Category: Art

LA Comic Con 2023: Conversations With Indie Creators

My latest story is a fun one for LA Taco. I spent two of the three scheduled days at LA Comic Con! I spoke with over a half-dozen creators (writers, artists and publishers) about their craft and received some insights into the behind-the-scenes world of the comics industry.

An excerpt:

When did you start working on your own comics?

“Far too late! I wish I had gotten to it earlier, but just in the past year, I started writing my own comics. I started with ‘Werewolf Frankenstein,’ which is my ode to Universal monsters and matching them up in interesting ways. So, you take Frankenstein, and he gets into a fight with the Wolfman. Why can’t he now also have werewolf-ism, piece by piece, because he’s made up of all these different body parts? It’s slowly going from body part to body part, and eventually, it’ll get to his brain, and he’ll become a full werewolf, which he doesn’t want. So he’s running around going to different doctors and forcing them to operate on him and figure out ways to beat the werewolf-ism.”

Chris Robinson, creator of Werewolf Frankenstein.

Read it in full at: https://lataco.com/la-comic-con-2023-recap

Now at A.Frame

I picked up a new gig as a contributor/freelance writer at A.Frame, the official digital magazine of the Academy of Motion Pictures & Sciences.

I currently have two stories on the site: the first is a Q&A with director Aitch Alberto about their debut feature film Aristotle & Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, an adaptation of a successful young adult novel of the same name.

My goal was to approach this with a really gentle, sensitive, empathetic lens, which we don’t often see when it comes to stories about Latinos. I really wanted to make an elevated YA novel that had something universal. It’s so easy to distill it to one aspect of identity, but I really wanted to explore how all the things around identity inform how you exist in the world.

Full story/interview here: https://aframe.oscars.org/news/post/aristotle-and-dante-director-aitch-alberto-interview

My other story is also a Q&A, but with director Alejandra Márquez Abella and astronaut José Hernández about the biographical film of Hernández’ life, A Million Miles Away.

I wanted to focus on the community being pivotal to the fulfilling of any endeavor. That was one of the things that mattered the most to me, because I think that’s a very Hispanic, Latino trait. We are used to working in communal efforts and, to me, this was a big part of Jose’s story — not only his family supporting him but also his partner. So, that was a very important thing. Success is not a thing that an individual can achieve by himself or herself. I think you need the whole bunch to be to be enabled to do whatever… The challenge was to fit a 50-year story into a two-hour film.

Full story/interview here: https://aframe.oscars.org/news/post/a-million-miles-away-alejandra-marquez-jose-hernandez-interview

Haiku Collection #1 – #7

Here are seven haikus I wrote. I wrote the first three during the pandemic in 2020. The rest are more recent, spread out over the years since 2021.

I learned about haikus years ago in…elementary school (?) but did not learn how to truly appreciate the process of writing one until I took a course in Philosophy at San Diego State University. I am thankful for the tutelage of Prof. Wawrytko in Non-Western Aesthetics. I have found that the creative process of writing a haiku, for me, is a type of meditation that calms and heals me.

Haiku #1

Waves attack the shore
The next morning’s sun will also
Shine on the same sand

Haiku #2

She rests while I write
A moment shared like flowers
Sharing the sunshine

Haiku #3

A photograph
The memory of kindness
Remains eternal

Haiku #4

Serenity floats
as a miniature blue dam
What are emotions?

Haiku #5

A life unchosen,

possibilities deterred;

Alive in my dreams

Haiku #6

Titan of knowledge

Pages become memories

I am a master

Haiku #7

A universe died.

Implosion; A Silent Scream.

Can stars be reborn?

La Chilanga Banda En Los Ángeles

Café Tacvba arrived to town this past weekend and it was one of the best concert performances I’ve seen in my entire life. I wrote a short recap of the night for LA Taco.

Here’s an excerpt:

After eight songs, all classics re-envisioned for acoustic performance, Jerzaín Vargas (trumpet) and a brass band joined them on stage for a trio of songs, starting with “La Muerte Chiquita.” Gustavo Santaolalla also made an appearance to play a charango during “Olita de Altamar.” The gasps and applause that emanated from the audience when the stage lights revealed his face would have one believe that royalty had mysteriously coagulated from mist.

Read it in full here: https://www.lataco.com/cafe-tacvba-la-phil/