The Making of TSC

Each episode of "The Satan Complex" (TSC) is first drafted using the video medium whereby the script is then improvised and transferred into pictorial panels gauging the videos dramatics and intensity into the drawing.
Tools I use to get started in making a comic strip: Bristol board paper (purchased as a pad and also comes in large single sheets at any art store; although bristol board paper can be substituted for 11" x 17" card stock or even bond paper [and save you several dollars] - try to keep a couple of sheets of bristol board in your storage just to note the difference. Both alternate paper-types will glide through any standard home printer). The pencil I sketch with is any within the range of 2H and 2B lead - 2B being the No. 2 pencil that you can pick up at any stationary provider. The harder leads leave lighter lines and are considered appropriate for later inking. I sometimes will use a non-repro blue pencil for sketching but sometimes the lines are difficult to see when you get down to doing the ink work.
India Ink by Speedball is a nice velvety black ink with excellent reproducing qualities on paper. A bit of amonia allows to thin the ink for those elicit occasions. My ink brush is a Windsor Newton Series 7 Sable #2 (thin) and #3 (thicker). I sometimes will use an airbrush if I have time for the clutter.

Telling a story with pictures takes little to no effort for anyone. Your resulting final product ends up with a definitive atmosphere, somewhat abstract, and resemblingly a deliberation of the creators features. Building a comic strip combining drawings with a script is very much the same way. TSC takes this a step further by introducing video into the "recipe" of creating comics where even video stills may be translated into a pictorial panel for TSC comic strip.

The Satan Complex In Retrospect

Inadvertent sanction into the supernatural - "Satan" remains arcane and mysterious. With the many interpretations of Satan - so then he remains pending and ellipsed as a hypothetical deity which emanates that of mythical grandeur. The Satan Complex (TSC) approaches the case of the two Fallen Angels - Satan, and Gabriel as non-figurative characters existing within the dogma of our Universes' mystical realm through the perspective of classic American comic strip. The essentiality of the series identifies Satan and Gabriel as inevitable lovers but their predetermined fate by the gods keep them apart. The god's unparalleled divine intervention sets the two banned in irreconcilable situations that dictate a variety of forbidding distances. These stories in retrospect, reiterate a moral structure of balancing good and evil and interjecting an inner controversy to the reader with these circumstances that forbade the human will within the struggle of administered spirituality.

About the Artist

Pictured left is heralded artist Alexis Pena Goco who accesses abysmal interpretatives from his imagination of the fallen angels "Satan" and "Gabriel" as spoken of in Holy Scripture, and delivered through his comic strip series titled "The Satan Complex" or also known as TSC. "It all started while I was attending an all boys private Catholic school, and in the midst of the strict curriculum and rigid structure - a book called The Satanic Bible was keeping a large group of boys amused between their classes and lunch breaks, including myself; even my fingers paged through the wicked book. This same year I was introduced to Dungeons & Dragrons (D&D) - a role-play board game that I never really understood until a friend of mine gave me D&D's pack of six dice - oddly shaped and translucent, bearing the various shades of the color wheel. Along with the dice he also gave me the instructional manual and told me that I could learn to play D&D by reading this manual and studying the dice. I read the manual, and I studied the dice frequently but for some reason, we never got around to playing - I'm sure it was because of the demands that our school required, being that it was a private boys school, and topped off - is an accelerated technical trade program that includes two year college studies keeping the student quite busy. Combined studies of three years high school plus two years college - the student will earn a high school diploma and an Associates in their specialized science trade that they accord through the five year course study. Through the course of an eight hour school day the students invested two to three hours learning some level of Theology including mid-day Mass Services. I set the scene here to emphasize what a shock it was when one of the students was found choked around a rope that was hanging from the ceiling of one of the undisturbed classrooms. I didn't actually see him hanging there, but some of the other students and a Professor did. So as a Freshmen in high school, my 14 year old mind asked many questions and stricken with various curiosities - even spilling into the supernatural."

According to birth-rite and legal documents Alexis Pena (Goco) was born July 1, 1969 in Manila, Philippines with parentals Lourdes Pena Goco and Leonardo Santos Goco and the youngest of four other siblings - 3 of which are older brothers, and the eldest - a sister. Alexis has vivid memories of being abandoned with his current siblings, or "step" siblings and parentals or 'step'-parents in the city of El Monte, California and believes to be originally from Carmel, California, and undenounced from the esoteric plains of Tijuana, Mexico. To this day Alexis has no confirmation or knowledge of the whereabouts, or of the identity's of his parents by blood, and genuine ancestry. Today, as we understand to be true - his eldest 'step'-brother, Eliezar has had his focuses on art since childhood and played a role in influencing Alexis' artistic interests. Eliezar now works independently as a Producer in the San Francisco Bay area. Alexis says that Eliezar's influence continues to mentor some of his aspirations. His parents graduated from The University of the Philippines (both in the field of sciences - his mother in Pharmacy, and his father in Bacteriology) and arrived in California with high hopes and vivid imagery about the United States. His mom first migrated with two of her college mates to the U.S. living in the Los Feliz, California area. They spent a year adjusting and preparing for the arrival of their families and soon Lourdes landed a job in the El Monte area as a technical writer for a large pharmaceutical company and so quickly found an apartment that would accommodate her five children and husband. El Monte was divided into three districts: North & South El Monte, and El Monte (east and west areas of El Monte) The Goco Family resided in South El Monte for most of a decade where it was highly populated with Mexican-American Families and Culture. The barriou there prompted with great impact on Alexis a burning desire to express his artistic convictions. Alexis now lives in the San Bernardino, California area where he pursues projects in art, music, and establishing authorship.