DEAN HASPIEL ON FEAR, MY DEAR

[MattBrady]

by Chris Arrant

Lumbering gracefully into the emerging webcomics scene last year was indie comix veteran Dean Haspiel as part of the collective ACT-I-VATE. The story he chose to tell was of his erstwhile hero Billy Dogma and his girlfriend Jane Legit as their blind love pushes them over the edge and awakens something deep inside the Earth's core. Immortal is one part brusque love story, one part classic Stan Lee & Jack Kirby comix tale, brought together in a paced two-tone, red and black style that only amplifies the experience.

After Immortal reached it's conclusion last month, the obvious question has to be – what's next? Haspiel's evocative story hit home for long-time readers and new ones alike due to it's free distribution online, and once they're hooked they want more. So we talked to Dean about Immortal, and about the next book in the rumored Billy Dogma Trilogy.

Newsarama: Immortal marks the newest adventure of your wayward hero Billy Dogma, which you conceived back in 1995 and have done several books on. What makes Billy Dogma the character you keep coming back to?

Dean Haspiel: Billy Dogma = Dean Haspiel. No matter how many honest semi-autobio comix I've written & drawn (Keyhole, Opposable Thumbs, etc.), I never felt like I was putting forth a sense of true self. Rather than doing reportage about past situations with hindsight, Billy Dogma serves as my avatar for the important things I feel compelled to explore and express. As long as I'm okay with embarrassing myself, there will be new Billy Dogma comix.

NRAMA: Although all of Billy Dogma's comics have been infused with a bit of love, Immortal trumps it all. Billy Dogma and his "dame", Jane Legit, are center stage as their love affair causes some deep rumblings and turns into what you describe as a "pathological war of woo". Without spoiling too much, can you tell us what their love awakens?

DH: Billy Dogma and Jane Legit are two love titans who've been going at it all wrong. It's a violent affair. When I was a kid, my father showed me Elia Kazan's On The Waterfront. It was a household perennial. When Marlon Brando bashes down that door to force his kiss upon Eva Marie Saint as they fight tooth and nail until gradually succumbing to their true desires, it had a profound affect on me. Billy & Jane's "war of woo" awakens something bigger than their love can suffer and in fixing what they broke they come to a better understanding of what love means.

NRAMA: The tone and dialogue you've done for this book is poetic and harsh, with lines like "You know what happens when I catch fire? Hearts explode". What are you aiming for with this breed of dialogue?

DH: My "ear" for dialogue isn't really the stuff that sounds so swell when spoken. Certain dialogue sings better read and that's the stuff I like to write. My formative years had me studying Shakespeare and Stan Lee and, later on, indulging Harold Pinter and Mickey Spillane, all the while listening to rap and funk music. Can you get more abstract and hyperbolic? I don't think so.

NRAMA: As a reader who's been in on the ground floor for Immortal, I am continually struck by the style and format you've done. Simple square panels of even size, using only the colors of red, black and white. Why'd you go with this approach?

DH: Converting my usual layouts into a staggered, square-bound format for the internet was compositionally challenging but allowed for interesting narrative play. Plus, I was duly warned to think ahead for upcoming digital platforms and I wanted to keep my web-comix available. Since Immortal debuted, I've come to enjoy writing episodic comix. And, limiting my color palette was due to my ignorant sense of the color spectrum. Besides, I believe my bruiser comix "read" better in 2-color tones. With that in mind, I choose colors that evoke the story's thesis. With Immortal, I chose blood red because the city was soaked in the spoils of the Cosmic Deity's heart.

In Fear, My Dear, Billy travels into the heart of his mind, not unlike the environs of a Sergio Leone spaghetti western. So, I'm coloring the story in yellow and orange.

NRAMA: After you finished this strip last month, you mentioned that this was but the first of three stories in what will be The Billy Dogma Trilogy. Is Fear, My Dear that second book?

DH: Fear, My Dear is the sequel to Immortal, the second story in The Billy Dogma Trilogy. The sequel launches on Thursday, Feb. 1st, the one year anniversary of ACT-I-VATE.

My pal/fellow Activator, Michel Fiffe (creator ofPanorama), dubbed my sequel as "Burning Man ~ Billy Dogma." I had to laugh. It's not going to flex the usual debauchery that throws down at the annual Nevada festival but our hero is going to steep in the herbs of the earth and take a very necessary interior journey to explore the proposition of an "Eighth Deadly Sin" that he's recently uncovered and try to make sense of. It's a very heavy, highly mythological story for Billy to endure. We finally get to the origin of his delinquent Berzerk Gun.

NRAMA:. Is Immortal purely destined to be a webcomic, or do you have plans to put it into a print edition?

With the right publisher, I have every intention of putting all my Billy Dogma stories into print. I believe the future of serialized comix is to launch them on the internet, secure a sound readership, and then print each substantial story arc. The internet feeds the beta need for hungry comix addicts while the print version makes available a beautiful, archival art object for friends, family, and fans, to read and covet.

The new Fear, My Dear will be serialized at ACT-I-VATE. The complete Immortal series can be read here. For more information on Dean Haspiel, visit www.deanhaspiel.com.

[Mundungus]

I'm checking this out right now.

[heelmark]

I've gotta see this. Didn't know about Immortal, so I'm reading that first.

[smrtbob]

really really freaking awesome artwork
can't wait for more
fueling the napalm of my apacalpyse