Dean Haspiel

More info here: https://imagecomics.com/comics/releases/the-red-hook-vol-2-war-cry-tp




(photo of Dean Haspiel 2019 by Whitney Matheson)


(Photo by Steve Friedman. Taken at Yaddo, Sept. 2019)



http://www.deanhaspiel.com/

Emmy & Ringo award winner, Dean Haspiel created Billy Dogma, The Red Hook, illustrated for HBO's "Bored To Death," was a Master Artist at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, is a Yaddo fellow, a playwright, and helped pioneer personal webcomics via ACT-I-VATE. Dino has written and drawn many comix for Marvel, DC, Image, Archie, IDW, Dark Horse, Heavy Metal, and LINE Webtoon; including The Fox, The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, X-men, Deadpool, Batman, Wonder Woman, Godzilla, Mars Attacks, Creepy, SpongeBob SquarePants, Popeye, and semi-autobio collaborations with Harvey Pekar, Jonathan Ames, Inverna Lockpez, Jonathan Lethem, Stoya, and Stan Lee.

Listen to SCENE BY SCENE WITH JOSH & DEAN, the podcast that breaks down American Splendor the movie, Josh Neufeld & Dean Haspiel's relationship with the late/great Harvey Pekar, and growing up in NYC learning to make comix: http://scenebyscenepodcast.com/

Read THE RED HOOK saga for free at LINE Webtoon:
1) THE RED HOOK: http://www.webtoons.com/en/super-hero/the-red-hook/list?title_no=643
2) WAR CRY: https://www.webtoons.com/en/super-hero/war-cry/list?title_no=1247
3) STARCROSS: https://www.webtoons.com/en/super-hero/star-cross/list?title_no=1599
4) BLACKOUT: https://www.webtoons.com/en/super-hero/the-red-hook-blackout/list?title_no=2282

THE RED HOOK vol.1 New Brooklyn is also available at ComiXology: https://www.comixology.com/The-Red-Hook/comics-series/128047

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deanhaspiel_art/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/deanhaspiel
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/deanhaspiel

Artist's Statement:
No permissions. No apologies.

Honors:
-Emmy Award winner for title design work on HBO's "Bored To Death."
-Eisner Award nominee for "Talent Deserving of Wider Recognition" and "Outstanding Webcomic."
-Ringo Award winner for "Best Webcomic 2017" for THE RED HOOK
-Yaddo fellow
-Master Artist at The Atlantic Center for the Arts

( Click here for comix, interviews, news, videos, and other essential linksCollapse )

Miss Baltimore Comicon? Me, too. But, this year, it went virtual and we've gotten the family back together this weekend in a safe way. Please check out the BCC 2020 LIVE schedule.

https://www.baltimorecomicconlive.com/schedule

Last night I got to hang out with old pals/mentors, masters, innovators and provocateur's of the comix form. A conversation 35-years in the making.

Thanks, Denys Cowan, Howard Chaykin, Bill Sienkiewicz, Walter Simonson & John Siuntres and the Baltimore Comic-Con crew for an epic parlay.

Looking forward to hugs in 2021 ~ xox.

--Dino!

You can watch us wax nostalgia about 1985 starting at the 2:59 mark:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3b2XpfYJd4

Friday, Oct 23 / 8pm EST

Comics Time Machine: 1985
From American Flagg! to Hey Kids! Comics!. The Mighty Thor to Ragnarok. The New Mutants the comic book series to The New Mutants the movie. The Vigilante to Milestone. Grab a front-row seat to a historical and hysterical comix clatch 35 years in the making between legendary upstarts Howard Chaykin, Denys Cowan, Bill Sienkiewicz, and Walter Simonson -- moderated by their former 17-year-old assistant, award-winning cartoonist and creator of The Red Hook, Dean Haspiel.

Due to the pandemic, my favorite comix show of the year, Baltimore Comicon, is going virtual this year and I will partake in three, free livestreamed panels.

Friday, Oct 23 / 8pm EST

Comics Time Machine: 1985
From American Flagg! to Hey Kids! Comics!. The Mighty Thor to Ragnarok. The New Mutants the comic book series to The New Mutants the movie. The Vigilante to Milestone. Grab a front-row seat to a historical and hysterical comix clatch 35 years in the making between legendary upstarts Howard Chaykin, Denys Cowan, Bill Sienkiewicz, and Walter Simonson -- moderated by their former 17-year-old assistant, award-winning cartoonist and creator of The Red Hook, Dean Haspiel.

