Wednesday, July 30, 2008

saving nicole

Prologue



There are moments in life when a person surrenders himself completely to that moment. They’re moments of total and perfect truth; of acceptance. In them, he is content of the state of everything around him; sure that the universe holds no more secrets for him to search for. Just for that moment, the world so vast shrinks into a bubble of space and time where everything is as it should be. And here is where he should be.

For Ja, those moments come every time he sets his feet on the starting line.

*

Brandon Justice Carter established himself firmly in the world record books with his impressive showing on Saturday’s race hosted by the New York State Association of Independent Schools Athletic Association (NYSAISAA), finishing the 100-meter dash at an astounding 9.68 seconds – slashing four-tenths of a second off the previous record time set by Jamaican Usian Bolt.
The Sports Illustrated article of Ja was sparkling. On the cover that month’s issue was Ja crossing the finish line, the blue ribbon cut where Ja’s stomach pushes it forward, his wavy black shoulder-length hair tied in the usual ponytail a few inches north of the base of his skull, almost at the very top of his head where a Japanese topknot would be.
With a cabinet case overflowing with trophies and a pass to the upcoming Olympics to his name, the seventeen-year-old Filipino-American from Loyola High School in New York has a more daunting and immediate concern which looms in the horizon. The question follows wherever he goes:
Where will he attend college in the fall?
To speculate would be like designating a card in deck to a school (and yes, there are that many schools vying for Justice’s services on their track and field team), tossing the deck in the air, then seeing which one falls into an overturned top hat. Unlike other young athletes of his caliber of raw talent and market potential, with their high-priced agents and entourage, Justice has been far from being outspoken, and in fact shown himself to be an enigma of sorts, what with that long hair (uncommon to other sprinters who might even shave their arms, legs and chest to minimize drag) and his quiet, stoic demeanor.
Undoubtedly the most sought after prospect in the track and field game in American athletics history, Justice will be pressed by the NCAA board to make a decision next week, a few days after his next race, this one for the interstate championship and one with the potential to yet again put Justice’s name in the record books.
Sources close to Justice say that the well-documented left knee injury that sidelined Justice last season has healed completely. And after a new experimental rehabilitation treatment, Justice had been clocked in at speeds upwards to an amazing 9.65 seconds during practice runs.
Time will tell if the young man will reach that mark; if he’ll meet the expectations of many who see him as the Lebron James of the sport. The stars are the limit for the young man. His dreams are in his reach.
Ja knows well of dreams. When others spend lifetimes searching for theirs, Ja has known since he was seven.
“Close your eyes,” the little girl tells him, her voice soft, gentle.
“Are you sure about this?” His voice croaks.
The girl creeps closer, her large black eyes fixed on the seven-year-old Ja’s lips. “Are you so frightened of me?” she whispers.
“I’m not scared,” he declares. It's a lie.
“Prove it then.”
She purses her lips and closes her eyes. She cranes her neck up a little to meet Ja’s face. The other half of the space between their lips was for Ja to cross.
“Gentlemen, to your marks!” shouts the umpire.
His fingers touching the grainy surface of the race track, Ja bows his head like a pilgrim would in a holy place. He calms his breathing, sucking in air in long intervals until his respiration and heartbeat are adjusted. He closes his eyes, shuttering off the dull late-afternoon sunlight. Slowly, the flood of noise from the arena fails into the distance until all he hears are his breathing and his heartbeat, then, soon, nothing at all.
“Ja…”
Ja pulls his head up at hearing that girl’s tender voice whisper. His eyes strain at the intense mid-day sunshine assaulting his face. The scene is almost red, it’s so hot. Ja narrows his eyes, but not to adjust his sight, but to focus on his prize baking under the searing sun – a black car parked on the curb by a school yard.
“Get set…!” The umpire raises an air gun above his head.
You won’t outrun me, Ja thinks, his eyes trained on the black car. You’re not fast enough. He bends forward, every cell in his body burning to get running…
“GO!”
Ja jolts to a quick start, pushing his body forward with a might kick of his hind leg. The ground beneath him churns; miniscule granules of sand and dirt fly; the green track sways like gelatin with each breach of his shoes’ cleats into the floor.
Light from cameras flashes from the sidelines. Each one is a tiny sparkle blazingly bright; dozens of them fill a split-second frame of his sight before fading and being replaced by new sparks of ashen.
Ja bows his head to push himself forward, faster. Strands of his hair beginning to escape the noose of his ponytail, he bullets past the others, letting them squabble for second among themselves.
4.52, reads the timer this sudden instant.
A little more than half the track to go. Ja tells himself, his body, that he needs to run faster. Faster or else it’ll escape him.
Ja raises his head and sees his prize driving away from him. The red daylight begins to fade into the horizon where the black car is following. Ja tucks his head to his chest and pushes on. Faster, he tells himself. Faster.
The tendon behind Ja’s left knee begins to twitch then painfully heat up. His body begins to usurp against him.
“Listen to your body,” his coach tells him. The old man begins coughing and pulls out a handkerchief out of the pocket of his sweatpants. “Qualify,” he struggles to say. He coughs again. “That’s all we want, got that, Justice?”
Ja runs circles around the wheel of his ipod, thumbing through songs in his pre-race playlist. He settles on one and presses play. “Got it,” he says nonchalantly as he plugs an earpiece into his left ear.
“Hey!” The old man pulls his runner by his sweat shirt and forces him to look him in the eye. “No screw ups,” he says sternly. “You injure yourself again and you can say bye-bye to your career –”
“And yours too, right?”
The old man straightens his stance. For a moment, he possesses a regal appeal – like powerful kings who have armies to threaten with. “If it gets out that you had an ACL injury you barely rehabbed from successfully, you can forget college; forget getting out of your two-bit neighborhood.”
“You honestly think I care?” Ja retorts without a second’s hesitation.
The old man shakes his head. “You have talent people would kill for, your whole life ahead of you… but you act like it’s already over.” He fixes his stare on Ja firmer, trying to measure the young man. “Every time you run, it’s like… you’re running away.”
Ja raises his chin. “I don’t run away from anything.”

