Filipino artist 'Tarantadong Kalbo' wins international award for 'Tumindig' artwork
It's a proud moment for the Filipino community as Kevin Raymundo, the cartoonist behind the popular web series Tarantadong Kalbo, won an international Good Design Award for his viral artwork Tumindig.
The Good Design Award is a comprehensive design excellence recognition system in Japan since 1957, where various companies and designers from both inside and outside the country engage in the program.
Komiket, a non-profit organization that spearheads comics art markets and the publisher behind the Tarantadong Kalbo comic book, announced the news on Facebook on Friday, Oct. 7.
"Congratulations to Kevin Eric Raymundo (Tarantadong Kalbo) for being one of the 31 international GOOD DESIGN AWARD winners from 392 awarded works from outside Japan," Komiket wrote.
Out of 5,715 entries for its 2022 edition (including the ones in Japan), Raymundo's viral artwork was among the 1,560 designs recognized by the Japan Institute of Design Promotion—the organizer of the Good Design Award.
In its evaluation, they described it as an artwork created "to encourage voters to register to vote in national elections. [I]n the face of the severe pandemic, it has become a means for people to connect with each other through SNS (social networking service) and other media. It has high appeal and is accessible not only nationwide but also worldwide."
Shared by Raymundo in July 2021, Tumindig is a digital drawing that features numerous "fist people" bowing down, reminiscent of the fist bump gesture used by former President Rodrigo Duterte and his allies. One person, however, had the courage to stand up to seemingly resemble the raised fist used by activists everywhere.
The artwork quickly made the rounds online, with over 11,000 retweets and 56,000 likes as of this writing. It also sparked a movement, wherein fellow artists inserted their own fist people into the drawing, slowly filling the artwork with more “dissenters.”
T u m i n d i g ✊🏼 pic.twitter.com/ODYkPqRn0T
— Tarantadong Kalbo (@KevinKalbo) July 17, 2021
In an interview with PhilSTAR L!fe, Raymundo shared the inspiration behind his masterpiece: "I wanted to create a piece na ine-encapsulate ang pakiramdam ng isang artist-activist sa panahon ni Duterte at ng kanyang terror law."