Cover of Cresci Prophecies Vol.1
Overview[]
Cresci Prophecies is an ongoing indie komiks series written, illustrated, and self-published in photocopied format by Joanah Tinio Calingo . It is released under the indie group Point Zero. The series is a trilogy composed of 3 story arcs that tell the fulfillment of the Prophecies, the first of which is the Book of Arcen, then followed by the Book of Sancread.
The Story[]
Set in the fictional universe of Gods called Accaides, Ceredion is haunted by visions and premonitions about an unborn mortal woman's death, showed to him by his counterpart, Myste. Disturbed by the premonitions of the mysterious girl (and later after finding out about the girl's destructive power), he finds a way to meet the girl thinking that she would be a threat to him and to all of Rohedien (Cosmos).
In a nutshell, the story is about a god, a mortal, and a forgotten prophecy that talks about someone's downfall. A prophecy which looms throughout the series.
Issue 1-8
Teaser Page 1 from Point Zero Premier, 1999
Volumes 1-3
Production Notes[]
Cresci Prophecies was created way back in 1996. The series was supposed to be a part of a 4 titled comic collaboration project during the author's college years. The project didn't push through, but the series was continued as part of the author's hobby.
It was initally released as a 5-page teaser in the 2nd issue of Point Zero's early title Point Zero Premier in 1999. The first issue was also released the same time as the teaser. It was later released in a shop called Anima Anime on 2002. Cresci Prophecies made its convention debut during C3Con, held by the staff behind the comic magazine Culture Crash.
In 2005, the first volume debuted in Komikon, released under Point Zero.
There are currently 4 hard-bound compilations available in selected shops and comic conventions, containing 28 chapters (20 released as singles). The first 4 volumes complete the Book of Arcen.
The first issue of Book of Sancread, which is the second story arc of the series, was released in 2015.
The series was nominated for Indie Impact of the Year category for the Komikon 2006 and for the Grassroot category of the Komikon Awards 2009 and 2011.
The author encountered a lot problems in production, including being turned down by photocopy shops because the pages were "too dark". Joanah TC eventually used crayons and pencils to simulate the gray tones to avoid the same problem. This look became the staple art style of the series.
Trivia[]
Pangitain[]
While the series was still being drafted, the author used a portion of Cresci Prophecies' third issue as an animated college school project. The animated short was titled "Pangitain", and won several local independent film awards, including Gawad CCP for Alternative Cinema and Videos (3rd place, animation category, 1999). The full filmography can be seen in the extra content of the 3rd volume of the compilation.
"Pangitain" can be viewed in Joanah Tinio-Calingo's DeviantArt Gallery .
Songs[]
The author was heavily influenced by musicals and music in general. As a result, the main character sings, and there were many musical elements in the story. There were several songs made for the series, made of simple round-song melodies, one of them a rock song.
In the 3rd Volume, Silaya sang a song of longing. The song did come with a tune when Joanah TC created it, but she has yet to find a way to record the melody.
Erathyn[]
There was a fictional language in the series called Erathyn. Unlike Tolkien did, It wasn't a full blown language. But the author created a fictional alphabet and punctuation marks specifically for the series, so she could type in secret messages in some of the dialogues. These Erathyn dialogues were intentionally hidden to keep the mystery while the comic was being read. A decoder was included in Volume 2. The siginificance of the said "secret messages" are yet to be revealed.
Joanah TC did try to master writing in Erathyn, but it went against her "left to right" training in writing, as the she wrote the individual letters "right to left" (while still being read in the Western orientation).
Outside links[]
For more information and updates, check out the links::
Old website --> Cresci Prophecies