Muros: Manila Behind Walls: The Case of the Cemetery Girl - A Graphic Novel by Paolo Chikiamco & Borg Sinaban

An intrepid detective tracks a girl lost amidst Manila’s many temptations. Can he crack the case and find the girl before the city erupts into violence?

Muros is an urban fantasy set in an alternate Manila which has been sealed off from the rest of the world for decades. In this fast-paced graphic novel the walled city of Manila, recently freed from a dictator’s iron-fisted rule, is a magical metropolis where monsters flit and feed along neon-lit streets. The city, now governed by mysterious Societies, faces rising tensions between the human and nonhuman inhabitants that are nearing a breaking point.

The story’s hero, Carlos ＂Caloy＂ Loyzaga, a ＂Taga-Sagot＂ (literally translated to Person Who Answers), is tasked with finding the runaway daughter of a small town Mayor. Caloy knows that there’s more to the story -- but in a world where magic and modernity make for uneasy bedfellows, there are some secrets you simply can’t prepare for. Especially secrets that involve a cast of nonhuman characters, such as one-eyed Yomaws (hybrid human-canines), Asu-Gamis (half Aswang, half Inugami) and slinky Silat immortals--the hated weapons of the tyrant God.

Readers looking for a different take on magic, or those interested in seeing an alternative history set in the Philippines, will find plenty to sink their teeth into here. Fans of Tan & Baldisimo’s Trese or Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files will also find a heady mix of the familiar and the strange.

Paolo Chikiamco was trained as a lawyer but changed paths to establish Eight Ray Sun Publishing in 2009. His articles have appeared in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Philippine Online Chronicles, and Code RED magazine. Chikiamco has also published stories in The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories, A Time for Dragons, and The Farthest Shore. He is the co-author of Muros: The Cemetery Girl.Borg Sinaban is an artist, illustrator and graphic designer based in Manil