The one with my favorite Filipino comic strips

I like comic strips - especially Filipino ones. I don't profess to be some high-browed aficionado, I just appreciate comic strips, and how the artists capture some element of the Filipino psyche in humorous, often thoughtful ways.

This site is currently recording record traffic (thank you, Precious Lara Quigaman), and with that, I'd like to direct some of you to some brilliant comic strips that are just funny - some are corny! - and representative of the Filipino in more ways than we'd care to imagine. Kudos to the artists - they rock.


West Side. This is the first of two strips by absolutely talented Fil-Christian artist Ariel Atienza. It's the story of the Ibarra family, a Fil-American family forced to relocate to the Philippines. Hilarity ensues as the family tries to adjust to its new surroundings. The second strip, Class, is also good for a barrel of laughs as we follow the goings-on in a coed high school. Published in Philippine News.

Beerkada. The brainchild of Lyndon Gregorio (a pseudonym), Beerkada details the daily goings-on of a group of college friends (the Filipino term is barkada, the resulting pun therefore a delicious play on the friendships that form over an ice-cold bottle of beer). Terribly corny at times, Beerkada's always good for a laugh. Plus, Gregorio is an attention freak with a brilliant marketing mind, parlaying the strip's success into a series of bestselling books. Published in Philippine Star.

Pugad Baboy. I'd like to believe Pol Medina Jr. is one of the more respected cartoonists in Philippine media today (if not, well at least I respect him). Pugad Baboy (literally Pig's Nest) revolves around ridiculously obese families living in a small Philippine town. An excellent microcosm of Philippine society, I've followed Pugad Baboy since I was a kid, and the laughs get better with age. Medina had taken his Pugad Baboy strip from its humble beginnings to a media conglomerate at some point, producing pigurines (get it?) and whatnot, including bestselling books as well. Published in Philippine Daily Inquirer.