Sunday, Oct 25 / 12pm EST

What's Next in Digital Comics
The world of webcomics has seen exponential growth over the past several years and is becoming an increasingly challenging business for creators to navigate. Join Dean Haspiel (2017 Ringo Award winner for The Red Hook), Katie Cook (2019 Ringo nominee for Nothing Special), Megan Stevenson (2020 Ringo nominee for The Croaking), Ryan Benjamin (2018 Eisner nominee for Brothers Bond), and Tapas VP of Content Michael Son for a discussion with Rocketship Entertainment Publisher and creator Tom Akel (Backchannel) on the ever evolving landscape of digital media and how creators can evaluate the medium, publishers, and opportunities versus the traditional market.

Sunday, Oct 25 / 3pm EST

Genre as Autobio
A discussion on how comics use the fantastic to tell deeply personal stories. Bucking the conventional wisdom that if you focus on fiction there's no personal truth to it, this panel brings together creators who channel their own lives and experiences through the limitless potential of big characters and other worlds. Join 2020 Ringo nominees Stan Sakai (Usagi Yojimbo), Erica Schultz (Forgotten Home), and Dave Kelly (Tales of the Night Watchman) with 2017 Ringo winner Dean Haspiel (The Red Hook) and Alex Segura (The Black Ghost, Co-President Archie Comics). Moderated by Whitney Matheson.

CLICK HERE: https://www.baltimorecomicconlive.com/

Pop Culture Squad's Bob Harrison got to review a preview of BLACKOUT: The Red Hook season 4.

Excerpts:

"The big ideas that Haspiel explores in this series have always raised the quality of the story to lofty heights. The previous season ended with the sun being reignited by love; so, where do you go from there?

I have had a chance to look at the first three episodes of this new season, which are all up now. I can say this. Dean knows what he is doing. The conflict in this season is interesting, and I am intrigued to see where it goes. The storytelling somehow continues to get better as each season moves along."

"Haspiel has also mastered the scroll format of Webtoons and each panel is crafted with care and gorgeous art. The character expressions are phenomenal and the textured color techniques that he uses bring a lot to the screen."

"This season is captivating and left me wanting more and more and more."

Read the entire article here: https://popculturesquad.com/2020/10/14/blackout/

Read BLACKOUT here: https://www.webtoons.com/en/super-hero/the-red-hook-blackout/list?title_no=2282

Upon finishing STARCROSS, season 3 of The Red Hook, I considered the natural evolution of New Brooklyn, a seceded republic defined by art and authenticity, and my first thought was "1961." The same year that spawned the Marvel Universe. Before the internet. Before smart phones, social media, and the horrors of a surveillance society. And, I came up with "Blackout."

I'm excited to launch my weekly New Brooklyn webcomic series, BLACKOUT: The Red Hook season 4 at Webtoon!

I wrote it while on residency at Yaddo, Fall of 2019, and I've been drawing it since the very beginning of 2020. I'm currently working on chapter 20 of 26. The story veers into some eerie similarities with some current events. Does art imitate life or vice versa?

Both.

Here is a brief synopsis:

When The Green Point's apocalypse sword is reactivated by the malice of The Coney, The Red Hook must combat and convince his psychotic, vigilante mother to help finally destroy it, only to accidentally rebirth the wrath of an unexpected villain who threatens to save earth from the hierarchy of humanity by sending New Brooklyn back to the stone age! Does The Red Hook have to break bad in order to restore the goodness of society?

CLICK HERE:

https://www.webtoons.com/en/super-hero/the-red-hook-blackout/ep-1/viewer?title_no=2282&episode_no=1

I feel that the most important part of making comix is in the layout stage.

I usually work from a full script and adjust when necessary as I layout the story into small thumbnail-sized pages. It's rare that I draw the story first and then dialogue it (even though that feels more like pure comix). I "wrote" several Billy Dogma comix art first. But that was an experiment I came to trust for independently produced work. Of course, collaborations that divide the creativity and labor require a script to work from. And, most publishers and editors aren't gonna greenlight a project sans first draft of any given story. Unless you're a seasoned auteur whose proven their market value.

When I layout The Red Hook for Webtoon, I have to keep in mind the vertical scroll format. Which means I also have to abandon most insets and landscape panels and utilize more thin and tall panels. On Webtoon, a splash page is akin to a single panel. But, I do think about the eventual print editions, and the pacing is substantially different.

