Appreciating Comics and Art One More Time: Mars Ravelo Reinterpreted

Before we were fascinated by cartoons and those highly graphical movies, there was Comics. It was the kind of media that ignited our imagination about fantasy and culture. Every turn of the page brought us into a different dimension where everything scary, fantastic and magical were all possible.

My childhood was the period when the Comics industry was no longer that popular and it was oftentimes used as “pambalot ng tinapa”. Nevertheless, seeing a few of them during that time was enough to inspire my imagination to be thrilled about superheroes, superpowers, fantasy and magic. It was a little unfortunate for the generation of ours today the we did not witness the flourishing of this wonderful form of art. What we witnessed was the reenactment of these Comics stories into movies and TV series.

When we talk about Comics in the Philippines, the very first person we will remember is Mars Ravelo. Mars Ravelo was a comics genius who authored 300 amazing comics stories including the most famous ones we know such as Captain Barbell, Darna, Lastikman and many more.

In line with the celebration of his 100^th birthday, an art exhibit was organized at the Cultural Center of the Philippines entitled Mars Ravelo Reinterpreted. It will run from September 15 to November 13, 2016. A number of artists were selected to individually interpret a specific character by Ravelo. Each one created their own story behind their work, and may portray the character given to them with any medium, approach, or style.

Artist Line Up:

Kris Abrigo
Ang Gerilya
Virgilio Aviado
Mariano Ching
Ernest Concepcion
Maisha dela Cruz
FaBo
Dex Fernandez
RM De Leon
Leeroy New
Jonas Roces
Jericho Vamenta
MM Yu

This exhibit, which aims to explore the dichotomy between the fine arts and comics, also commemorates the life of the talented man that brought us timeless and iconic characters such as “Darna”, “Captain Barbell”, “Lastikman”, “Dyesebel”, “Bondying”, “Kapitan Boom”, and “Flash Bomba”; characters that are all deeply ingrained in the cultural consciousness of Filipinos from all walks of life.