Clan of Saints Bay: Real Life (not Mythic) Warriors of SOMA Pilipinas
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Raf Salazar's Clans of Saints Bay: Monolithic II (Image courtesy of Kularts)
“Think Sunday comics, but instead of non sequitur, it will be a long form narrative,” says Salazar.
Each weekly installment will be about 5-7 pages and will coincide with the Kularts newsletter.
When I interviewed Raf Salazar and Don Aguillo back in October, 2019, both had been working on their own books—Don’s titled Isugid Pinoy! Irarang Ay (in Ilokano language, means “Evolve/Change”), and originally both were set to be released a few months later. But, the shelter-in-place circumstances presented by the arrival of COVID-19 created a need to bring the work to life in an alternative platform.
Raf Salazar (Photo courtesy of Kularts)
The seeds of Raf’s graphic novel/comic, as well as Don Aguillo’s Isugid, grew from the enthusiastic response to Kularts 2015 Kwentóhan: SOMA Superheroes edition. Asked whether the Clan comics and Isugid comics come from the same “world”, Raf says, “In a sense, I would say they are, meaning the overarching world (not the characters).”
That world is SOMA Pilipinas, San Francisco’s Filipino Cultural District which stretches from Market Street to the north, Brannan Street to the south, 2nd the east, and 11th to the west.
SOMA Pilipinas
“It was important in this project, when (Manai) Alleluia Panis brought it to us, that we could constantly project to the future of the SOMA. That was sort of the mission: What do we see being the future of this community? Constantly asking what are the effects of the roles these people play in the community?” says Don.
Both Don and Raf take their cues for what stories need to be told from interviews with folks in the SOMA community. During the research, they realized that they didn’t want to call out specific socio-economic forces at play, but instead focused on the heroes throughout the work. They decided to identify the broader strokes of gentrification pushing out communities and breaking them apart as the main villainous force threatening the Saints Bay world. These forces manifest in different ways in the comics.
Often the stories begin writing themselves as in “The Passage,” written and illustrated by Raf. It reflects the history and development of Bindlestiff Studio, a staple in the South of Market (SOMA) community which opened in 1989; today, it remains the sole permanent, community-based Filipino American performing arts venue in the U.S. During the course of getting to know the staff and the history, i.e. who started Bindlestiff, first Artistic and Managing Director, Alan Manalo, recounted how the studio had been closed down in 2003 because the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency had acquired the building for a low-cost housing project. Due to public outcry for Bindlestiff’s preservation, the SFRA build a new 99-seat black box theater in the basement of the newly rebuilt housing complex and it reopened in 2011. Other small stories like the theater being haunted further informed Raf’s resulting story.
“The stories and characters reflect a forward-facing view of the vibrant, thriving, and expanding San Francisco district that is SOMA Pilipinas.”
“So in Bindlestiff’s story, it’s about this fictional realm that’s going to be destroyed by nothing and it’s up to these chosen ones that have to protect that world. And that world is like a metaphor for Inspiration and Creativity so obviously what’s going to stop that, is Nothing, right? Thus, it kind of mirrors Bindlestiff itself when it got shut down; the World actually collapses and it is destroyed but the heroes survive and it’s up to them to keep going. It’s what’s inside them that will rebuild the World.”
The stories and characters reflect a forward-facing view of the vibrant, thriving, and expanding San Francisco district that is SOMA Pilipinas. The heroes are drawn (pun intended) from real life heroes: Aureen Almario (Artistic Director); Joe Cascasan, Ed Mabasa, Ryan Morales (Resident Artists); Joyce Juan-Manalo (Bindlestiff Member); Allan Manalo (Founder); David Ragasa (Production Team Leader); Lorna Velasco (former Artistic Director and Founding Member).
Adds Don, “To maintain continuity between stories, there are small nods that link them together. Characters are connected in a way. Likewise, everyone in the SOMA is connected. Even though it’s set in the future, it’s in the present. In other words, ‘in a different world’, they are all in a way still there.”
To illustrate with my words, what’s fun about Don’s story spotlighting Arkipelago Books “Taga-Gabai Runong”* which takes place in the not-so-distant future, there is a scene where Lily’s (Lily Prijoles, proprietor) character is talking with someone about the heroes who came before them. They are looking at a monument. This monument is actually the heroes from The Clan comics. Small nods such as this link all of the previous books together. *(Taga-Gabai Runong, in this context, is symbolic of teacher or keeper of wisdom. In this comic specifically, it is a title for the guardian of the Kuta Sang Gahom, the temple of mystical convergence in the stories.)
More from Clans of Saints Bay: Monolithic II (Image courtesy of Kularts)
Who are the superheroes behind the superheroes?
Don Aguillo was born in Quezon City, and came to Pennsylvania when he was five years old. Raf Salazar was born in Manila and when he was two years old, moved first to Washington D.C. and then to northern Virginia. So, they are both east coasters. They disagreed on how long they’ve known each other, “since 2004, no—it’s gotta be later, 2005. We met in college during the times when Raf’s Rodrigo came to visit me at Pennsylvania State University..a lot,” says Don. Rodrigo (Digo) and he were part of the Penn State Filipino Association (PSFA). Their membership was one of the reasons Raf and his friends would visit because the university hosted an annual barrio fiesta and it was like a friendly family atmosphere. Don adds, “that’s also where we started dancing. I mean, at that time, we were learning from a Bayanihan video because we didn’t have the resources like the Bay Area.”
Don Aguillo and Raf Salazar, under the guidance of Kularts, aim to continue shining the spotlight on the movers and shakers of the SOMA Pililpinas community in San Francisco. “We want to keep the buzz going and inspire more artists in the Community.”
To view more of Clans of Saints Bay: Monolithic II, please visit: https://www.kularts-sf.org/monolithic-part-2
Lisa Suguitan Melnick
Lisa Suguitan Melnick is an educator currently going on COVID-19 sheltering- in- place in a Zoom room as with every other teacher on earth. In like manner, she serves on the Board of Directors of Philippine American Artists and Writers, Inc. (PAWA, Inc.) She gets in her 10,000 steps a day running to two or three stores just to procure an onion, some eggs, and a $16.00 pack of single-ply TP. Sometimes she writes.
More articles by Lisa Suguitan Melnick