5.86.

The crowd in the arena is swept into a more frenzied tumult of cheer. Justice is a good seven paces from the runner-up, his coach can tell as he watches from the stands. He pulls out his handkerchief and coughs. “Go get ‘em, boy,” he whispers to himself, hiding his pride of the young man he trained to run since he was ten. “Go get ‘em.”

6.98.

His cheeks flapping, Ja grins and swallows hard, trying to ignore the pain in his left knee. Faster, he eggs himself. You can reach it. His knee begins to quiver. Yet he presses on. Nothing will stop him. Nothing will slow him; not when he’s so close – so close that he can hear her tiny voice yell for him.
“JA!”
Ja pulls his head from its bowed positions. He sees a little girl push her bust out of the left-side backseat window, her profile outlined in the eerie red daylight behind her. “JA!” she shouts again. Her lips move slowly as if she were suspended in a space of the world where gravity and time has no control. She mouths, Ja… hurry… please…
Ignoring the pain behind his knee, Ja runs on, fueled by the sight of his prize slowly escaping him. The little girl pushes her body out of the car window further until she’s sitting on the ledge of the window. Ja, her lips mime, Save me…
She begins to cry, each tear falling to the hot concrete road a few feet from where Ja lands his running shoes. She cries harder. Her tears drops down and travels across the partition between her and Ja and splatters on Ja’s knee. He’s getting close. A little faster, he thinks.
They drop to his cheeks now, her tears. It drips down with his sweat and falls away as he runs. Her entire torso out of the car window, she reaches her hand out. Ja reaches out his.
She is so close… Just a little closer… a little faster…

8.39.

A blinding light flashes in front of Ja. He is frozen, his muscles, hot and energetic, stilled in mid-race; his eyes are shot. When the light eventually fades, the car is gone; the scene is no longer red hot. In front of him is the profile of a winged naked girl, her hair flowing around her as if she were under water. She reaches out her hand to Ja like the little girl in the car did. Ja puts out his open hand, trying to catch her.
The wind begins to stir as the girl’s wings begin to flap, scattering bright white, glowing feathers everywhere. Slowly, she floats away from him, her hand still stretched out for Ja to touch. Unable to move, Ja watches desperately.
“No…” he whispers.

9.60.

His knee can take no more. Rebelling against Ja’s stubborn will, it falters. Ja hears something crack, and his body falls forward. He crashes to the track floor right shoulder first. His momentum carries him forward still, and Ja begins to tumble ahead. Again and again he flips, his skin scraping the ground.
“Oh my god,” whispers the old man as he watches his runner, his boy, topple across the track.
Flipping over and over, Ja travels another twenty meters, he was going so fast. Then, mercifully, he stops, his front to the warm afternoon sky. He’s breathing hard. His heart rate is banging against his chest like a jackhammer. Close to passing out, he turns his head to his side where he sees the black car driving away into the red distance. The sound of a little girl screaming for help remains yet, echoing in Ja’s head until it slowly fades.
Then, he hears nothing. He sees nothing.

