philippine studies Ateneo de Manila University • Loyola Heights, Quezon City • 1108 Philippines The Komiks and Retelling the Lore of the Folk Soledad S. Reyes Philippine Studies vol. 57 no. 3 (2009): 389–417 Copyright © Ateneo de Manila University Philippine Studies is published by the Ateneo de Manila University. Contents may not be copied or sent via email or other means to multiple sites and posted to a listserv without the copyright holder’s written permission. Users may download and print articles for individual, noncom- mercial use only. However, unless prior permission has been obtained, you may not download an entire issue of a journal, or download multiple copies of articles. Please contact the publisher for any further use of this work at
[email protected]. http://www.philippinestudies.net SOledad S. REYES The Komiks and Retelling the Lore of the Folk Komiks (comics), which emerged in the 1920s, have captured the Filipinos’ imagination, subsequently becoming materials for major motion pictures, yet marginalized in cultural studies. This article offers a diachronic analysis of the komiks between the 1930s and the 1970s to reveal the relationship between selected komiks characters and the folk tradition embodied in epics and legends. It also explains the komiks writers’ fascination with the remote past and their construction of heroes and heroines. In illuminating the worldview of writers and readers and the meanings generated when texts and readers interact, this article problematizes the supposition that popular culture is unalloyed escapism. Keywords: PhiliPPine KomiKs • folKlore • romance mode • heroes • PoPular culture PHILIPPINE STUDIES 57, NO. 3 (2009) 389–417 © Ateneo de Manila University he history of the komiks (comics) in the Philippines consti- Resurrecting the Komiks in the Twenty-First Century tutes a narrative full of color and spectacle interspersed with With the emergence and proliferation of new forms, undoubtedly brought indescribable gloom and eerie silence.