West Side

2009-08-24T11:59:00.003+08:00

One page comic theme for the "Men's Magazine" issue which came out early this year. By the way, this happened way before the events in this old strip as you can see Trev and Duck looking at that same magazine.

* This strip was published in the 3rd issue of Nosebleed Magazine.

2009-08-05T00:39:00.005+08:00

In the general scheme of things this is lots funnier because this came out a month after Christmas (view at least the last 5 previous strips to see what I'm talking about). Anyhow, this one's the last for this storyline, at least until further developments. Hope y'all like this. You can read the submitted strip written in the colloquial here if you want. Thanks for viewing.

* This strip was published Jan. 24, 2007.

2009-07-27T17:36:00.000+08:00

Only minor revisions for this one You can see the original strip that saw print here (written in Filipino but that one's translated almost verbatim so no worries)

Things are starting to pick up from here. I haven't yet established how many siblings there are in the Ibarra clan (I've yet to establish the exact number of brothers and/or sisters between Ben, Sr. and Henry) but the one coming in from the U.S. is the eldest of the brood. This is also marks the first time in the history of the strip Debbie is shown with her hair down. Haha!

* The original version of this strip was published Jan. 17, 2007.

2009-07-20T17:32:00.000+08:00

Click to view the whole strip

The revision of this old strip took longer than I expected. The reason being because of the amount of revisions on the visuals in this one. The flash backs were originally supposed to be torn photographs but it didn't fly when translated onto the computer. The idea for the final format came after watching, "Silent Hill".

You can see the original strip that saw print here (written in Filipino but the context of the dialogue's still very much the same). By the way, to those not familiar with the terms used in the strip: the term "ka" is short for "kapatid" or brother and/or sister, a term used mostly by northerners to refer to older siblings (from what I know by experience anyway). While "Ina" is "Mom".

I hope to be able to upload the next one fairly quick since I only need to do one minor revision and just color the rest.

* The original version of this strip was published Jan. 10, 2007.

2009-06-27T12:44:00.002+08:00

Sorry this one took so long. I won't make any excuses just the hope I can stick to a weekly schedule this time. Hope you like this one.

* This is an unpublished strip.

2009-01-07T13:29:00.002+08:00

Click to view the whole strip

Resumption of the West Side strips continue after a 2 year hiatus. I aim to post one strip a week, more if there are bonus strips which didn't come out in the paper. Anyhoo, I hope you guys like this one for the new year!

* This is an unpublished strip from the first week of January, 2007.

2008-06-13T18:26:00.001+08:00

Here's the last strip for the 2006 set. Yaaaaayyyy!!! Here's something I stumbled on yesterday while looking for references for the background (I mistakenly thought I lost the pictures I took after the firecrackers and the celebration died down around these parts). Interesting thoughts on how we celebrate the New Year, really:

"It is the loudest in the world but the most dangerous since anyone can buy the most extreme firecrackers. It is an exciting event in the Philippines that you won't want to miss." ~ Best and Worst New Year is in the Philippines!!! By A Yahoo! Contributer, 11/04/06

Hehehe... No truer words were ever spoken.

* This strip was published Dec. 27, 2006.

2008-06-11T16:08:00.000+08:00

I was originally supposed to redraw Jay (back figure in panels 3 & 4) from the original strip but as I looked over it again I thought it better to redo the whole thing as well. I wasn't really in a drawing mood at the time. I've got one more strip after this before we cap off the ones for 2006. I won't be doing major repairs for the last one so I think it fair to say we wouldn't have to wait a long time for that.

* The original version of this strip was published Dec. 20, 2006.

2008-05-29T02:39:00.002+08:00

Another submission after almost half a year's absence in the submission category. Wooohoooo! I hope to get back on track with the submission of two more strips to complete the 2006 set and then I'll be able to prep the ones for 2007 and, hopefully, the ones for this year too. Thanks for waiting and again just leave your comments whether good or bad at the bottom.

* The original version of this strip was published Dec. 20, 2006.

2007-12-19T10:41:00.000+08:00

I had trouble with this one because I seem to have lost the background photographs I took in my high school alma mater. I've scanned almost all the CDs I have and I still can't find them.

* This strip was published Dec. 13, 2006.

2007-12-14T10:39:00.000+08:00

As promised here's the first of the Christmas strips from last year. I didn't change anything here except to add the background and other colors. Voila!

* This strip was published Dec. 6, 2006.

2007-12-13T10:36:00.000+08:00

Click to view the whole strip

This is the final revised strip, at least for a while. Right now I'll start editing the Christmas strips from last year and try to post the first one tomorrow. Or maybe Saturday.

* The original version of this strip was published Nov. 29, 2006.

2007-12-06T09:59:00.000+08:00

Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. is already long gone and finished but who cares anyway since this is already a year late anyway. This was the version I had right after I saw the printed disaster of a joke I submitted days before and the funny thing is I had another version in mind right after I finished this, which still shows the big "WHAT?!" in the last panel but is implied coming off panel in the kitchen and Mare shouting at her dad the same thing. Anyhoo, I still have one more Thanksgiving Day strip to revise and the Christmas strips are up next.

