Emmy and Ringo Award-winning writer and cartoonist Dean Haspiel is best known for creating Billy Dogma, The Red Hook, Covid Cop, and Chest Face, illustrating for HBO's "Bored To Death" and founding the pioneering webcomics collective ACT-I-VATE, as well as being a playwright, filmmaker, Yaddo fellow and Master Artist at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. Dean’s comics work includes many titles for Marvel, DC, Image, Archie, IDW, Dark Horse, Heavy Metal, and Webtoon, including The Fox, The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, X-men, Deadpool, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Conan, Godzilla, Mars Attacks, SpongeBob SquarePants, Popeye, and semi-autobio collaborations with Harvey Pekar (“The Quitter,” “American Splendor”), Jonathan Ames (“The Alcoholic”), Inverna Lockpez, Jonathan Lethem, Stoya, Stan Lee, and Whitney Matheson.
NIGHTWORK Studio is a Brooklyn-based multimedia collaboration project between Dean Haspiel & Whitney Matheson: https://www.nightwork.studio/
PRELUDE TO THE WAR OF WOO, a short film written by Dean Haspiel and directed by Shannon Goldman, co-starring Seth Gilliam & Philip Cruise: https://vimeo.com/395580445
Re: TEACHING: Present fundamental ways to spark ideas and craft creativity with the aim to foment fearless expression.
Re: COMIX: Exploit the narrative real-estate of the blank page while yielding to the collaborative virtues of words and pictures where image is text, too. And design your characters in a way that allows you to know who each one is -- close and afar. Could be as simple as a costume or someone with a big nose or a cleft chin or an eyepatch (etc./etc.).
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 2012, 2023
It’s time to tell your story. In this workshop, a Ringo and Emmy-winning artist will teach you about layouts, scripts, and the iterative process of bringing your ideas to life in comics. Students are encouraged to come to class with a story to tell and the materials (traditional or digital) they wish to illustrate it with.
This workshop includes a lecture and exercises on the fundamentals of storytelling. Students should expect to produce a finished layout of their story or a scene from it. The instructor will be present throughout and will offer individualized feedback as well as general tips on approaching the craft. All skill and experience levels are welcome; however this class is designed for students who are comfortable drawing from their imagination.
I’m absolutely thrilled and honored. My self-published comic book, CHEST FACE, was nominated for a Ringo Award for ‘Best Short Story.’ Hallelujah Baltimore Comic-con!
There are many endorsed masterpieces I indulged as a young person that I didn’t fully appreciate. I couldn’t for contextual reasons. One of them is a play called Death Of A Salesman by Arthur Miller. I didn’t really get it because I couldn’t relate. A story about expectations and a sad sack family. So what?
Joe Stockdale, my Dramatic Structure professor who was also Dean Emeritus of the Theatre and Film division at the SUNY Purchase School of the Arts (for 16 years), asked the class, “What did Willie Loman want?” Nobody could answer. Stockdale advised us that all good plays bake their characters desires into the script. It’s embedded in the text. Their actions. Their dialogue. And what Willie Loman wanted was “to be well liked.”
My father/writer/Hollywood historian, James Haspiel, is in PEOPLE magazine (twice) talking about his late friend/legendary actress/icon Marilyn Monroe for her 100th birthday to journalist KC Baker.
Writer extraordinaire, Adam McGovern, reviewed my new one-man comix anthology ANTIMATTER #1 at Hilobrow and he totally got what I was going for.
Here’s an excerpt:
“Haspiel’s been cutting his own door with these self-published, crowdfunded “Deep Cut” one-shots, and ANTIMATTER feels like both the redemption of blockbuster corporate event-comics and a reinvention of the anarchic sexual psychedelic underground-comix movement of a bygone but surprisingly kindred DIY age. This book tells us that, despite everything we do, it all matters.”
Coming Fall 2026 from Cosmic Lion Productions, Real Life Comix, Only in New York(Hardcover, 216 pgs.) features 51 short stories in a sprawling, high-voltage, memoir, graphic novel anthology celebrating the grit, glory, absurdity and heart of life in New York City.
