Since her 2019 debut novel “Tablay,” Katrina Olan has steadily expanded the story’s universe through fan input, all while taking on new projects and collaborating with creative veterans

A female perspective on sci-fi brings much-needed nuance and breadth to a genre normally aimed towards and produced by men.

Stories such as “The Handmaid’s Tale,” “A Wrinkle in Time,” and the “Earthsea” saga by Margaret Atwood, Madeleine L’Engle, and Ursula K. Le Guin respectively have endured as genre classics, together with more recent works like Suzanne Collins’ “Hunger Games” trilogy.

Philippine literature also has its fair share of women sci-fi authors such as Kristine Ong Muslim, Eliza Aquino, and Vida Cruz, to name a few.

Katrina Olan, the granddaughter of World War II veterans, channeled her family stories together with research of accounts of actual combat, including pilots surviving crashes, civilian struggle, and wartime propaganda

Enter Katrina Olan, who, through her mecha military story “Tablay,” took on an even more male-dominated subgenre of sci-fi. Since the novel’s debut in 2019, it’s since grown into a graphic novel with a radio play planned, all as Olan also collaborated with Denmark-based komiks veteran and senior Lego concept artist Ian Sta. Maria (“Skyworld,” “Sixty-Six,” “Salamangka”) for another story, “Makina,” which recently made the rounds at book fairs worldwide since its soft launch in the 2023 Papercon and full debut at said year’s Manila International Book Fair.

Electrifying roots

In “Tablay’s” world, the Philippines is a fully-modern country waging a century-long war as humanity’s last bastion against an alien invader: the Aswang. Human-piloted mecha (robotic exosuits) duke out in the skies against their extraterrestrial counterparts.

But this Philippines also continues to be plagued by ills as old as time: Poverty and inequity persists, as historical truth and atrocities are obscured for propaganda’s sake. The characters are diverse as they are nuanced: Muslim and Chinese Filipino scientists, critical academicians, and of course, soldiers of varied ethical persuasions.

Olan, the granddaughter of World War II veterans, channeled her family stories together with research of accounts of actual combat, including pilots surviving crashes, civilian struggle, wartime propaganda, etc.

Co-creations/creators

Collaboration played a key role in “Tablay’s” growth through the years as Olan factored in reader comments while developing the graphic novel, illustrated by Paul Medalla, the original concept artist for “Tablay’s” first iteration. With additional contributions by Kendi Illustrations, Olan notes that their point of view “helped the visual language of the comic book.”

She concurs that “[with] the words taking a backseat … we can definitely flex our robots and action scenes much more—and portray expressions.”

An ad girl by profession and self-professed geek, convention-goer, and video game and tabletop player, Olan shares that “adapting ‘Tablay’ into a graphic novel was definitely an opportunity to treat it like a ‘new game,’” revisiting the story many years later with “more wisdom, a different outlook on life, and all the previous feedback from readers of the original.”

“We wanted ‘Tablay: The Graphic Novel’ to be welcoming to new readers,” Katrina Olan adds, “while also feeling fresh and surprising for veteran fans with new characters and factions, higher stakes, and a more morally nuanced point of view”

“We wanted ‘Tablay: The Graphic Novel’ to be welcoming to new readers,” she adds, “while also feeling fresh and surprising for veteran fans with new characters and factions, higher stakes, and a more morally nuanced point of view. Five years can do a lot to you. I think I’ve seen a lot more, and experienced a lot more, and understand a lot more now.”

The pandemic and related sociopolitical issues, navigating corporate work’s vagaries, the end of one’s 20s and starting new families, these are experiences which she, Medalla, and Kendi all synthesized as they refined “Tablay.” “The world and people are so much more complex than we think. We have the capacity to do both good and bad things.”

Wingmen, squadron, brothers-in-ink

Olan’s world off-the-page is just as (if not more) kaleidoscopic as (than) “Tablay’s.” Aside from the said novel, she also penned the steampunk “Skies Above,” both initially self-published books with the former now also carried by Pumplepie Books.

“Makina” meanwhile is published by Summit Books and is her most “well-traveled” work so far: Frankfurt Book Fair 2023, London Book Fair 2024, San Diego Comic Con 2024, and the 2024 Art Bubble Comic Festival in Aarhus, Denmark.

Right now, she’s working on the web comic Sagittarius, “my biggest project right now, with Whilce Portacio, Apl de Ap, Kajo Baldisimo, and Toon City” published via the Halo-Halo Komix app.

Just like “Tablay’s” protagonist, she shares her current flight path with a dedicated community.

“I write comic book scripts in screenplay style and leave it up to the artist to interpret,” she shares, noting that “there are occasions when the creative leap from the script to the thumbs would really surprise me—in a good way!”

She also welcomes differences and sees how these, when harmonized, contribute to the overall story. Describing herself as “the more structured, choleric person in the dynamic” when working with Sta. Maria in “Makina,” she’s come to believe that “the perfect team is often a mixture of madness (Ian) and method (Kat).”

Ego ultimately takes the backseat in Olan’s artistic philosophy, where “I’m a strong believer in the Invisible String theory—not necessarily for romantic connections only. I believe that opportunities you seek are also seeking you; they inevitably come to you at the right time, at the right place.”

“I’m a strong believer in the Invisible String theory—not necessarily for romantic connections only. I believe that opportunities you seek are also seeking you; they inevitably come to you at the right time, at the right place”

It was one thing to be approached by Summit Books and meet editor in chief Lio Mangubat, who is also a part of the Southeast Asian Literary Circle, which chose “Tablay” as their book of the month, but it was humbling—and nourishing—to receive criticism from same circle.

“They were some of our harsher critics,” Olan recalls, smiling. “I totally respect that because their points were valid. I took them to heart while developing the graphic novel.”

She acknowledges where they were coming from: “They loved ‘Tablay’ for its message.”

Take flight and follow Katrina Olan’s projects via her official social media channels.