Gene Ha | |
---|---|
Born | Chicago |
Nationality | American |
Area(s) | Writer, Penciller, Inker |
Notable works | The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix Top Ten |
Awards | 1994 Russ Manning Most Promising Newcomer Award Five Eisner Awards Inkpot Award (2019) [1] |
Gene Ha is an American comics artist and writer best known for his work on books such as Top 10 and Top 10: The Forty-Niners , with Alan Moore and Zander Cannon, for America's Best Comics, the Batman graphic novel Fortunate Son, with Gerard Jones, and The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix , among others. He has also drawn Global Frequency and has drawn covers for Wizard and Marvel Comics.
He was awarded the 1994 Russ Manning Most Promising Newcomer Award, and won five Eisner Awards, in 2000, 2001, 2006, 2008 and 2024.
Gene Ha was born in Chicago and raised in South Bend, Indiana. According to Ha, his parents were well-educated Korean immigrants whose aspiration was that their three sons would obtain prestigious degrees and enter corresponding careers. Ha was the most introverted of his brothers, a "geek" who sought out escapist fantasy particularly through comic books. Whilst his siblings displayed impressive artistic talent, they lacked the patience to sit for hours on end applying themselves to illustration. Ha notes parallels between his generation of Asian-American comics artists and the generation of Jewish creators from the 1930s, both of whom were children of immigrants struggling to fit into America. [2]
Ha cites as his influences numerous creators from the 1980s, such as John Byrne, Frank Miller, Bill Sienkiewicz, Walter Simonson, Alan Moore, and most importantly Matt Wagner, whose Mage series Ha says is still "epic" to him, and its main characters "personal archetypes". [2]
Ha took few classes in art, as he was only interested in drawing as a means of creating comics, and South Bend offered little in the way of education in realistic drawing. He began to truly understand graphic arts when working on his high school newspaper, The Clay Colonial, winning the Most Valuable Staffer Award, which was unusual for an artist. After high school, Ha attended the College for Creative Studies. In his last semester he sent drawing samples to Marvel and DC. Although he received a harshly critical response from Marvel, DC was interested and sent him a sample script. [2]
Ha's first published comics work was in Green Lantern vol. 3 #36 (Feb. 1993), whose story, "The Ghost of Christmas Light", was written by Gerard Jones. [3] [4] He would draw a number of comics for DC and Malibu Comics, and did work for Marvel as well, illustrating the 1994 miniseries The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix , which documented the childhood of the character Cable. He would draw that miniseries' sequel as well, Askani'son.
Ha was one of the artists on the Shade limited series which spun off from the Starman series. [5] He would subsequently illustrate a number of different properties for various publishers, including Aliens: Havoc , Superman , JLA Annual , which included interiors and cover work. In 1999, he began illustrating Top Ten , one of the series of Alan Moore's America's Best Comics imprint for Wildstorm. He would draw that series' twelve issues which ran until late 2001. Moore and Ha collaborated on the Top 10: The Forty-Niners graphic novel prequel published in 2005. [6]
In 2002 Ha wrote "The Stronghold", an Iron Fist story published in Marvel Knights Double Shot #4, which represented his first published comics writing. [4]
In 2006, Ha was set to serve as artist on the first four issues of a relaunch of Wildstorm's The Authority , with writer Grant Morrison. Ha drew two issues, but the project stalled after the second issue, as DC needed Morrison to concentrate his efforts on Batman rather than on Wildstorm projects. [7]
In a December 2013 interview, Ha announced a sabbatical from work for hire comics and expressed his desire to focus on creator-owned projects. [8]
