Getting the Green Light...

GETTING THE GREEN LIGHT
With regards to a writer’s bid for approval of his storyline to be developed into a novel and go into publication, the synopsis was required to pass through the scrutiny of a “screening board” composed of the editor, the editor-in-chief, and Mrs. Paguio. You of course always first submitted your synopsis to one of the editors, and if he or she didn’t like the stuff then it was killed on the spot, Just like what happened to Devil Car. In this case, it no longer reached the desks of the two other members of the board. You were welcome to bring the rejected material to other editors who might still be interested. You knows the saying—one man’s meat may be another man’s poison; both script and illustration approvals oftentimes depended more on the individual editor’s taste, or bias (and sometimes even just on what mood he or she happened to be in at the moment), and not entirely just on the merits of the works.
Once the storyline landed in the screening trio’s hands however, its fate was supposedly decided by the simple “majority rules” thing: two yeses to one ‘no” and it was a go, two nos against one yes vote and ita s a “thank you try again” But, that wasn’t always the case. Even if the editor and ed-in-chief had both already voted in favor of the material, it could still be shelved if Mrs. Paguio really “hated” the thing. And vice-versa: although no writer (except maybe “Zuma” creator Jim Fernandez)dared to go above the editor’s heads for fear of antagonizing them, it was not uncommon for Mrs. Paguio herself to go straight to a writer and “suggest” that he develop a storyline based on a particular idea that had suddenly ‘inspired” her; in those instances, there was no longer a need for a screening board—that “suggestion” became as good as published.