Carlo J. Caparas, born Carlo Magno Josef Caparas,in March 12, 1945 is a Filipino comic strip creator turned director and producer.
He is the creator of Filipino superheroes and comic characters in comic books such as Panday, Bakekang,Totoy Batoand Angela Markado amongst others.
Carlo J. Caparas’ life is an inspiring tale of rags-to-riches worth retelling many times over.
Burdened by poverty, with a jobless father to boot, Carlo had no choice but to forg his high school education to help augment his mother’s meager earnings as a laundry woman. He took on a string of odd jobs - water carrier, boatman, construction laborer, factory hand - and dutifully did his share in supporting not just his parents but his eight siblings as well.
Dropping out of school, however, didn’t hinder Carlo from nourishing his passion for reading. A voracious bookworm, Carlo intentionally did not surrender his library ID so he could have continuous access to the wealth of reading materials stationed at the shelves. But this clever tactic came to an abrupt end when he was spotted by the school principal inside the library.
Carlo’s fondness for reading indeed may have prompted him to apply for a security guard in the Carmelo and Bauerman Publishing in Makati. Soon, all the books, magazines, and other literary materials being printed by the company were at his disposal. During his graveyard shift from 11:00pm to 7:00 am daily, Carlo kept himself awake by reading even the books that had not yet reached the bookstores.
His security guard days, recalls Carlo significantly, were his “1,000 nights of reading.”
During a company strike, the then 19-year old security guard was hit by a stray bullet in the heel, forcing him to rest and recuperate.
The downtime provided the perfect opportunity for the injured security guard to practice all those long hours of submerging himself in the world of books. Almost instantly, Carlo discovered his knack for storytelling. “Citadel” - the first Carlo J. Caparas’ komiks story was serialized in Superstar.
Heeding his call, Carlo immediately immersed himself in writing and creating original characters.
The timing couldn’t have been more perfect.
From the 1960s to the 1980s, popular komiks saw a phenomenal increase. Commissioner Joe Lad Santos of the National Commission for the Filipino Language said that there were as many as 100 komiks - with Pilipino Komiks, Hiwaga Komiks, Pinoy Klasiks, Aliwan Komiks and Tagalog Klasiks, to name a few - leading boom market.
There’s a claim that Filipinos aren’t inclined to reading, particularly text-rich materials. Yet critics and scholars had to acknowledge, albeit grudgingly, that komiks - with its straightforward and mass-based narrative delivered in vivid illustrations - somehow mended the “reading malady” of Pinoys.
Stating the figures to drive home the point, Santos proudly said that circulation of top-selling komiks was around 250,000 to 300,000 copies each, nationwide. And no one benefited more than Carlo J. Caparas.
In a moment of retrospection, Carlo good-naturedly boasted that there were times when he was writing 36 hit novels - all published.
Inevitably, local pop culture flourished as original Caparas creations such as Panday, Andres de Saya, Totoy Bato, Bakekang, Tuklaw, Pieta, Maestro, Lumuhod Ka Sa Lupa, Kahit Ako’y Lupa, Kamagong, Kamandag, among others, found their way into Pinoy consciousness. Even film producers got caught in the fever and made movies inspired by komiks stories.
By the time he decided to hang his pen in 1987 to concentrate on being husband to his wife Donna Villa, Carlo already had an antonishing 800 komiks novels tucked under his belt.
source: komiklopedia
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entertainment, Philippine movie actors , Philippine movie actresses Carlo Caparas
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