*

Laid on her side on Ja’s parent’s bed, she reaches behind her, grabs Ja’s tiny hand and pulls his arm across her chest.
“How many kids do you want to have?” she asks in a hush, trying not to disturb this solemn moment when she has her boy’s arm around her.
“Don’t know,” he answers.
“I want lots. I’ll spoil every one of them.” She sighs and closes her eyes to try to fall asleep.
As she shifts her head on the pillow, she feels her boy’s tiny fingers brush her long blonde hair. She smiles, but she represses the urge to giggle. He’d stop doing that if he knew she was awake, afraid that she’d tease him about it. He’s right. Blushing bright red, she begins to conspire clever, rhyming jokes to make fun of him in the morning. But the thoughts of petty gags cease quickly.
“I know you’re awake,” he whispers into her ear. Her eyes flare open. “Keep pretending that you’re sleeping,” he continues, “I might not be able to say it if I knew you’re awake.”
He turns silent, shying from the chore he practiced for the last few days.
“Say what?” she whispers.
Another moment of silence. Then –“I like you.”
She blushes harder. Her face begins to feel burning red hot. Unable to control her cheeks, they part to give way to a smile.
She shrinks her voice, tiny as it already always was, afraid that if she spoke too loud, she’d wake up from this dream. “I like you too, Ja.”
That night, cuddled with the girl, Ja’s world is set in place. All the questions his seven-year old mind had asked, far from being answered, wanes away. His past, his present wane away, and all he’s left with this moment… is this moment. He somehow knows that if had nothing else to live on, he could make due with the simple thought that she sleeps next to him every night; that she’s his girl.

*

The voice is soft as if spoken from a distance. “Justice… Justice…” Slowly, that voice grows louder. The track physician looks down on Ja. He points a small flashlight into his eyes, and bright white floods into Ja’s sight.
“Do you know where you are?” the physician asks.
The flash of cameras shutters around the scene of Ja laying on his back. A few moments later, the old man, his coach, elbows his way past the crowd of racers, photographers, TV cameramen, and on-site doctors and takes a knee beside Ja’s stiff body.
“Justice!” he says, his voice shaking with worry. “Do you hear me, boy?” He stares down into Ja’s wide-open eyes staring blankly above him. “Justice! It’s another world record you pulled!” The old man smiles, his smile gleaming with a fatherly pride for his young runner.
His mouth agape, Ja silently continues to look up as if seeing something invisible to everyone else.
“Justice,” the old man says again. “Jus –”
“I didn’t make it…” Ja whispers.
Ja’s emotionless face begins to crumple. His eyes shrink behind the wrinkles of skin as he frowns.
His speech is shaky. “I didn’t make it…” he mumbles.
He starts to cry; cry unlike he had ever cried in his life. He never thought anyone could be so sad. He never thought the world was so cruel. Lying on his back, the first thing he thinks of is the pain, the desperation, the overwhelming sadness that crushes his chest and impedes his breathing, causing him to snort from his nose. The second is racing again, a new chance, a momentary fix, a salvation from this painful moment.
And the moment is a bed of needles under him. “I didn’t make it…” His face, bright red and terribly furrowed, is a sorry, ugly sight of human vulnerability. It never occurs to Ja, a man with man’s pride, to cover his face. He lets all to see; lets the cameras take pictures of him weeping.
“Stop your crying!” the old man orders. He is angry at his runner; at how the young man reminded him of his own very human nature to shatter with such sadness.
“I wasn’t fast enough… I wasn’t fast enough… I wasn’t fast enough…”





SAVING NICOLE
By Augustine Martinez

fairytales from the firm forest

“Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:3)

Once upon a time, in the magical Firm Forest, lived the princess of the fairies whose beautiful vision was only matched by that of her name – a name that you, mere men, with your short tongues, inflexible jaws and mortal spirits cannot pronounce. Only the wind, the trees and grass are able to say it perfectly. She was so beautiful that the animals fell in love with her at the first sight of her; the winds breezed through her forest just to visit a glimpse of her; the sea reached up from the sea, creating rivers and streams up to her mountains just to touch her soft skin. Yet, for all her beauty, it was one that meant nothing to the princess. She wanted more than the life she had, and to attain it – whatever it was, she still did not know – she was ready give up everything.

Even her name.





