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You've Never Heard Of… Bong Redila

Senior Boricua Correspondent Marco Lopez writes,

As you all know the purpose of You've Never Heard Of… is to shine a spotlight on self-published creators who release their work in print or digital and creators who work for publishers that don't rank in the top 10.

We're in a golden age of comics right now and in an age of geek none of us could have ever imagined, but with the good comes the bad. As our geek news sites become more corporate they tend to focus less on comics and in some cases less on independent creators. Which is why this series was created. As you all know Bleeding Cool is a popular site and has never shied away from giving a soap box to those starting out and trying to carve a niche for themselves.

So today is going to be a bit different as my interviewee isn't a comic book creator per say but he is a fantastic storyteller and wonderful illustrator.

Bong Redila creates these beautiful one-page illustrations that look like something out of a classic children's book series. But with one illustration and a sentence or three you have been whisked away into a series of moments that are full of such brilliant imagination that you can't but help get caught up in it all and wonder what happens next.

Bong told me a bit about the series before this interview took place and so I've decided to cut and paste that here for your enjoyment.

"Borderline" came into existence due to my fascination and love affair with making short stories and lack of time. I was so busy illustrating children's books that it consumed my time and making more short stories with multi-panel became impossible. But my need and hunger to tell short fables propelled me to even shorten how I tell tales.

A single-panel comic, Borderline is a collection of surreal and whimsical images accompanied by a short line of caption or text. The aim of this project is to draw the reader/viewer into a place called Melag (mə• läg), a fictional little town where phantasmagoric and peculiar events perpetually take place and push and encourage them to expand their imagination and complete their own story on each page. This project is a spin-off of a larger project I did called "Melag", a book of short stories published in the Philippines.

Marco: Tell us a bit about yourself. What made you fall in love with the medium of comic books and children's books? And on top of that what was your journey like in becoming a professional children's book illustrator?

Bong: I grew up in a small city in the Philippines. Back in the mid 70's and early 80's those big international superhero comics, DC, and Marvel, rarely reached our city. We saw some Action comics occasionally but it was really rare. For some reason, there was this small Chinese mom and pop shop downtown that my brother and I went to that carried some old EC Comics. We went there on some weekends and bought some Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror, Weird Science, and some Weird War Tales, using our school lunch money that we'd saved for the whole week. So, I was exposed more to those kinds of comics. And, since my grandmother and my mom were both addicted to Philippine comics, I was of course bathed with Filipino sequential art.

When I was younger, my brother and I spent our summer vacation at our grandparent's house. They had this old library just above their ancient kitchen. The floor was made of bamboo so you could see what was cooking on the boiling clay pot at the kitchen below. So, my brother and I always secretly sneaked inside that old library because the bamboo floor was not sturdy and we weren't allowed to go there without supervision. But that library nurtured our developing minds. It was there that I saw the works of NC Wyeth, Franklin Booth, Arthur Rackham, Gustave Dore, to name a few. But I also saw these gorgeous illustrations from a very old copy of One Thousand and One Nights that up to this day it still haunts me, I'm still searching for that issue just to know who illustrated it.

It wasn't easy getting attention from children's book publishers out there especially if your primary weakness is marketing your own work. I just worked hard 24/7 and maybe got lucky when a new independently owned publisher saw my work at The Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. But that was it. I'm still actually looking for an art agent to represent me out there. So, I hope an interested agent is reading this. Ha ha.

Marco: As I looked over the shorts I started to wonder about your influences. I notice some John Tenniel (for those who don't know he was the illustrator of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and the sequel Through the Looking Glass) in there and even some William Wallace Denslow. Now for anyone, those are probably the most immediate that pop to mind. They're was in two immensely popular series and they themselves have influenced generations or artist. So, my question is who influenced you growing up and who continues to influence you today and who are you currently following? Whether it's comics, books, movies, TV, film, animation. Let us know.

Bong: Wow, Yes, you're not the first one who mentioned Tenniel and WW Denslow when they see my work. It's really quite an honor.

It is kind of weird really because I've read and have immersed myself with a fair number of comics and children's books but I am more influenced by films and music. I grew up watching Sesame Streets and those old Hanna-Barbera cartoons. I've always considered Jim Henson as an influence regarding sharing compassion thru creativity. The man was both a genius and an angel which is quite rare in my opinion. And besides Twilight Zone and Albert Lamorisse's Le Ballon Rouge, one film that also comes to mind whenever I'm writing a story is Giuseppe Tornatore's, Cinema Paradiso. It's always been my aim to feed the viewer that magical human emotions when your innocent mind and heart recaptures you as a grown up.

Marco: What's the end goal with the Borderline series? Because according to the initial e-mail you sent me concerning this project and going by the info on your site these illustrations are basically snapshots of a bigger world. You even referenced a book of short stories and a place called Meläg. Tell us a bit more about that and your goals with this fantastic world you've created.

Bong: When I first started Borderline I didn't have any plans for it but just a simple online thing for me to help my fix with making stories and illustrating. Kind of like a dumping area for all the things coming out of my head, really. But then eventually when there were some interested people asking if I have any books out and I couldn't provide any I decided to pitch the idea of Borderline to Adarna House. But instead, they went for the compilation of all my short comics online called Meläg.

Anyway, a friend of mine suggested that maybe I should publish Borderline along with short stories for each illustration written by different Filipino writers like what Chris Van Allsburg did on The Mysteries of Harris Burdick. So, I'm thinking about that option. But instead of just prose for each drawing, there might be some poetry, essays, etc. We'll see. But for now, it's just there, free to the public, online.

Marco: Besides Borderline are there any other personal projects you're currently working on or that are in development and tell us about some of the illustration work you've done for others?

Bong: Aside from Sikami, an annual comics anthology from my hometown I submit stories to each year, I'm in the process of developing a 40-paged picture book for mature audiences. I've already have an idea of the medium and style I'm going to use but the story is still not that ripe. It will be in full color though, so it might take a while because of my CVD (Color Vision Deficiency). I'm tritanopia by the way. It's one of the main reasons I do mostly pen and ink.

But do check out the last picture book I illustrated called The Peddler's Bed from Ripple Grove Press, written by Ms. Lauri Fortino.

Marco: Bong I want to thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to allow me to interview you. It's been quite a treat and I think our readers at Bleeding Cool are going to love your sketches and the world you've created. But before you go I want you to pimp your work. Tell our readers why they should take some time out of their busy lives to check out your work.

Bong: Thank you so much. It's my pleasure to be included among the featured artists here, Marco. But, oh boy, your last question… ha ha. I'm not sure how to put it, so instead I'll just leave a quote here from Rob Cham, author of Light (Buno Books).

"Reading Bong Redila's work, I get that feeling I had when I was a kid opening a book for the first time… I just want to get lost in the feeling over and over again, for however brief a time I could spend in that space, and that's why I love Redila's work, it's a beautifully illustrated journey into worlds where anything could happen, it fills you with wonder, and it hurts to leave."

And that's all she wrote. I want to thank Bong for allowing me to interview him and do yourselves a favor and check out his work via his web page and the other links sprinkled throughout this interview.

Marco Lopez is the co-owner of the website Atomic Rex Entertainment. Where you can find the ongoing weekly webcomic Massively Effective, that Marco describes as Bill and Ted in tights. Also, hosted on the site is Marco's web strip series Orion's Belt that follows an Afro-Latino family of adventurers in space. Marco has also written for Zenescope Entertainment and Lion Forge Comics.

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