As Tony Velasquez lived his retirement years in the 1990s, he witnessed the continuous decline of the komiks industry in the Philippines. It was in such a sad state that he knew he could no longer do anything about it. The task belongs to the new breed of artists, writers, editors, and publishers.

The fall of the giant Ace Publications in the early 1960s led a group of highly talented Ace illustrators to start their own komiks publishing company.

These illustrators were Nestor and Virgilio Redondo, Alfredo Alcala, Amado Castrillo, Tony Caravana, and Romeo Francisco. They named their company CRAF Publications, which is a combination of their surnames' initials. Later on, another talented artist, by the name of Jim Fernandez, joined CRAF.

In 1946, the first regularly published Philippine komiks-magazine was born: the Halakhak Komiks.

Onomatopaeic for guffaw, the Halakhak was published out of the initial efforts of Isaac Tolentino and Atty. Jaime Lucas.