* The original version of this strip was published Nov. 22, 2006.

2007-11-15T18:13:00.000+08:00

This was what I originally had in mind when I did the strip last year but I had to settle with something less funny. This is also a lot wordy than the original submission, though.

* The original version of this strip was published Nov. 15, 2006.

2007-11-13T13:19:00.001+08:00

The original submission wasn't so much an embarassment as the one before this but the punchline lacked "oomph!" so I had to change the whole thing. I deviated a bit from referring to the pool to actually showing it. Being in a tropical country does have its benefits one of which is being able to swim outdoors without any trouble during November. Heh.

* The original version of this strip was published Nov. 08, 2006.

2007-10-06T10:36:00.000+08:00

The original submission was a real embarrassment. It sucked so bad it created its own blackhole sucking time and space into it leaving a vacuum of almost an entire year in this site. I'm almost at a loss of words of what to say here but I hope to upload the next one a lot quicker than I did with this (depending on your POV this strip's either very early or extremely late). I'm working on the next one along with the planned compilation of my other title blah-blah-blah. As always, I hope you guys enjoyed this one.

* The original version of this strip was published Nov. 01, 2006.

2007-10-04T09:44:00.000+08:00

You can check out some current strips posted in my main blog while waiting for the next installment. Thanks! :D

2007-06-29T00:05:00.000+08:00

Click to view the whole strip

This is the last of the revised Komikon strips from last year. This was actually the first idea I came up with during the revisions but I thought the timing was too early and all.

Of course a great big thanks to my friends: Lyndon, Syeri, Sandy, Lico, Andre, and Joanah for allowing me to use their artworks in this strip.

2007-05-03T14:20:00.000+08:00

Click to view the whole strip

This was a long time in the making primarily because I wasn't happy with how the original submission turned out (which you can see here) and I didn't have any idea what to do with the replacement at the time. A few months later the idea comes but something about the four panel layout didn't click with me. A couple of weeks later attending to various deadlines I came up with the illustrations for two more panels. There were still a lot of hitches like problems with the dialogue, computer glitches and stuff but here it is. Hope the long wait was all worth it, I've still got one more strip to revise.

* The original version of this strip was published Oct 17, 2006.

2006-11-16T13:44:00.000+08:00

I edited about half of the strip from the original submission. I wasn't happy with the first one which was done in a hurry because of a lot of problems with the computer I was using to edit the stuff. I was flustered with the outcome of a lot of the strips I did during this time. That time I had to go to one of my friends' house and use his computer so I could submit these on time. Now that I got my own PC I could now relax and do some surgery on those previous strips. One of the more interesting facts about this was that at the time I didn't have a clue about the schedules of the Oktoberfest happening around the metro, coincidentally there was an event the same day as the Komikon, on the venue mentioned in this strip which I only found out yesterday! Cool.

* This strip was published Oct 11, 2006.

2006-11-04T13:39:00.000+08:00

I've been watching a lot of Scrubs episodes lately, courtesy of my sister who bought her copy in Metrowalk. I forgot how much I liked that show after neglecting it for quite some time. One character that stands out from the rest in terms of complete obnoxiousness is Dr. Perry Cox (played by John C. McGinley). He's the one person you'd really love to hate and hate to love at the same time because of his drawn out but well thought of sarcasm that he constantly dishes towards those that stand in his way. I thought that would a great character to emulate and study when it comes to fleshing out more of BJ's character.

* This strip was published Oct 04, 2006.

2006-10-05T10:35:00.000+08:00

Hope y'all enjoyed this one.

* This strip was published September 27, 2006.

2006-09-22T16:59:00.000+08:00

I initially had some trouble with the original dialogue. I wanted the grandma to speak first to make it look like we stumbled on them in the middle of their conversation but as things progressed it became more complicated. So I had to do the whole thing again based on the version I submitted. I tweaked it here and there, not wanting Ben Sr. to sound like a whiny kid (although he does have an excuse to be wary of hearing people talking about death and dying because of what he's been through with his own family in the past) and from there I translated everything into english. So here it is.

Ta-DAAAAAHH!!!

* This strip was published September 20, 2006.

2006-09-20T12:31:00.000+08:00

I've been researching about other people's list of things they want to do before they die and I was a bit disappointed to find that not a lot of them involved extreme things that border on the truly insane. So what I did was to try and come up with my own for this storyline. It was a lot harder than I thought although it included among other things, swimming with the sharks and eating fugu. This is what I came up with after a couple days' racking my brain and watching an episode of Top 10 List in Discovery Travel and Living. Out of curiosity, what's in your Top 10 List of outrageous things you want to do before you die?

* This strip was published September 13, 2006.

2006-09-19T16:08:00.000+08:00

This one didn't take half as long since I started working the details of this one way before the last strip. The part about the Nevis Highwire Bungy being seen in cable is true. The T.J.'s of Discovery Travel and Living Channel about two months and a half prior to this story (you can read all about the crazy highwire jumping-off place here).

Again, thanks in advance to all those who will be leaving their comments in the box below. You can see the original published strip in the original Tagalog here.

* This strip was published September 6, 2006.