THOMASIAN artist Francis Martelino urged aspiring artists to tackle the Filipino experience in comics during a discussion last Sept. 16 at the SMX Convention Center in Pasay.
“Filipino content and experiences can be automatically considered as unique. That is our culture, and definitely, you don’t have to borrow other experiences or cultures when creating comics,” Martelino said.
Martelino, who studied fine arts in the University, said it would also be “more believable” if artists used Filipino names for their characters.
“Usually, rookies would create manga and mistakenly use names that are not Filipino such as Ichiro. Use names that are familiar to us, and not those from other cultures,” he said.
Martelino is the creator of the series “The Hotdog Prince,” a finalist in the fourth Komikon Reader’s Choice Award for best comic character.
The discussion titled “Self-Publishing and Freelancing 101” was spearheaded by Pop Hub, one of the events during the Manila International Book Fair.
