to outdated technology and poorly trained workers. We sometimes get as much as
5-10% rejects in our print runs. This forces us to bear the costs of inspecting
each and every book to protect our readers and our reputation.
An operational problem stemming from poverty is
that some readers use book stores as public libraries—they read books while
standing without buying them. This destroys many books—our rate for our most
popular books is about 5% of the books we place on the shelves. All book stores
simply return damaged books and publishers have to take the loss. This has
forced us to wrap all our books in plastic to discourage reading without
buying, and this has increased our production costs.
The latest 2012 SWS survey
commissioned by the National Book Development Board is not all roses either that
there is a steady decline in non-textbook reading by Fillipinos as reported in
this Philippine Daily Inquirer report:
Pinoy TV
watchers are wider readers, NBDB readership survey says
While
such findings seem encouraging, the survey also revealed that the proportion of
book readers is in decline.
During the first survey in 2003, 94 percent read; 90 percent of this 94 percent
read books. In 2007, 92 percent read; 83 percent of this 92 percent read books.
In 2012, 88 percent read; 80 percent of this 88 percent read books.
xxx xxx
"The
2012 survey has good news and not so good news, perhaps not making the trends
in the country so different from patterns seen in other countries," said
NBDB Chair Flor Marie Sta. Romana-Cruz, citing two articles she had read
online.
"Both
lament the decline in reading," she said, citing Adrian Hon's "The Long
Decline of Reading", and one of Hon's bases
for his article, the 2007 National Endowment for the Arts study "To Read
or Not to Read."
"Among
the points highlighted is the general decline across the ages in the reading of
literature or challenging text," Cruz said, referring to Hon's work.
"Thinking
in reading is just too difficult and books do not offer the instant
gratification that they and their peers are in search of," was what a
group of girls from a private high school in Manila told Cruz when she asked
them what the reasons were for the rise of reluctant readers among their peers.
So there you have it. If readers of BOOKS are in decline
as of 2012, whose target market is the affluent but tiny 7-12% of the population, how can you say the comics being published in book format by only five (5) BOOK publishers are headed towards becoming an INDUSTRY
someday? But hey, this is all just the opinion of a “close-minded” blogger,
right Gerry?
“Buhay pa pala si Aklas
Isip? I've long put people who have nothing of substance to say or who
completely and utterly clueless of the facts in my ignore list. Dead and
buried. For someone whose handle supposedly means "open mind", Aklas
Isip has one of the most closed minds I've ever encountered in my life.”
And on that note of unwavering, unbridled support thank you Macoy and
hoping to hear from you and your ninja master soon.
posted by aklas isip at 12:10 AM
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