Fairy Tales from the Firm Forest





Prelude
The Unchasable Unicorn


I first saw the fair maiden a thousand years ago. My master, Pan, a short imbecile of a god with a goat’s horn on his head, the beast’s hoofs for feet, and whose idiocy and great power was only exceeded – ten fold – by his ugliness, had heard of her beauty all the way from his Greek island home. As if it were his own pilgrimage to a Mecca of promised happiness, Pan and his accompaniment of emissaries, of which I was part of, journeyed the divide of the Mediterranean to here, Spain, and snaked though wide rivers and shallow brooks to the woodland kingdom of the fairies.

The local king’s ambassadors and criers, fairies with brown moth’s wings to transport them from one space of the kingdom to another, greeted us at a streambed of rocks and mud, and escorted us to the largest tree in their forest, the tree’s leaves and flowers greener and more beautiful than anywhere else in the woodland. Its roots opened to receive us, and we were led underground to where our host, the god-king of the forest, held court for our sake in a magnificent hall. Looking around me, my intellectual mind appraised the hall’s architecture. It was once a cave, its natural stone and mud walls now bricked with glazed blue and yellow blocks like that which made up the gates of the ancient city of Babylon. Touched by candlelight, the walls glowed magnificently.

The god-king of the Firm Forest sat at the head of a long table. He preferred sitting here in front of food than on his thrown in front of peasantry of animals who asked for his wisdom in debates concerning, for instance, the territorial, property rights to certain areas in the forest.

“They’re serfs,” the king said as we ate. “They’re on my land, they forget.”

The king was a slothful, gluttonous immortal who partook in the delights that humans did though he never needed it. He enjoyed above all human vices, food, and more than his immortal body could ever need. In stone walls and pillars around the woodland kingdom, one could see the god-king’s portrait – his long beard messed by food morsels and his stomach expanding his robes. The king liked that image of himself. He made a statement to his people with it – I have more; I eat more; I, king, am better than you.

As the king of the Firm Forest and my master dined, Pan and the two dozen of us emissaries, wearing the hoods of our black cloaks over our faces, expected to shun our features in the presence of our immortal god for a host, saw the princess of these lands. The god, Pan, fell deeply in love with the princess at the very first sight of her. I, for the all my years of forced loyalty to him, serving him as mystic and fortune teller, cannot blame his instant desire for her. The rumors were true.

She was a vision. I shall tell you men what I saw, and imagine your mortal senses acting upon the sight of her. She wore a white dress that covered the length of her arms and legs but revealed her hands and bare feet. Her hair was long and bushy and fell in a triangulate shape. Her head was crowned by a circlet of green leaves and flora of different colors. She was a young lady. In terms of years you men spend on earth, she would have looked to you as if she had spent a quarter of her lifetime already. Perhaps twenty-four-years old, put simply for you men to understand. But beyond these descriptions, she had a beauty of the ages. Music of spirits - something you men cannot hear – accompanied her every step.

“I must have her,” Pan said to her father.

“And what will you give me for her?” the king asked. “What fine spices and delights of the belly does your country have that might pique my interest?”

“Whatever you want I shall deliver,” Pan said. “She will be a princess of two kingdoms, the Forest of the Firm and the Greek isle I live in.”

“The princess of one kingdom is good enough for me,” the princess said. Her wide eyes shrunk, divulging to me her true nature – that of a snobbish, spoiled, immature girl.

Her father banged his fist on the table. “I am speaking, girl –!”

“You speak about me,” she interrupted her father-king. “And in front of me as if I were not here. I might only be a woman, but I am still not a thing to be bartered.” She eyed my master.

“Especially to something so ugly.”

“How dare you -!”

“Go on, ask for my hand in marriage,” she said smugly to my master. “I shall give you the same offer I had given to hundreds of other gods and kings who sought my hand – Marry me and I’ll make life a living hell. My bed will be as closed to you as my heart shall be. As my name shall always be.”

Enraged, my master stormed out of the hall.

“How dare her!” he said. “She will pay! The god Pan does not take insults! Not from anybody! And especially not from anybody’s daughter!” Pan looked behind him, searching for a face in the two dozen emissaries he had brought along. “Baltazar!” he called.

At my master’s beckoning, I walked up to him.

As we walked out of the long underground corridor, lit magnificently by thousands of candles, Pan whispered, “I want you give her a gift from me,” he said. “Do this for me, and I promise you, it will be the last chore you ever do in my service…”

From behind the cloth of my hood, I listened to the devious plan of my scorned master. Evil creature, I thought.

