Manix Abrera shares how the pandemic affected his creativity and what he did about it

As an artist, Manix Abrera felt that the pandemic disrupted not only his daily life but also his creative output.

In an episode of “The Howie Severino Podcast,” the comic artist said he encountered problems with his creativity in the first few months of lockdown.

“In the first few months of the hardcore lockdown last year, that became my problem. For two months I had a hard time drawing stories because I was used to commuting. Even if I didn’t have anywhere to go, I’d commute to gather material and when I got home, I’d have so many ideas,” he said in Filipino.

“Because we’re just at home, I had a hard time in the beginning, so the comics I wrote dealt with my feelings of being locked up, imagining things like ‘Life of Pi,’ where you’re just a small house in the middle of the sea and you have so many imaginary friends.”

As time passed by, the “Kiko Machine” and “News Hardcore” author said he realized that his world did not shrink at all, but instead it shifted to a different platform—online, be it meetings, and even shopping.

“So I saw that you just need to shift your point of view a little and you’ll see that there’s a wide range of things you can do,” he said.

For an exhibit that he opened this year, Manix said he looked inward for inspiration.

“Now because we’re just at home, I focused on what’s inside. In the cosmos, what’s inside us. I remembered that when I was a child, I was really into the supernatural and magic, because Papa had a book on the history of magic and the supernatural,” he said.

“I saw that magic is so beautiful because you really focus on your inner power that whatever is in the cosmos is also inside of you,” he added.

Manix said he then designed tarot card illustrations that people themselves could interpret on their own, similar to silent comics or wordless comics.

“I noticed that when you read tarot, when you lay down the cards, it’s similar to comics in that it has a sequence of images. And it’s up to you on how to interpret it. You use your inner self, your soul. How will you read this sequence?” he said.

“There are no right or wrong answers on how you’ll interpret it. So I saw how close it can be to tarot cards. That’s why that exhibit is close to my heart.” – Kaela Malig/RC, GMA News