Francisco V. Coching(1919-1998)

Francisco V. Coching was born January 29, 1919, to novelist Gregorio Coching and Juana Vicente, in Pasay City, Metro Manila. He dedicated his life to his family and to the art of writing and illustrating comics novels for four decades. Mostly a self-taught artist, Coching started with pen-and-ink drawings and later graduated to storytelling, via comics illustrations. His father was a novelist for a magazine, and Coching apprenticed under him at first. Under the tutelage of the acclaimed Tony Velasquez, creator of the "Kenkoy" series, Coching's first serious work was "Bing Bigotilyo," created in 1934. This was followed by "Marabini," a creation interrupted by World War II, during which he joined the ROTC Hunters, enlisting in its guerrilla group called the Kamagong Unit. In 1944 Coching met and married Filomena Navales, who became not just his wife but his lifetime assistant.

Coching's seventh creation was "Hagibis," which he created from 1947-1950. Loosely inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Tarzan," "Hagibis" proved to be so popular it was made into a film with 'Fernando Poe Sr' (Hagibis (1947)) and Coching followed it up with several sequels. "Hagibis" helped secure his fame as an illustrating artist. From "Hagibis" through "Pedro Penduko" in 1954 to "Thor" in 1962, "Tiagong Lundag" in 1966 and "El Vibora" in 1972, Coching churned out endless sagas of romance and adventure, of heroic exploits and mighty deeds that fed the popular imagination of the Filipino reader and movie-going audience. Coching was very prolific, credited with approximately 60 titles, and his works covered many genres: mystery, fantasy, romance, adventure, mythology, folklore, horror, biography, sex, drama and comedy, for example. Although from time to time he was inspired by foreign works like "Tarzan" and Louis L'Amour's western novels, Coching stuck close to Filipino local color, and today he is considered the "Dean of Filipino illustrators," his name revered in the same league as one reveres Balagtas and even 'José Rizal'.

Coching died in 1998, and his wife and children gave him a tribute at the Pasig Museum (Pasig City), where huge movie posters of Coching-written films and studio stills from LVN Pictures, Sampaguita Studios and Premiere Productions adorned the museum. The lead stars of his works-turned-movies, like Vic Vargas and Cesar Ramirez, attended the tribute. Coching helped to make the "komiks" an effective medium of verbal and visual literacy, thus promoting Filipino as national language.