Co-edited by veteran comix creators Dean Haspiel and Doug Latino, this vibrant collection brings together a wildly eclectic mix of legendary and emerging voices, including New Yorker cartoonists, MAD contributors, and American Splendor collaborators. Storytellers hail from across comix, comics, graphic novels, literature, art, film, and music, each offering their own take on the city that never sleeps–humorous, heartbreaking, surreal or unmistakably true–capturing the everyday chaos and accidental poetry of New York life.
The Ringo Awards are currently open and I’d be thrilled if you took the time to nominate me and my comic book CHEST FACE for “Best Cartoonist” and “Best Short Story.” You can nominate here: https://ringoawards.com/
"STRAPAZIN is like a zombie—pronounced dead, but impossible to kill. But this time, it’s serious: help save the oldest comic magazine in the German-speaking world! Support the crowdfunding campaign at
Since its beginnings, STRAPAZIN has actively promoted young illustrators and has become the longest-running and most important magazine for comics, graphic novels, and visual storytelling in Switzerland, Germany, and Austria.
HOWEVER: for various reasons, STRAPAZIN is now facing a financial crisis.
The general print industry crisis has also caused STRAPAZIN’s advertising revenue to shrink. At the same time, production and distribution costs are rising—paper and printing have become more expensive.
If STRAPAZIN were to shut down, the international comic community would lose a vital platform. Valuable expertise and dense networks would also disappear.
Together, we can prevent this! Over 100 artists from around the world are already supporting the cause and have drawn a STRAPAZIN zombie. These are available as rewards for your support in the crowdfunding campaign.
Your contribution will enable STRAPAZIN to transform and return to a financially stable foundation—so it can remain your favorite magazine!
Excited to spill the beans on this amazing graphic novel anthology I co-curated & co-edited with Doug Latino:
Real Life Comix, Only in New York, from Cosmic Lion Productions, brings together 66 creators across 50 stories in a wide-ranging, high-voltage collection of short-story comix capturing the grit, glory, absurdity, and heart of New York City. Contributors include New Yorker cartoonists, Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor collaborators, MAD artists, and from the worlds of literature, film, art and music.
When fascism threatened the world in the 1930s and ‘40s, comics creators rushed to counter its threat, including through their characters actions. Will Eisner (with The Spirit), Joe Simon and Jack Kirby (with Captain America), and Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster (with Superman) were among the prominent writers and artists who used their four-color platforms to combat fascists both at home and abroad. Today, shining a spotlight on the way these creators rose to the challenge, and what lessons may be learned for the present, is an expert panel including: Karen Green (Columbia University Curator for Comics and Cartoons), Dean Haspiel (The Red Hook), Arie Kaplan (From Krakow to Krypton: Jews and Comic Books), Charles Kochman (Abrams ComicArts) and Danny Fingeroth (Will Eisner Studios) moderator
You can spot them a mile away. Their smart clothes. Their charming smile. Their enthusiastic handshake.
Within three minutes they’re pretending to listen to you while glancing over your shoulder. It only took them the same amount of time it takes to unload a dishwasher to assess you. No longer making full eye contact. Every time someone new enters the room they’re making calculations like a Terminator. Is that somebody or nobody? Can they elevate my life? Can you?
Those people are transactional.
Then there are people who make things despite you. Do things that get things done. They’re not gonna let anyone get in their way. And if you happen to (((vibe))), share similar references and mission statements, can bring skill sets and talent to the table, there may be an opportunity to achieve something cool together. Or, at the very least, bounce off each other. Workshop. Get inspired.
Those people are actionable.
Some of my favorite interactions are the random ones. An unexpected encounter that turns into something astonishing. You make a joke at a party. Or an open observation. A stranger responds. A natural exchange happens. An honest conversation bereft of agenda. A human connection and suddenly you’re best friends the next two-to-three hours. Often never to see or hear from that person ever again.
But they made an impression that is now a part of you. Your intentions. Your risks and resolve.
