Filipino artists place high in Japan cartoon contest

THE Japanese embassy yesterday recognized two Filipino artists who were among the top 15 placers in the first International Manga Competition, a contest that drew 146 nominees from 26 countries.

Elmer Damaso and Jhomar Soriano, the artists behind Ravenskull and Mr. Grieves, respectively, received their certificates of award from Japanese Ambassador Ryuichiro Yamazaki at the opening ceremony of Japan Week at the SM Mall of Asia in Pasay City.

The competition, a brainchild of the Japanese foreign ministry, seeks to promote pop culture and encourage promising visual artists outside Japan, Yamazaki said.

Ravenskull is an English-language manga—or Japanese comic book—written by Chris Vogler and illustrated by Damaso. The story is written as a sequel to Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe and takes place during the reign of King Richard I of England.

Mr. Grieves, written by Cooper Johnson and illustrated by Soriano, follows the exploits of a mob hitman who wreaks havoc when he dies and goes to hell.

Damaso, a graduate of the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts, started his comic book career after graduation by forming a manga-inspired company called Culture Crash.

“This is where I got most of my experience in anime [Japanese animation] and manga,” said Damaso in an interview with the Gomanga.com Web site.

Damaso said his drawing style was mainly self-taught, but he started by emulating the styles of well known artists.

He created Ravenskull while working as an artist for Seven Seas, a Los Angeles-based company.

Soriano, who took up advertising at the Far Eastern University, dropped out of college and worked as a textbook illustrator when he saw a copy of Hiroaki Samura’s Blade of the Immortal and realized this was what he wanted to do.

“So at age 25 and my second kid on the way, I studied and taught myself human anatomy for the first time… [and] tried to understand how paneling works,” Soriano writes in the Itsura Manga blog. After a year of self-study, he started winning competitions, including third place in AXN’s Animé Hero Drawing Contest and first place in the Mutant Hero Drawing Contest sponsored by Comic Quest, before joining Seven Seas. –Michael Caber, Manila Standard Today