INTERVIEW: Making a Magellan Comedy Manga

In the offbeat manga Ferdie!, Ferdinand Magellan and Antonio Pigafetta are caught up in a storm right before they arrive in the Philippines…and find themselves transported five hundred years into the future into a place that’s beyond anything they could have imagined. So what is an explorer and colonizer to do in 2020s Philippines? Why, become a content creator, of course!

In this Interview episode, I talk to Ferdie! creators Julius Tabios and Jeri Llorca about their comic book. Where did this crazy idea come from? How did their understanding of the historical Magellan craft their own funny and fictional take on the famous explorer? And what does this manga have to say about social media and the modern world?

Ferdie! (P450) is available at Lazada and Shopee.

Disclosure: I am one of the editors of Ferdie!, and I worked closely with Julius and Jeri in developing the story for their comic. It was also published by the company I work for, Summit Books. Summit Books did not sponsor this episode.

The Colonial Dept. Interview is a series where I talk to researchers and authors shining a light on our past.