THE biggest publisher of manga in Japan is Kondansha, established in 1909, and still much around coming out with literary publications and even a dictionary.
The highest circulation, for the longest time, is Weekly Shonen Jump, with 1.5 million copies, published by a rival publisher, Shueisha.
It had a peak of 6.5 million copies, translating into 11 million readers.
Readership in trains and sidewalks
There is no equivalent of that magnitude in the Philippines, although we claim we had a Golden Age of Komiks, from the 50s up to before the Martial Law.
Perhaps the most significant comics purveyor we could cite is Ramon Roces Publications or its various corporate masks.
As Acme Printing, it was responsible for being the home of Kenkoy, created by Tony Velasquez in 1929.
As Ace, it came out with four power titles: Pilipino Komiks, Tagalog Klassiks, Hiwaga, and Espesyal from 1948 to 1954.
Later Roces incarnations such as Atlas and Graphic Arts Syndicate Inc. were also hounded by labor troubles and bad business decisions, like its predecessors.
Artists publish their own works
Sure, there were vigorous competition from other publishers wanting to have a slice of the profitable comics market, but the mighty Roces group just imploded.
Disillusioned with businessmen, creators founded their own companies in the mid- 60s and into the 70s.
There were novelists Ravelo (RAR), Pablo Gomez (PSG) and the formidable stable of artists Alfredo Alcala, Nestor Redondo, and Tony Caravana (CRAF).
At its height, there are estimates that the more popular Filipino comics titles each reached 200,000 per issue. Considering that Filipinos had huge families, the pass-on factors were big.
Twenty to 25 titles each week were flooding the market, with the force of our pandesal, lechon manok, and shawarma crazes.
The extinction of Komiks
Still, these figures are peanuts compared to Japanese manga following.
In the late 80s, the Philippine comics limped like a gasping dodo bird. The main reason given is the dominance of entertainment in television, the movies, and the Betamax/VHS.
This rationale does not hold water in Japan, where most of the new video and audio technology plus then nascent game consoles came from.
Manga, ironically, became more widespread in the ASEAN regions. In tandem with anime, they were hypnotizing millions of new readers.
There are those who claim that komiks lost it charm because of greed. Inglorious greed.
Knock-out punches
Oodles of money were pouring in for comics. To have more, publishers came out with more titles and frequency - taxing editors, writers, and artists to creative exhaustion.
This resulted to poor quality outputs to which readers wisened up; they no longer subscribed or bought, but just rented komiks.
Martial law and, later, the Pinatubo eruption were hard blows.
But the knock-out punch was the out-migration of Filipino talents to the USA in the 70s.
Overseas Filipino artists
American scouts got wind of a reservoir of super-galing artists in the Philippines and hired them for DC, Marvel, and other major publishers.
We lost Tony Zuniga, Alfredo Alcala, Nestor Redondo, Alex Nino and dozens more.
We used to call it the Filipino invasion of America where, at one point, some 200 Pinoy artists were working for American comics.
The second tiers worked for animation studios here and abroad.
Japan, on the other hand, had more stealth in invading America. It used its own armory, its original content like DragonBall and Ghibli obras to slice into the market.
It kept its artists at home.
Lessons for possible revival
Comics couldn’t do it alone, so the Japanese manga worked in tandem with anime, games like Pokemon, and merchandise products like Hello Kitty.
Comparing manga and komiks teaches us what went wrong and what we could right.
Perhaps in other forum, we could toss those more thoroughly.
One thing is without doubt. The country has a rich lode of talents.
But what we need is to have a well-devised and concerted program to harness them, not just by pockets or individuals, but as an interlinked industry that would save our dreary days.