In June 2015, Dark Horse Comics selected for publication Ha's creator-owned series Mae, which Ha funded through the crowdfunding website Kickstarter. The Mae fundraising campaign, which was for a 68-page Mae graphic novel written and illustrated by Ha, launched on April 24, reaching its $22,000 goal in 36 hours, and concluding with a total of $75,643. The book, however, will be published as an ongoing series rather than as a graphic novel. A portal fiction story, it depicts sisters Abbie and Mae, recently reunited following Abbie's disappearance eight years earlier into a fantasy world of monsters, who have followed her back to her world in pursuit of her. [4] [9] The series holds a 7.8 out of 10 rating at the review aggregator website Comic Book Round Up, based on 35 reviews. [10]
In April 2022, Ha illustrated the second issue of Wonder Woman Historia: the Amazons. [11] Written by Kelly Sue DeConnick, the three-issue limited series takes place before the birth of Diana and tells of the creation of the Amazons and how Hippolyta became their queen. The first Wonder Woman Historia: the Amazons issue was illustrated by Phil Jimenez and the third by Nicola Scott; an omnibus edition of the comics miniseries was released in June 2023. [12]
Once Ha obtains a script, he makes "tiny" thumbnail sketches of each page, and then makes layout sketches on reduced copies of comic art board, two per page. It is at this stage that he works out the light/dark balance of the page. Though he says about 90% of his artwork are done without photo reference, he will sometimes photograph his friends posing as the central characters, or use a full length mirror to draw himself. He renders minor characters from his imagination. Irrespective of how much sunlight he has on a given day, he prefers to use a 500W incandescent photo lamp, though he believes a 500W halogen lamp is also adequate. He prefers to use a lead holder with H lead for sketching, and 2B lead for shading, which he sharpens with a rotary lead pointer, believing that such leads can be sharpened better than a traditional pencil. He blows up a scan of each page layout to 8.5" x 11", and draws "tight" pencils on top of these, which are then scanned and printed on 11" x 17" inkjet paper in faint blue line. He prefers Xerox paper because he feels that the surface of marker paper tends to get smudgy or oily. When modifying art in his computer, he uses Photoshop. [2]
To effect his current ink wash style of shading and inking, he uses a variety of warm grey Copic markers with wide and brush tips, in particular a 9W Copic Sketch brush marker. For outlines and precise shading effects he will use a variety of pencils, most notably a 2B pencil, and for highlights and corrections, he will use white chalk pencils and white gouache paint. He also uses Staedtler Mars technical pens. [2]
When not doing painted covers, he also uses a Winsor & Newton Series 7 Size 1 brush, Badger Air Opaque airbrush paint, water-soluble ink wash and Strathmore Windmill vellum 100 lb. Bristol board. He cleans his brushes with Masters Brush Cleaner, to which he adds water for a gel consistency. He uses Photoshop to finish his work. [2]
Ha and his wife Lisa live in Berwyn, Illinois. [7]
Frank Miller is an American comic book artist, comic book writer, and screenwriter known for his comic book stories and graphic novels such as his run on Daredevil, for which he created the character Elektra, and subsequent Daredevil: Born Again, The Dark Knight Returns, Batman: Year One, Sin City, and 300.
Gary Frank is a British comics artist, notable for pencilling on Midnight Nation and Supreme Power, both written by J. Michael Straczynski. He has also worked with author Peter David on The Incredible Hulk and Supergirl. He had a creator-owned series, Kin, which he wrote himself, published by Top Cow Productions in 2000.
Mark Farmer is a British comic book artist. He is best known as an inker, often working with Alan Davis.
Richard Joseph Giordano was an American comics artist and editor whose career included introducing Charlton Comics' "Action Heroes" stable of superheroes and serving as executive editor of DC Comics.
Vincent Patrick Deighan, better known by the pen name Frank Quitely, is a Scottish comic book artist. He is best known for his frequent collaborations with Grant Morrison on titles such as New X-Men, We3, All-Star Superman, and Batman and Robin, as well as his work with Mark Millar on The Authority and Jupiter's Legacy.
