When Gene Ha was attending what is now known as the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, a local comic shop owner set up a single stand of the books in a nearby vintage clothing store. Ha started chatting with him about trying to make a living in the world of comics.
It was a boom time for the industry and Ha was steeped in superhero comics.
Todd Johnson and Hassan Nurullah, the owners of Comics Cafe in Ferndale, Michigan, had been to conventions and knew other local professionals. They became like mentors to Ha. And the Chicago-born artist sent his samples to both Marvel and DC by mail, hoping for a break.
“Marvel hated them, but the editor at DC, Neal Pozner, didn’t think I was ready but he wanted more samples,” Ha said. “That was my foot in the door.”
Ha, who has lived in Berwyn since 2007, has created art for the pages of Batman, Green Lantern, Justice League and Superman over nearly 30 years, earned Eisner Awards for his work with Alan Moore and Zander Cannon on Top 10, and created his own comic called Mae.
His work is now the subject of an exhibition at Moraine Valley Community College in Palos.
“Having Gene Ha’s exhibition on campus is a special opportunity for our students and our community,” said Troy Swanson, the college’s library department chairperson. “Mr. Ha is an artist and writer who has worked at the highest levels of the comics industry. He has also stepped forward with his own voice in his indie comics. Seeing his original work is an opportunity to peek behind the scenes into the production of comics.
“Beyond this, his work is quite beautiful in its own right. Seeing his pages in the exhibition gives you an appreciation for Mr. Ha’s artistry and talent. … I am glad that our gallery can highlight his work and shine a spotlight on this local talent.”
Ha also recorded a workshop with students in professor Erik La Gattuta’s Art 106: Drawing Comics course. The workshop will be viewable publicly after April 5, because Ha shows off pages of his soon-to-be-released work on “Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons Volume 2.” He took questions from students and used their photos to demonstrate drawing techniques. Ha also provided practical advice on making a career in comics.
“My students got so much out of it,” La Gattuta said. “The best thing, I think for them, is they saw a real, working, professional artist and they could just see that it’s real, that you can actually be a real artist making a living doing stuff like this; there’s a viable path toward being that. That’s a huge thing for a young art student.”
It is not uncommon for Ha to take part in opportunities like this. He regularly does programs at local libraries. And he has a standing offer that young artists interested in pursuing comics can reach out through his website for advice and he will do his best to respond. It all goes back to those people who mentored him.
“A lot of people helped me when I was coming up,” Ha said. “In talking to people of my generation, I realize that I was unusually lucky with the number of people who helped me along.”
La Gattuta said he has been familiar with Ha’s work in comics since the early 2000s, when Ha drew “Top 10.” They met briefly when Ha came to Moraine Valley for a prior meet and greet during one of the comic conventions the college held every fall prior to the pandemic. So when La Gattuta was approached for thoughts on a comics exhibition, Ha immediately came to mind.
Cecilia Vargas, who took over as art gallery coordinator in September, inherited that idea. What it turned into is an exhibition of framed works, many of them done by hand, on paper. While there are some examples of coloring, many of the images are black and white. Some of Ha’s published books are also on display, and there is a large piece in the gallery, too.
“The talent is amazing,” Vargas said. “A lot of people are excited about it.”
There are also some computerized images, and Vargas said it is a treat to have them side by side for the contrast between them. Ha said he wanted to depict how comics have changed from a technical perspective over his time working in the medium. He started in pencils, then pencils and inks. He hated coloring in the 1990s, which he called “the Dark Ages of American comic book coloring.” But he began doing coloring guides and then finally got his hands on Photoshop, which also allows him to send digital color files straight to his publisher, rather than via FedEx to New York City or San Diego as he once did every week.
But the technical aspects are only a small part of how the business of comics has morphed over the years, Ha said.
“The biggest change is comics have shifted from being monthly superhero magazines sold at the comic shops to being graphic novels sold by book publishers to actual kids,” Ha said. “The superhero books tended to be focused on men over 30 for most of my career. Nowadays, creators like Raina Telgemeier or Dav Pilkey are the real superstars, and I love that. I love having new readers come in. Some of them will read superhero comics.”
Ha said he had a lot of fun talking to students at Moraine Valley about the art in the exhibit. And appearances like this help to fill a gap of mentorship in the comics world that Ha said can be harder to find these days.
“Today, comics editors seem to spend all their time in meetings,” Ha said. “Back then, they had time to actually talk to you on the phone for an hour a week or something like that. You just learned a huge amount of the history of comics or the process of comics or the culture of comics, just chatting on the phone with them. That doesn’t really work by email.”
Ha said he is “incredibly excited” to be working on the Wonder Woman series with the “fantastic” writer Kelly Sue DeConnick, though he did not follow the character much when he was young. Money for comics was tight when he was a youth, so he missed much of the influential George Perez run when it was originally published for that reason. And before that, it could be a tough read, Ha said.
“It was almost an all-male industry at that point, and there weren’t a lot of men who were good at writing women,” Ha said. “There’s a handful of writers from that time period that are famous for being able to write female characters. It was that unusual. Chris Claremont of the X-Men was known as the writer who can write women. There were a few more, but it was unusual then. Wonder Woman was not especially well-written during that period, but it’s gotten immensely better since then.”
The exhibit at Moraine Valley, “ha! Comic Creations by Gene Ha,” runs through March 7. It is free and open to the public, typically from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. The Robert F. DeCaprio Art Gallery is located on the first floor of Building F on the Palos Hills campus.
Bill Jones is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
