Weekly Graphic (1963-1965)
Weekly Nation (1965-1972)
Manila Standard (1993-1998)

The Best of Mang Ambo 1 (1988)
The Best of Mand Ambo 2 (1992)
The Latest of Mang Ambo (2001)

The Filipino According to Larry Alcala is personified by Mang Ambo, an incorrigible, cock-eyed innocent, whose small-town charm persists amidst urban sophistication. Through him and the other characters of Barrio Bulabog, Alcala exposed the follies and foibles of Philippine society in general and of cosmopolitan life in particular.

Moreover, he affirmed the Filipino's peculiar coping mechanism of laughing at himself in the face of adversity, absorbing life's vicissitudes with a resilience just like Mang Ambo’s to Aling Orang's palo-palo blows.

The Best of Mang Ambo Book Cover

"Mang Ambo" made its debut in 1960 as a full page feature in the Weekly Graphic where Alcala worked as editorial cartoonist and illustrator. It was the first comic strip of Alcala to have been complied in book form.

"..depicts a disctinctly Filipino world with Filipino characters and values"
-Cecilia Manguerra-Brainard

"..cuts across various sectors of Philippine society...Larry Alcala speaks in the language of a positivist, Moralist, Righteous man"
-Paul B. Zafaralla