When I was in high school (way back decades ago *sigh*), it was the time when Luzon was suffering from lack of electricity. No electricity for hours, as long as 12 hours every day. So most of our time there was no electricity. No electricity meant no radio and no TV. We sought different forms of entertainment then.

My mom used to buy read komiks from the palengke at Blumentritt. I remember some of the titles like Aliwan and Wakasan. Every Friday, I bought Pilipino Funny Komiks (for Combatron, mostly). When I was in my first year, my values education teacher called me Zarbot, an android character from the serial comic novel of the same name, just because my name sounded like Zarbot. Zarbot appeared in Aliwan, and his claim to fame was that he’s prolly one of the most sexually active robot characters out there.

Most of the komiks back then are collections of serialized comic novels, stories being continued on the next issue. Komiks were released regularly, mostly weekly. I had to wait weeks for the next issues, because my mom did not buy them regularly. During Saturdays, I always waited for my mom from her palengke run, hoping she bought komiks. And when she did, I read them immediately, and lagi akong napipingot sa tenga because inuna ko pang basahin yung komiks instead na ayusin yung pinamili nya.

Love stories were the most common serialized novels in komiks. Inevitably, there were love scenes, but mostly not explicit. For explicit ones, there were bomba komiks as well – yep, komiks were for porn, as well. I’d seen an issue or two. My mom obviously did not buy them, but as any male teenager would tell you, we have ways. *wink wink*

Aside from komiks, my mom also bought pocketbooks. Some of these local pocketbooks were thin volumes, stapled instead of bound, with glossy cover. They were mostly love stories. I remember reading them on our stairs, malapit kasi sa bintana kaya maliwanag at pwede magbasa. She kept these komiks and pocketbooks at the eskaparate where bread and biscuits were kept.

Of course, there were porn pocketbooks. *wink wink*

And nobody of my age would have escaped the phenomenon called brick games. These were handheld devices with monochrome displays, powered by AA batteries. They all were variations of the classic Tetris game by Nintendo. Pag may Game Boy ka that time, mayaman ka. Eh since di lahat can afford magka Game Boy, ayun, bumenta ang brick games. The more games in a handheld, the more na sikat ka. Eh 4 kaming magkakapatid so imagine the chaos – agawan eh. Di uso sa amin ang time sharing haha.

So yeah. Internet at that time was almost non-existent, and mobile phones were too large to be called mobile. And since there was not enough electricity back then, TV and radio time were limited. Bihira pa portable radios nun, madalas pa AM band lang. Saka magastos sa battery. So we were left with komiks and pocketbooks and brickgames for distraction and entertainment.

I don’t get the fuzz re: komiks right now. I guess it isn’t an upper class thing.