Some writers argue that comix starts with the script. Sure BUT comix are a visual medium where image IS text. Dialogue is negotiable; applied to elucidate what isn't being shown or visually conveyed. Good comix storytelling is when the text and art yield to each others virtues, spawning something better together.

And, if the artist CAN'T graphically design the story in a compelling yet clear way, it doesn't matter how great the script is. Art can enhance a brilliant comic book script or DESTROY IT.

In episode 20 of the radio drama LIFE WITH ALTHAAR, "Dial 'O' For Bigelow," I play an intergalactic informer ~ a cosmic weasel.

LISTEN HERE: https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-fxhbm-eec93e

Evan Dorkin, Staten Island creator of Milk & Cheese and other inspired comic books, recently wrote a nice essay on his Patreon about the late, great comic book writer and editor Archie Goodwin and being decent in the comics industry. For some reason, Evan's fond memory triggered a negative one for me. I've never told this story in public and I won't name names, but it happened in the late 1990s when I was visiting a friend who worked at one of the major comic book publishers in NYC.

While walking the halls ogling awesome superhero covers towards my friend's office, I saw an assistant editor who I knew from a few industry gatherings at local bars. He had just been promoted to full-time editor on a big-time book that was selling like hotcakes. He smiled and suggested I come to his office, because he wanted to ask me something. Naturally, I was excited to be invited. The editor knew I wanted to draw comics. Maybe he was going to ask me to draw something? My nerves were rattling.

After visiting my friend, I walked down the hall to the editor's office, and he asked me to close the door behind me. I figured he wanted to tell me about a cool, new secret project he wanted me involved in or recommend me to other editors for work. Instead, he lowered his voice and asked, "Do you know where I can score some cocaine"? I chuckled immediately and said "What?" I figured it was a weird hazing process to inaugurate me into the professional fold. He repeated his cocaine query and I was stunned. I kept a smile on my face but a lump formed in my throat.

I tried to make a joke out of it and said something like, "I might look scrappy, but I don't do drugs. And, I don't know where to get them. Sorry, man." He thought I was kidding, but I wasn't. I'd experimented with drugs in college, but I'd limited my substance abuse to Olde English 800 and Jim Beam. The awkward moment turned into small talk, and I reminded him how much I wanted to draw comic books. He opened the door and wished me luck. Said he'd try to get me a gig down the line. Still,my heart sank as I left the major comic book publishing house and wondered if I would ever work professionally in comic books.

My love for DC and Marvel characters and creating my own protagonists couldn't stop me. But the indignity of that editor had me hesitate getting close to the editors I would eventually work with most of my career. Where some writers and editors establish a lifelong trust with their editors, I have always been wary. Not because I believe editors to be crack addicts, but because a fascination with working for the dream factories that held my hand through childhood and puberty came crashing down on me like a building on Spider-man. You could say that cold day at the major publisher was the day I became an adult. Not through romance, fatherhood or a person who could pay bills on their own, but because someone who I should've looked up to, someone who was a custodian of the things I love, looked at me and saw a drug dealer instead of an artist.

The last four years have been especially toxic. Exacerbated by social media, politics, a global pandemic and quarantine, protests, riots and civil unrest. A lot of proactive dismantling is happening, but we all suffer macro and micro indignities, and I've been known to furnish a few of my own. It's human nature. Nobody is perfect, but when you have the ability to expand someone's horizons and are called to the chair, please try to remember that you've been put into a sensitive position of helping motivate aspiration into action. Be real, be fair, but try not to douse the fire of desire. I know I've failed many times as a mentor and a friend, but I'm trying to do better. Be better.

Create. Relate. Innovate.

I'm honored to have been asked to contribute to Yaddo's inaugural podcast.

What exactly is Yaddo and why does it matter? Jonathan Ames raises his hand. Plus: Odili Donald Odita on art and activism, and Jonathan Lethem on his secret to success. Contributing artists include Edgar Oliver, Laura Schwendinger, Dean Haspiel, Sam Fader, Michael Snediker and Rory Golden, with music by Joseph Keckler, Tarik O’Regan, Carol Lipnik and Anthony Gatto.

Shadow // Yaddo airs every other Thursday. Tune in as we shine a light on the transformative vision of artists through conversations about art, literature, activism, ecology, inspiration and daily life.

https://www.yaddo.org/pilot-episode-why-yaddo/