The Story Behind Nowhere

First Part: A Visit to the Nowhere Kingdom

Second Part: Chaos in Nowhere Kingdom

Third Part: Deranged (?) Defies Nowhere

Fourth Part: Super Fallusion Sees the Light

Fifth Part: Morose Enters the Nowhere Kingdom

Sixth Part: ZXIOXZ Enters The Nowhere Kingdom (Who’d Ever Thought This Could Happen)

Seventh Part: Nowhere’s Ultimate Conversation

Eight Part: The End of Nowhere

If you’ve followed the Story of the Nowhere Kingdom, this one’s gonna take you to where the story began.

The Pinion was the official student publication of the College of Accountancy and Commerce of Saint Louis University and at the time when I started, it was the only paper in the whole University.  During my time, there were four key initiatives.

• Come out with a one-page weekly issue to be posted in our bulletin board for fresh news.
• Create the Pinion Arts Guild to hold exhibits and later on come out with P.A.G.E. (Pinion Arts Guild Expressions) which was a literary folio.
• Create P.A.D. (Pinion Artistic Doodles) which was a pure comic book that featured comic strips from the different artists.
• Use the back page for “Pilyo,” which was the Official UsedPaper of the College featuring jokes and gags.

In one of the Exhibits of the Pinion Arts Guild, Francis Paco III, another writer/artist for the Paper and the Guild wore a costume of a character that looked like a drunkard with Mask as part of the artwork in the exhibit.  We came up with a story of the character as someone who failed and is now heavily dependent on alcohol.  The Next Day, Kriss Del Val wore a similar costume this one was a superhero with Mask and we came up with the story of a person who wants to be a hero who fails and ended up being hunted for his wrongdoings.  I also debuted my own character in a mask that had a mask and question mark on his chest with a story of someone who is stagnant because he keeps asking questions.

After the exhibit I asked our adviser of the Paper, Ms. Patricia that I’d want to write the story lines of the three characters.  The Nowhere Kingdom was something teenage people can relate too being in a phase that they are neither kids nor adult yet they face so many problems.  We came up with their names. The Drunkard Guy as Nowhere Man, the king of Nowhere Kingdom who failed in his life and is in a standstill.  The super hero was named Super Fallussion, who’s aspiration as a hero had him ending up a menace.  The confused one was named Deranged (?) whose unending questions has made his life at a halt.

The First Part “A Visit to the Nowhere Kingdom” was published in the college publication immediately after the exhibit in 1996. Each of the Nowhere Kingdom’s Character had their individual character-centric stories.  Each one tackling a key issue or a non-issue that came out to be one.   Nowhere Man had “Chaos in the Nowhere Kingdom.” Deranged (?) had “Deranged Defies Nowhere.” Super Fallusion had “Super Fallusion Sees the Light.” Each one published in the paper over the succeeding issues.  I introduced a female member, Morose representing people stuck in their life because of carrying too much depression and her own feature, “Morose Enters the Nowhere Kingdom.”

The pathetic creatures of the Nowhere Kingdom were also able to interact and eventually save the earth from ZXIOXZ and the aliens of the nth Galaxy in “ZXIOXZ Enters the Nowhere Kingdom.” Prior to that ZXIOXZ had two failed attempts at conquering Earth in “ZXIOXZ Conquers Earth” and “ZXIOXZ Second Conquest.” The Nowhere Kingdom also had their interaction in a poem that had them speaking on the meaning of life in “Nowhere’s Ultimate Conversation.”  Nowhere Kingdom had also various comic strips featured in P.A.G.E. and P.A.G.E. Weekly.  Years later after in 2006, I wrote the final chapter of the Nowhere Kingdom, “The End of Nowhere” to give the creatures of Nowhere Nowhere Land their ending.

Each character also has a poem to depict their individual characteristics and dilemmas.   All of these were slowly reintroduced in my website Francramon.com.  It was indeed a journey of these characters and a story that never seemed to end, which was literally and realistically true as the Nowhere Kingdom lives on and who knows just a few heartbeats from now there’s gonna be a sequel to the Nowhere Kingdom.  The Nowhere Kingdom is never going away as people tend to find reasons not to progress and go on with their lives.  It can happen here.

Character concepts by Me, Francis Paco III and Kriss Del Val.  Ink for the Comics strip series by Art Clemente. Ardel Ocampo also made several story lines for the Nowhere Kingdom Comic Strip.  Credit is also due to the faculty advisers of The Pinion back then Ms. Patricia Panis and Ms. Mary Ann Albert and the rest of the The Pinion staff back then.  Even  if the story is about Nowhere, this story has indeed gone somewhere.