Nelson Alexander Ross is an American comic book writer and artist known primarily for his painted interiors, covers, and design work. He first became known with the 1994 miniseries Marvels, on which he collaborated with writer Kurt Busiek for Marvel Comics. He has since done a variety of projects for both Marvel and DC Comics, such as the 1996 miniseries Kingdom Come, which he also cowrote. Since then he has done covers and character designs for Busiek's series Astro City, and various projects for Dynamite Entertainment. His feature film work includes concept and narrative art for Spider-Man (2002) and Spider-Man 2 (2004), and DVD packaging art for the M. Night Shyamalan film Unbreakable (2000). He has done covers for TV Guide, promotional artwork for the Academy Awards, posters and packaging design for video games, and his renditions of superheroes have been merchandised as action figures.
Paul Gulacy is an American comics artist best known for his work for DC Comics and Marvel Comics, and for drawing one of the first graphic novels, Eclipse Enterprises' 1978 Sabre: Slow Fade of an Endangered Species, with writer Don McGregor. He is most associated with Marvel's 1970s martial-arts and espionage series Master of Kung Fu.
Alexander Cannon is an American cartoonist, known for his work on books such as Top 10, Smax and Kaijumax.
James H. Williams III, usually credited as J. H. Williams III, is an American comics artist and penciller. He is known for his work on titles such as Chase, Promethea, Desolation Jones,Batwoman, and The Sandman: Overture.
Travis Charest is a Canadian comic book penciller, inker and painter, known for his work on such books as Darkstars, WildC.A.T.s, Grifter/Shi, WildC.A.T.s/X-Men: The Golden Age and The Metabarons. He is known for his detailed line work and muted color palette, and is a much sought-after cover artist, having done extensive cover work for many other books, such as various Star Wars series from Dark Horse Comics. His work has influenced artists such as Chrissie Zullo, Shelby Robertson, and David Marquez.
Cam Smith is a British comic book artist and inker known to British comic book readers for his work on 2000 AD and in the American comic book market for his collaborations with Gary Frank, inking that would earn him an Eisner Award nomination.
Phil Jimenez is an American comics artist and writer known for his work as writer/artist on Wonder Woman from 2000 to 2003, as one of the five pencilers of the 2005–2006 miniseries Infinite Crisis, his collaborations with writer Grant Morrison on New X-Men and The Invisibles, and his artistry for his 2021 critically acclaimed partnership with writer Kelly Sue DeConnick on Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons.
Paul Neary was a British comic book artist, writer and editor.
Kevin Nowlan is an American comics artist who works as a penciler, inker, colorist, and letterer. He has been called "one of the few artists who can be called 'artists's artist'", a master of the various disciplines of comic production, from "design to draftsmanship to dramatics".
Liam Roger Sharp is a British comic book artist, writer, publisher, and co-founder/CCO of Madefire Inc.
José Luis García-López is a Spanish-Argentine comics artist who works in the United States, particularly in a long-running relationship with DC Comics. In addition to his storytelling art, he has been responsible for producing the official reference art for characters in the DC Comics Style Guide, as used in licensed merchandise.
Lee Garbett is a British comic book artist born in the West Midlands. He has worked on British comics. As of February 2011, he is working freelance after a period of exclusivity with DC Comics.
Cameron Stewart is a Canadian comic book creator. He first came to prominence when he collaborated as an illustrator with writer Grant Morrison, and he went on to illustrate Catwoman and co-write Batgirl. He won Eisner and Shuster Awards for his self-published mystery web comic Sin Titulo, and received an Eisner nomination for The Other Side.
John Costanza is an American comic book artist and letterer. He has worked for both DC Comics and Marvel Comics. He was the letterer during Alan Moore's acclaimed run on Swamp Thing. The bulk of Costanza's art assignments have been for anthropomorphic animal comics and children-oriented material.
The Shade...nabbed his first miniseries in April [1997], courtesy of writer James Robinson and artists Gene Ha, J. H. Williams III, Bret Blevins, and Michael Zulli.
Following a successful Kickstarter campaign, Gene Ha's Mae has found a home at Dark Horse Comics.