Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Paltik

Paltik by Clodualdo Del Mundo
Illustrated by Fred Carrillo
Pilipino Komiks Issue 193 October 23 1954

Unang labas





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2 comments:

  1. Steve, JayEm,
    One of many excellent collaboration of these two, which included Malvarosa, Asintado, Apat na Anino to name a few. Most of them were made into movies too. The cover shown though is by Francisco V. Coching, although it might be a collaboration too, the man and woman are definitely Coching, not too sure of the hand holding the paltik inside the target, that does not look like Coching.
    Rod

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  2. Steve and JM:

    Thanks for posting PALTIK.

    I have seen the movie version of this komiks serial. Efren Reyes was very good in this film. He played the role of a guy who accidentally shot her goddaughter during a party in their barrio. He let the girl hold the gun while guiding her from behind, showing her how to fire the Paltik. Unfortunately, the gun backfired and killed the girl. Of course it was a stupid thing to do by letting a little girl play with a gun, but the incident is accidental. He had to flee because everyone went nuts hunting for him, wanting to lynch him.

    The mob mentality of the old Philippine society is elucidated here quite profoundly by Clodualdo del Mundo. It's so baffling, indeed, why it is that in Philippine society, when someone had accidentally run over a person, people in the street will beat the driver first instead of helping the victim first. Very bizarre reaction that we don't see in other parts of the world.

    Clodualdo del Mundo showed us a cruel, inhumane judgmental attitude of mob hysteria, something akin to the so-called SHARED INSANITY (FOLIE), a mental disorder affecting several people, and the condition is arrested only after the "leader" of insanity is taken away or removed to influence the others of his mental disorder.

    The movie version is quite profound and extremely moving. It may not sound authentic to outsiders (most specially to the first world populations), but having lived in the Philippines for a little while, I am aware of the nuances of Philippine society and the story is told with pure honesty, it left so much in my head to ponder after the movie had ended.

    I just hope this one is available in DVD. Would be amazing to see it again after all these years.

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