Marcial Ravelo, better known as Mars Ravelo, is one of the most successful Filipino komiks novelists in the Philippines. He started out drifting from one part time job to another, having been unable to finish schooling due to financial reasons and for he once worked as a janitor. Ravelo had an inborn talent for writing and drawing even at his young age. At the age of 23, he had a job as a cartoonist for the Mabuhay Extra, a Tagalog weekly news magazine. The job did not last though as war burst out in 1941.

During the war, Ravelo struggled to survive by doing part time jobs in Manila. He returned to being a janitor. After the war, he tried his luck in writing and drawing cartoons, coming out with “Ipe” comic strip in 1947, which was published in Pilipino Komiks. At the peak of his career as “the King of Philippine Komiks” from the 1950s to the 1970s, Mars produced over a hundred works, which makes him as the one of the most loved Filipino komiks writers of all time.

In 1987 he suffered a stroke, and he died a year later. He was buried in his native town of Tanza, Cavite. His legacy was more than 500 works of popular komiks novels, a true monument of his immense achievement.

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