#vic catan

[transistoradio]

Vic Catan, “Thor, Rampant” (1979).

[theblackestofsuns]

“The Take Is Short!”

The Unexpected #217 (December 1981)

Arnold Drake, Vince Perez, Vic Catan and Jerry Serpe

DC Comics

[theblackestofsuns]

“They Made Us Non-People!”

The Unexpected #217 (December 1981)

Arnold Drake, Vince Perez, Vic Catan and Jerry Serpe

DC Comics

[onlylonelylatino]

The Jaguar by Vic Catan

[balu8]

The Unexpected #205: Bruce the Barbarian by J.M. DeMatteis and Vic Catan

DC   

[cv-zedricdimalanta]

Filipino Comics Art Fridays | Vicatan

Every Friday, I take a look at the work of one of the almost 200 Filipino artists who illustrated horror, sword-and-sorcery/fantasy, western, sci-fi, and war comics for American publishers during the 1970s and early 1980s. The “Filipino Wave,” as it came to be called, saw the likes of Nestor Redondo, Alfredo Alcala, Alex Niño, Tony DeZuniga, Rudy Nebres, Ernie Chan, E. R. Cruz, and many others pencil and/or ink scores of issues for DC, Marvel, Warren, and other outfits, helping define the look of an era.

This week’s featured artist is Vicatan.

Already well-established as a premier talent in the Filipino komiks scene before he started working for DC Comics in the early 1970s, Vicente Catan, Jr.—better known among comics fans by his professional alias Vicatan—was perhaps not as well-known among mainstream American comics readers as the more celebrated Nestor Redondo, Alfredo Alcala, Alex Niño, and Rudy Nebres, but he could certainly hold his own against the best of the Filipino Wave in terms of sheer rendering skill.

Vicatan's earliest DC Comics work bore the unmistakable Redondo influence (he worked as one of Redondo's art assistants early in his career), expressed in meticulous linework and fairly conventional page and panel design. Below are sample pages from his first US comics work, “Goodbye, Nancy” (from House of Secrets #99, August 1972) which was co-illustrated by fellow Filipino artists Frank Redondo (Nestor Redondo's younger brother) and Abe Ocampo:

Vicatan worked sporadically for DC Comics through the 1970s—his remaining contributions for the rest of the decade consisted of two inking jobs for Tarzan Family and illustrating a short story each for The Unexpected and Ghosts—as he spent that time focused on Filipino komiks work.

It wasn't until the 1980s that he started getting regular American comics assignments. By the time Vicatan retired from the American comics scene in 1987, he had penciled and/or inked some 60 strips for DC's war and horror comics anthologies, including “The G.I. Who Quit the War” (from G.I. Combat #228, February 1981), which is especially notable because it's a DC Comics strip set in the Philippines, drawn by a Filipino artist:

While his DC Comics work was certainly noteworthy for its expert rendering, it was on Warren Publishing's 1994 comics magazine that American readers finally got to see the full extent and breadth of Vicatan's skills and his distinct artistic identity. 1994′s black & white format allowed Vicatan to show his ink wash skills and he made the most of the larger magazine page size with some absolutely gorgeous double-page spreads, elevating the stories—most of which were just poorly-constructed excuses for gratuitous sex and violence—to visual masterpieces:  

When the American comics work started drying up for the Filipino Wave in the 1980s, Vicatan returned to illustrating Filipino komiks and mentoring the next generation of local artists. Vicatan passed away in 2004.

A comprehensive list of his American comics work can be found in the Vicatan Wikipedia article.

To read all of the Filipino Comics Art Fridays entries posted so far, click here.