Malate | A Slice of Life & Relationships

Malate is a place in the City of Manila, where the stories of two people meet-up and through 54 pages of black and white images the narrative features the district part that mirrors the real world written and drawn by Andrew Villar, which was originally published in 2017. This was an original concept that put his artistry to new heights and put a spin on how “slice of Life” stories are told. Andrew was known before for being a cartoonist who created the “Ambush” series published as a comic strip on Manila Bulletin newspaper. The character named Ambush was inspired from Lara Croft of Tomb Raider and features some characters from Star Wars notably the Stormtroopers. For a while that was Andrew’s work in the local self-publishing industry in the Philippines until he put out Malate, which is entirely different from what he used to publish in the local scene.

Published: 2019 Edition
Age Rating: For Mature Readers Only
Language: English

There’s something that connects Malate to everyone who have read this book and it was generally a hit that there was actually a sequel set in another district of Manila. Rarely, you’ll find an indie komiks that tackles the stories of life, relationship, and anything between set in a place people would associate with. Malate is certainly a place where you spent your childhood and appreciate the locales. For someone who mostly spent half of my life in my youth Malate was the place and this was the story that propelled not only put two people in the spotlight but the place they went.

Emily and Vince are the two main characters in Malate that visited important place in Malate that exactly existed in the real world. While they talk about life, love, and relationships they went on their adventure in the district. You can’t tell if they’re lovers or merely friends, but it sure magnifies what type of people they are from a point of view of a reader they talk about their relationships with other people and their type of relationships together. It is a very complicated one but it defines how modern relationships happen in real life.

Through their talks and discussions from the pages you see Café Adriatico in Malate a local restaurant near the Remedios Circle. They also went to Pasinaya Festival, which was held at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) it is where the two characters meet-up. They also watched theatre plays there and one of them is the staging of Zsa Zsa Zaturnnah based on a comicbook by Carlo Vergara, which really happened and its last play was back in 2011. They took a cruise ship around Manila Bay and there are familiar faces that made a cameo in this book.

Besides the people you can find the books straight up adaptation of what you’ll find in Malate, which Andrew Villar tried his best to illustrate and make it part of the story while the main characters ventured while dealing with their ‘drama’ in their everyday life. It was poignant to see how these characters relate to life most Filipinos deal with every day. But entirely Andrew really made sure this book manages to feature anything and everything that is about Malate while the characters went around the area that made this an interesting story.

From going to Harrison Plaza ending up grabbing a grub at a fishball cart for some street food Andrew’s depiction of life in Malate is something that reinvigorated his story telling ability after being known to craft Ambush for more than a decade. The author illustrator has mentioned there was a sequel in the works, but it was unfortunate we’ll never see the light of that when he passed away on 12 February 2019 from a severe stroke. But the stories he told through Ambush, Hari, and Malate will live on. Through his collaborations with other authors will keep his stories with his fans forever. I happen to acquire this beat up copy of Malate late last year while visiting Komket’s Secret HQ in Makati in November 2019, which turned out to be the browsing copy as the very last one.



Malate was originally published in 2017 while I was still living in Adelaide, South Australia and the news about this book got my attention. Overall it was something to appreciate about the place that I grew up most of my younger years it reconnects to the places I’ve been and I appreciate Andrew for making this story. It was unfortunate that I never had that chance to tell him that, but through this book he showed how Malate is a place to explore and certainly defined his legacy as an artist. Thank You.