Tan, Baldisimo, Hontiveros, Guerrero and Malonzo Reunite For The Black Bestiary: An Alejandro Pardo Compendium

What do you really know about those scary creatures your lola used to warn you about? Prepare to be spooked as five of the most illustrious figures in the country’s comic book scene band together once again to reveal the terrifying creatures and beasts that haunt local folklore.

Coming soon from Summit Books is The Black Bestiary: An Alejandro Pardo Compendium by Budjette Tan, Kajo Baldisimo, David Hontiveros, Bow Guerrero, and Mervin Malonzo, the follow-up to the group’s The Lost Journal of Alejandro Pardo: Creatures & Beasts of Philippine Folklore released in April 2016.

In The Lost Journal of Alejandro Pardo, readers got to know the titular character as a 19^th century Spanish explorer in the Philippines who chronicled his eyewitness observations of malevolent creatures such as the manananggal and the tikbalang in a journal. Two centuries later, the journal ends up in the hands of two people, one of them a descendant of Pardo himself, and sets off a strange turn of events.

Picking up where the first book left off, The Black Bestiary now sees the series’ narrator hiding away as he continues to grapple with the odd occurrences—including the disappearance of Pardo’s descendant. What he didn’t count on was that the publishing of this lost journal would cause many more people who had crossed paths with the supranatural to come forward and reveal terrifying tales of their own. One of them would hold the key to one of Alejandro Pardo’s own dark secret that has been kept hidden throughout the centuries.

While The Black Bestiary holds descriptions of monsters like tiktik and bungisngis much like its predecessor does, it now contains first-hand accounts that give a glimpse into the many mysteries that darkness conceals.

Behind The Black Bestiary is a who’s who of the Philippine comic book scene: David Hontiveros, the Palanca Award-winning and National Book Award-nominated writer of the Seroks science fiction collections; Budjette Tan, author of the National Book Award-winning works Trese and Mikey Recio and The Secret of The Demon Dungeon; Kajo Baldisimo, co-creator and illustrator of the Trese series; Bow Guerrero, co-creator and artist of the Mikey Recio and The Secret of The Demon Dungeon; and Mervin Malonzo, author and artist of the National Book Award-winning Tabi Po.

Join the book launch of The Black Bestiary at the Summer Komikon 2018 on April 14 at the Bayanihan Center, Unilab Compound, Pasig City. David Hontiveros, Kajo Baldisimo, and Bow Guerrero will be at the Summit Books booth to sign copies from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Copies of The Black Bestiary will be available for sale at the book launch for P395. Following the launch, it will be out in bookstores, newsstands, supermarkets, and convenience stores nationwide.