A Brief History of Black Ink Comics Shortcuts

        Around two years ago, while we were busy preparing the first set of Black Ink graphic novels that we’d release, I asked our publisher if we could come out with a comic book that had short stories in it. A 60-page comic book which would be divided into three 20-page short stories.  All the comic books we were readying then were all 60-pages and I knew for a fact that there were a lot of komiks readers that didn't have patience for long stories. 

       The publisher immediately approved my suggestion and named the comic book Shortcuts.  You can’t find a more amiable and approachable boss than  the publisher of Black Ink, who incidentally, is also the publisher of Precious Pages and Lampara.

       And it was decided that aside from a traditional (or Western-styled) Shortcuts komiks, we’d also be working on a manga Shortcuts.  The first traditional Shortcuts we were able to produce consisted of The Lovebird (story by Ron Mendoza and was illustrated by Arnel Coronel), Adamus (story by Rosahlee Bautista and arts by Arnel Avetria) and Dark Woods (by Rosahlee Bautistra and Mar Servicio). All these were fantasy tales. While the first Manga Shortcuts consisted of Some Sweat, Some Love (written by Nald Tabuzo and arts by Jeff Nice), A Decade of Waiting (by Herbs Navasca and Enjelia Villanueva) and The Tree of Happy Leaves (by Ron Mendoza  and Jayron Zapanta). All these three were light romance stories.

 The new colored cover of reprinted Black Ink Manga Shortcuts

       I can’t remember now if these books were released simultaneously but the manga Shorcuts proved to be the more successful of the two.  The manga shortcuts sold like hotcakes while the traditional one (which stories I was quite proud of) sold like, well, fishballs, maybe. Or kwek-kwek. Wait, fishballs often sell like hotcakes, too. And kwek-kwek. Anyway,  the first Manga Shortcuts sold so well that it had been reprinted and is now available once again in National Bookstore, Precious Pages Bookstores and other outlets. The reprinted Shortcuts has a new colored cover, which looks nice, although I am sentimentally biased with the split black and white cover, which had a classic and distinct feel to it.

        Incidentally, here’s a short review of the first Black Ink Manga Shortcuts:    http://onemantra.blogspot.com/2013/11/comics-black-ink-comics-shortcuts-manga.html

  

       I agree with the above review that the first Black Ink manga Shortcuts has some nice love stories in it. I tend to think that the comic book, as a whole, is really good. Why? Well,  a  few weeks after it was released, I received a text from a friend and fellow writer (she writes for Precious Hearts Romances, which is under Precious Pages and she is very good and very popular) at around two in the morning just to tell me that she had read a copy and that she was very impressed by it, particularly by The Tree of Happy Leaves, and that she couldn’t wait until morning to tell me about it. She didn’t care if I was already asleep at that time. (I was in fact already asleep but unfortunately, my cell phone was lying near me and my message tone was a rock instrumental which was in full volume at that time and which would only stop once you open the message. I bet even the neighbors were awakened. But I didn't tell her that, of course. He he.)  She even was trying to convince me to turn the story into prose, imagine that—so there, if a friend texts you in the wee hours just to gush about a story you’d written, you know that you’d written a good one, especially if that friend writes, too. 

The original cover of first Black Ink Manga Shortcuts