And so it was that that night, I did my last deed before my master freed me from my duties to him. But the cost of my freedom would be the princess’. I had no choice, I tell you now. By the tree, I left behind my master’s gift. I hid behind a bush several paces away, and then, with my magic, I whispered from for away to her ear,

“Come up, fair maiden. I have a gift for you. Come out and see it.”

A little while later, the tree spread its roots and opened its trunk. The princess emerged from the tree and saw my master’s gift – a magical beast from his country. It was a unicorn, its pure white body interrupted only by a black blindfold around it eyes.

The princess smiled widely at the sight. She inched closer, without any doubt that the unicorn was hers to ride. I fed her that thought with my magic. As I muttered my spell, hiding several trees away, I cursed her with the most damning curse the world has ever known – that of the impossible, unreachable dream.

“Come closer,” I whispered. “Come and touch its skin.”

She did. The unicorn, at her touch, jumped back. The princess, in turn, pulled her hand away.

“No,” I whispered. “Do not fear it. It is yours. Take off its blindfold.”
She did. The unicorn opened its eyes reflected in its black pupils the beautiful image of the princess. It knew what next to do. It bucked its front legs in the air and neighed wildly. The princess looked on, mesmerized, enchanted by its magic.

Then, the beast turned around and ran away.

The princess was left there, suddenly made sad by the beast’s departure.

“Chase after it,” I willed her. “It is yours. Go on, run.”

And she did. Jumping into sprint, the princess ran after her gift, entering the deeps of the Firm Forest.

My deed was done. My master’s revenge was complete. The princess would chase after the unicorn. But she would never catch it. She would spend the rest of eternity running after shadows and the sounds of neighs from a distance. The unicorn would only stop running if distracted long enough to notice something beautiful. The princess did not have that kind of beauty the beast desired. What it wanted was a thing that exuded an innocent, virgin splendor; an earthly, but most appealing to it, mortal soul. The princess, an immortal and a devious, spoiled child, did not have what it wanted for it to stop.

Her fate was sealed. As she chased after the unicorn, the princess was doomed to live out her immortal life but not spend a day of it. For she no longer existed to the world. She was trapped in a ghostly visage of her forest; the purgatory of unchasable dreams and eternal youthfulness and stagnancy.

Ashamed, I did not move from where I stood. I would never move again. Consumed by the guilt of doing something so cruel to something so beautiful, I planted my feet on the ground to never pull them up again. I cast another spell, and I turned myself into a tree – one that was grey and old and flowerless from the day it had come to be in the forest. My sadness for the girl and my deed made me that way.

“Forgive me, sweet princess,” I whispered, breathing from my lips the last spell I would ever cast as an immortal man. “Forgive me. Forgive me.”

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

portfolio and resume

good day. here is a copy of my resume and a portfolio of works created with adobe illustrator, photoshop and indesign. looking for an advertising or mareting position.

my experience in business and advertising and marketing come from a range of things: from my baby blue cookies business, a self-proprietorship carried over from my days in college in the university of asia and the pacific, which required us entrep students to create and maintain an enterprise in our last year and a half of college; to my endeavor to write, build a team around then have publish by arcana comics, a comic book idea called lolita.

currently, i'm trying to get other comic book projects off the ground. you'll find their pitches and some character designs here as well. many of the advertising and conceptual designs and posters, color schemes and icons and logos from the lolita pitch, for instance, are all my concepts.

i'm also eloquent in english and tagalog, proficient in word, excel, adobe illustrator, photoshop and indesign, and micromedia flash.



this for the consideration of potential employers.

_____________________________________________________________





Agustin Ma. M. Martinez

112 Geneva St  Provident Village, Marikina  933-04-43 Email: augustine.mar@hotmail.com

OBJECTIVE
Interested in Marketing and Advertising functions

EDUCATION
Bachelor of Science
Major in Entrepreneurial Management, June 2007
University of Asia and the Pacific,

Certificate of Completion
Digital Arts Program in First Academy of Computer Arts, January 2008

WORK EXPERIENCE
Creator / Producer / Writer / Head of Concept Designs, Lolita, 2008 - present
§ Created multimedia designs for comic book, Lolita including title lettering and logos. Used adobe photoshop and illustrator
§ Created pdf portfolio pitching the idea to publishers presentation using adobe indesign
§ Pitched comic book idea, Lolita, to U.S. comic book publishers via web-hosting, email exchanges and snail mail packages
§ In talks with Sean O’ Reily of Arcana Comics and Platinum Studios in the U.S. about pilot issue of Lolita

