Several weeks ago, I wrote a Filipino Comics Art Friday-themed post on Val Calaquian, an obscure comics illustrator whose sole DC Comics credit was, according to the Comic Book Database, the Grand Comics Database, and UK-based comics artist and historian David A. Roach, a two-page short story entitled “The Flame of Death,” which appeared in The Unexpected#158 (August, 1974). I closed the article by asking readers to contact me if they had any more information regarding Calaquian’s work.

In a serendipitous twist, a misspelled database search term on my part led to my coming across an artist named “Val Calquin,” who is credited in the Grand Comics Database with illustrating the short story “The Burning Bride,” which appeared in DC’s Ghosts #63 (April 1978). Are Val Calquin and Val Calaquian the same person? I think it very likely. The art in “The Burning Bride” shares stylistic similarities with that in “The Flame of Death.” Also, Calaquian is no stranger to having his name misspelled as he has also been credited as “Val Calaquin” in both the Grand Comics Database and Roach’s Comic Book Artist article on Filipino artists.

In any case, here are a couple of sample pages from “The Burning Bride,” as illustrated by “Val Calquin”:

I have updated the Straight Outta Surrey post and Geeksverse article on Calaquian to reflect this new information.

Every Friday, I take a look at the work of one of the almost 200 Filipino artists who illustrated horror, sword-and-sorcery/fantasy, western, sci-fi, and war comics for American publishers during the 1970s and early 1980s. The “Filipino Wave,” as it came to be called, saw the likes of Nestor Redondo, Alfredo Alcala, Alex Niño, Tony DeZuniga, Rudy Nebres, Ernie Chan, E. R. Cruz, and many others pencil and/or ink scores of issues for DC, Marvel, Warren, and other outfits, helping define the look of an era.

This week’s artist is Val Calaquian (a.k.a. Val Calaquin).

I’ll be honest, my modest online research skills have failed to turn up any biographical information on Val Calaquian. All I’ve managed to find out in the time between my launch of Filipino Comics Art Fridays and today is that by the late 1960s, he was working as an illustrator on Diamante Komiks Magasin, a Filipino-language comics anthology.

Calaquian’s American comics debut consisted of a two-page story in DC Comics’ The Unexpected #158 (August, 1974), entitled “The Flame of Death.” No writer or editor is credited for the story.

Calaquian’s second (and final) American comics appearance would be as the artist on the graphic novel adaptation of Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth, published in 1976 by Pendulum Press under its Illustrated Classics line (where Filipino artist Nestor Redondo served as art director).

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the meager extent of my knowledge of the mysterious Val Calaquian’s life and work. If anybody out there reading this has more information, feel free to send me a direct message. 

UPDATE (23 September 2015):

The Comic Book Database, the Grand Comics Database, and UK-based comics artist and historian David A. Roach all agree that Calaquian’s sole DC Comics work was “The Flame of Death,” but a misspelled database search term on my part led to my coming across an artist named “Val Calquin,” whose sole credit in the Grand Comics Database is for illustrating the short story “The Burning Bride,” which appeared in DC’s Ghosts #63 (April 1978). Are Val Calquin and Val Calaquian the same person? I think it very likely, given (a) the stylistic similarity between the art in “The Flame of Death” and “The Burning Bride” and the fact that (b) Calaquian is no stranger to having his name misspelled as he has also been credited as “Val Calaquin” in both the Grand Comics Database and Roach’s Comic Book Artist article on Filipino artists.

In any case, here is “The Burning Bride,” as illustrated by one “Val Calquin”:

To read all of the Filipino Comics Art Fridays entries, click here.