How did the idea for Zsazsa Zaturnnah come about?
I don't recall the exact circumstances, but I do remember that one of the very first ideas I had was this image of a person swallowing an insanely large stone. I got a real kick out of that one, but it wasn't until a few months later when an actual story started to evolve.

Was the Darna spoof intentional?
At the time, it wasn't a deliberate "I want to spoof Darna" thought. In fact, I didn't see a whole lot of the classic Darna movies, nor have I actually read a Darna comic. But I guess most Filipinos know the basic premise behind it all. Girl swallows stone. Girl becomes a super hero. Girl fights bad guys. But I'd say the the bigger influence behind the Zaturnnah story was Supergirl, starring Pinky Monitlla, a film that went through gazillions of reruns on TV while I was growing up.

And the homosexuality angle?
It was a conscious decision on my part to start creating comics with that "gay angle," because my contemporaries haven't really dived head-first into it. My first solo work, One Night In Purgatory, had the gay thing going, and Zsazsa Zaturnnah is part of that logical progression. But it's not to say that I create comics primarily for a gay audience. A lot of my readers aren't gay.

You don't sound like a funny person. Where did you get your humor for Zsazsa Zaturnnah?
The great thing about writing Zsazsa Zaturnnah is that the characters spring to life in my head, maybe because I've met so many people who more or less match the personalities of the protagonists. Apart from that, I've this absurdist streak inside me that I haven't fully tapped. So it's a combination of my personal experiences with other people and my view of the world around me. A lot of it is funny, and a lot of it is sad and funny at the same time. There's also a lot that just too sad that you have to find something funny about it or else you'll burst.

Any sequels in the works?
I'm currently conceptualizing and developing the sequel to this book and I'm targetting a 2005 release. People have asked me why it would take that long, and my answer is that--apart from the fact that I've other things to do-- it's not a matter of stringing jokes together and putting pretty pictures on paper. There has to be a good story behind it all, and that's not an easy thing to pull off.

Will there be a Zaturnnah movie?
Maybe.

Will Zaturnnah run for president?
She's not that crazy.

Carlo Vergara is a graphic designer by profession, though has for most of his career been involved in corporate communications. He has also dabbled in acting for professional theater, teaching in the university classroom, and conducting seminars and workshops. His first solo comics work, One Night In Purgatory, was cited by teh Sanghaya Yearbook of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts as the "best comic book" of 2001.