Partner, Baby Blue Cookies, 2007 - present
§ Initiated business as per curriculum course requirements; continued after graduating
§ Built on the business model on both wholesale marketing (bulk Christmas orders) and retail marketing (subcontracting to private high school cafeterias, email Friendster account)
§ Created multimedia designs for business including its logo, calling cards, posters giveaway items. Used Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and Indesign for mentioned digital art materials
§ Transacted with Assumption College, Makati, and Miriam College, Quezon City, to subcontract cookies for cafeteria
§ Annualized current ROE of 239%

Essay and Script Writing
§ Writer / director, The Legend of Charlemagne Cruz, 2006
§ Writer, completed script for a three-issue graphic novel, Visigoth, 2007
§ Writer, completed script for a fourteen-issue comic book series, Lolita, 2008

OTHER WORK EXPERIENCES
§ Entrepreneurial Management Debate Team, 2003
§ Ran family’s hog and mango-farming business, Martinez and Sons Hog Farms, 2005
§ Ran sole-proprietor business, College Review for Accounting and Math (CRAM), as per curriculum course requirements, 2006-2007
§ Student DJ and Marketing and Advertising Intern, 97.1 WLSFM, 2004-2007

SKILLS
§ Articulate in both oral and written English and Tagalog
§ Versed in Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, Indesign and Flash
§ Creative
§ Risk-taker

References:
Mr. Jose Navarro
SBEP, Professor, University of Asia and the Pacific
President, Entrepreneurial Management Department
Tel no, University of Asia and the Pacific: 637-09-12
Email: pnavarro@uap.edu.ph

Mr. Lito Pagayon
Lecturer on marketing styles in digital arts, First Academy of Digital Arts, Makati
Businessman
Cell no: 0920-910-67-65
Tel no, First Academy of Digital Arts: 898-27-24

Atty. Hercules p. Guzman
Attorney-at-law
Professor, University of the East
Tel no: 9135961


_____________________________________________________________


baby blue cookies corporate identity study:





_____________________________________________________________


other corporate and personal idenentity studies:






_____________________________________________________________

advertising material studies, created via illustrator and photoshop:







_____________________________________________________________


illustrator files:













Sunday, July 27, 2008

lolita first issue, to be published by arcana comics





was pretty stoked when i got the email from sean o'reilly, head guy and editor of arcana comics, saying that he wanted to publish the first issue. it's always been my dream to be in comics; me and my two best friends growing up shared it, and we would spend hours writing and drawing our own ideas for comic book characters. funny how things turned out for the three of us: one of them is now a law student; the other an accountant. and me... i'm still thirteen, dreaming up stories.

this first idea of mine is, in a one sentence nutsell of a pitch, is about a thirteen-year-old girl assassin at the top of the killing game who has a very playful view of her work and who even experiences her first tastes of sexual stirrings killing peple. the comic book isn't supposed to be pervy, though it may seem like it. it's supposed to be a challenge on perception and the traditional ways people see the ordinary - in this case, a young girl. it's supposed to be a statement, and shock value, the idea and the image of a sociopathic thirteen-year-old girl killing people and enjoying it, is one of the loudest statements an artist can make.






Short Pitch for Lolita:

Claudia is a thirteen-year-old assassin, code-named the Black Cherub, who does her work with no emotion like a doll; a puppet on a string. But things change when someone alters her nightly drugs which suppress her childlike exuberance and even impede her menstrual cycle. And now, she is no longer a doll with no emotion… but a psychopath who enjoys and experiences her first sexual stirrings killing.




























































____________________________________________________________

first issue of lolita cover page, option one:


by gilbert monsanto



first issue of lolita cover page, option two:
by harvey bunda



first issue of lolita cover page, option three:
by kathryn layno-lewis
____________________________________________________________


sequentials, inked and colored:




the artistic team:
pencils by gilbert monsanto
http://gammaknight.deviantart.com/ http://gilbertmonsanto.blogspot.com/

inks by aaron felizmeno and renie palo

http://aaronturon.deviantart.com/ http://gallerion.blogspot.com/ http://rapidblade.deviantart.com/

colors by shernan mijares

http://bloodmarionette.deviantart.com/



cover page samples by

harvey bunda http://soulspline.deviantart.com/ http://web.mac.com/soulspline

kathryn layno-lewis http://katsh.deviantart.com/ http://klewlesskat.com