The journey that was Culture Crash

Five years, 16 issues, two conventions... Doesn't sound much for a professional comic book artist, but I've had a lot of fond memories working with Culture Crash Comics.     We were so much younger then when we started this project.  We were a bunch of upstarts who knew very little about the industry. Naive and very idealistic, we ventured into the unknown, doing what we wanted, living out our childhood dreams of creating comics. We made lots of friends, scorned by countless critics and scores of detractors.     Permit me to go out in a limb, but I have to say that Culture Crash has rekindled in a lot of Filipinos their love for comics.      

Many have argued, but like it or not, we did make an impact on the industry... some may say positively, our detractors may say negatively. But it is still an impact, nonetheless.  

I do not wish to dwell on the issue of "Filipino Art and Cultural Identity vs Artistic Preference" for this isn't the proper time nor venue.

I have come to say good-bye.

It may not come as a surprise to many people that CCCom is in a self-imposed hiatus due to lack of funds. Unfortunately, this is true.      

For years now, CCCom has struggled to come up with issues and has only been living off the returns that we got from the sales of our comic, as we didn't have the luxury of funding from ads.

That was one of the main reasons why CCCom's release dates were so erratic and so far apart. It just came to a point when CCCom was not as self-sustaining as it was years ago.  No thanks, also to the decline of our economy as a whole.     

I am extremely grateful to God for the wonderful people that I've come to work with and for the support you guys have given us through the years. I am just sad that I didn't even get to show how the first chapter of Pasig would've ended. Issue 15.5 would've been our farewell issue, but even that didn't come to fruition.

Will it see print in the near future? We may never know.

Perhaps someday, when we are wiser to the ways of the industry, we may once again revive Culture Crash... we hope you'll still be there to join us for the ride.

Peace!
—Ilog