COVID Check-In with Dean Haspiel

Virtual Memories Show
COVID Check-In: Dean Haspiel

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Cartoonist and playwright Dean Haspiel checks in from Brooklyn (home of his superhero, The Red Hook!). We talk about making art (good, bad or ugly) during the plague, finding yourself while putting your life on hold, how our social norms may change after the pandemic subsides, the virtue of online comics, bingeing on 1970s comics by Steve Gerber, feeling sad (but not self-pity) when his play, The War of Woo, had to be postponed last month, and more. • Give it a listen! And go read season 3 of The Red Hook, STARCROSS, and nominate it for Best Webcomic at the Ringo Awards!

Listen to the conversation! Then check out the archives for more conversations from The Before Times.

You can listen to all these COVID Check-In episodes at The COVID-19 Sessions.

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About our Guest

Emmy and Ringo award-winner Dean Haspiel has created the comic characters Billy Dogma, and The Red Hook. He illustrated for HBO’s Bored To Death, is a Yaddo fellow, a playwright, and helped pioneer personal webcomics. Dino has written, drawn and collaborated on many superheroes and literary graphic novels (including The Quitter with Harvey Pekar, and The Alcoholic with Jonathan Ames) for DC/Vertigo, Marvel, Archie, IDW, Dark Horse, Heavy Metal, LINE Webtoons, and more. The War of Woo is Dean’s fourth play, following The Last Bar At The End Of The World, Switch To Kill, and Harakiri Kane. His main comic is The Red Hook, which recently finished its third season, STARCROSS. You can follow Dean on Twitter and Instagram, and subscribe to his e-newsletter.

Credits: The conversation was recorded remotely via Zencastr. I used a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone feeding into a Cloudlifter CL-1 and a Mackie Onyx Blackjack 2×2 USB Recording Interface. All processing and editing done in Adobe Audition CC. Photo of Dino by someone else, but it’s on my instagram.