Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, entertainment, hang dai

An Evening With Hang Dai Editions Closes A Circle

Hannah Means-Shannon, ex-EIC of Bleeding Cool writes about a very different story, that encompassed her career as a comic book journalist. Posted to her Tumblr, we reprint it with permission.

I've told bits of this story before, but I'll tell it again in brief. About three and a half years ago, I attended a book launch in Brooklyn, and the next morning I woke up a comics journalist. The book launch had been for Seth Kushner and Christopher Irving's photo essay book, Leaping Tall Buildings, and the evening in question saw Seth Kushner in peak performance mode telling the stories of the photos he gathered like a big game hunter recounting the terrors and triumphs of a lonely safari. It was riveting. Seth, particularly, made comics come alive through his stories and photos.

Dean Haspiel, who was present with a lot of the folks from the online salon Trip City, asked me if I would write a piece about the event. It was totally out of left field for me, an academic, but I tried. There was really no getting out of it once it was published.

Three and a half years later, or so, I woke up in Brooklyn, staying with my friend and member of Hang Dai Studios, Christa Cassano, spent the day in the studio working on odds and ends and knowing that by the next morning I would no longer be a comics journalist. At least not walking the same path I had been on.

But something that made the experience less forbidding for me, facing a big change in my life, was attending another book signing. Well, book signings. It was to celebrate release for Gregory Benton's Smoke, Dean Haspiel's Beef with Tomato, and Seth Kushner's Schmuck, at Green Light Bookstore in Brooklyn that evening. What made this triple event so unique, for me as a comics person, was that the books were debuting under the Hang Dai Editions imprint, purely creator owned, and being distributed by Alternative Comics.

The weight of contrast between my first event as a would be comics journalist and my last hung on that flourishing of an indie imprint from a studio I'd become so familiar with, but also, of course, on the passing of Seth Kushner, whose graphic novel Schmuck, drawn by 21 indie cartoonists and written by Seth, has appeared posthumously this autumn.

For me, it was a time to celebrate Seth, a man whose passion for comics had set fire to my own, and also to value the contributions Hang Dai has made to my life and be grateful for the creation and release of new comics to enliven the medium.

Comics creator and fellow Hang Dai Editions member Josh Neufeld (AD: After the Deluge, The Vagabonds) hosted Gregory Benton and Dean Haspiel in discussion, and also helped perform some of Seth's comics from Schmuck alongside Benton, since both had contributed to the volume.

Seeing comics projected on a screen and performed always brings out the human element in the medium strongly (and therefore I highly recommend it), and it was a treat to hear Dean, Gregory, and Josh all perform together, but I was most struck by some of the conversations that arose between the three after the performance element.

I've known these guys for a few years and yet the things they said about their perception of comics and creative choices were things I had never heard before, proving that the combination of people can bring out new elements in any panel situation.

Some of the highlights included:

-The process by which a creator who is both writer and artist may compose or write a comic then hand it off to the artist "who happens to be me", according to Neufeld and Haspiel. In this they seem to act as two different personas.

-Haspiel perceives himself to be a character in his Billy Dogma works, but presents the "story as the comment" on his character and is "willing to be the villain" to serve the story.

-Haspiel might not have created autobio comics had he not felt competitive with Neufeld from a young age, who worked in the genre.

-While Neufeld thinks that "quiet stories" are the hardest to do well in autobio comics, but something to strive for, Haspiel creates comics already in frenetic motion and feels the comic has to "earn" the quiet moment, which is, however, also his ultimate goal, and "what the story is about" really.

-Benton's Smoke was composed half in watercolor, half digitally, and the "two realities" presented in the book show a difference in technique. But which is the "real" reality? Benton reserved the most "realistic" effects for the mythical reality in the book.

-Both Haspiel and Neufeld feel that Smoke can be read differently each time and Benton is not only happy about that, but prefers that mode.

-Haspiel's creative endgame lately has been to move toward a more dynamic and fluid style that can move more quickly to keep up with the speed of reading comics. "I want you to feel the comic more than ogle the craft", he said.

-Creating the Hang Dai Editions imprint has meant that all business aspects have been under the control of the creators and the experience makes them more likely to use Kickstarters in the future.

-The studio atmosphere has contributed to the productivity of these creators since it creates a positive "tension" when members wish they could do what they see the other members doing and it urges them to try new things and find solutions in their own creative process.

It was a moonlit night in Brooklyn following an Evening with Hang Dai Editions, one that had given me plenty to think about in the progression of indie comics in the time since I've come on the scene. In that time, I've been to SPX, CAB, Locust Moon Comics Festival, MoCCA, and many other shows both small and large, and many of the things I heard Haspiel, Benton, and Neufeld speak about rang true.

While it will always come down to individual personality and knowing one's best working methods, nevertheless, there is a lot to be said about operating in studio groups when it comes to independent and freelance comic creation. There's plenty to learn from one another, as well as plenty to celebrate when banding together helps further a creator-owned imprint like Hang Dai Editions.

For me, it was definitely a night where things came full circle. I felt like the questions that Seth Kushner's performance raised in my mind about the need for comic creators to reach out to the community were answered by seeing the ways in which the comics community can also reach out to creators. However committed a comics creator, however luminary they may be, they need help from studio mates, from fans, from friends and family. With that help they become even more effective. Discussing common goals is key to helping comics thrive.

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