Six Weeks

Ramona Fradon, Gil Roth + Spring music

Me and Ramona Fradon some years ago.

As I was picking up my Chinese food lunch from my local spot in Carroll Gardens, I overheard two gentleman discuss retirement as they gobbled their Pork Lo Mein and General Tso's Chicken. One guy was talking about how a cop can serve for twenty years and "say one wrong thing" and get his retirement compromised. The other guy was pontificating being a plumber for twenty years and "do one wrong thing" and get his retirement compromised. And then I was out the door and onto to my bike to my studio in Red Hook.

Twenty years? Retirement? What were they talking about?

Clearly, I wasn’t thinking about what the cop said wrong or what the plumber did wrong. I was more intrigued by the fact that a person can work for twenty years and then retire. What does that even mean?

The average persons lifespan (in America) is 77 years old. Now, let's say you went to a university to study a vocation. That's no more than four years. Right? And let's say it takes a year to train on a job before you're officially working at that job. Four plus one equals five. Plus, twenty years working at that job (on good behavior) equals twenty five years.

Let's do the math:

77 - 25 = 52

That's FIFTY TWO YEARS of your life that you were either goofing around as a kid and teenager, or spending it on vacations and "retirement."

Wait -- what's a vacation? Is that like a teaser-to-retirement?

Comic book artist Ramona Fradon was 97 years old when she retired from the industry. A vocation she worked at for 65 years. She co-created Metamorpho, and drew Aquaman and Brenda Starr, Reporter for many years.

Her retirement lasted six weeks before she passed away.

I'm 56 going on 57 come end of May. I've worked at my "vocation," making comix for over twenty years. And the concept of retirement is one I can hardly wrap my head around.

While making ends meet, I've dipped my toes drawing and writing occasional Marvel and DC characters. I’ve plotted and drawn eleven issues worth of Archie Comics' The Fox. And I've produced over 700 pages of The Red Hook. Other than a bunch of semi-autobiographical graphic novels (mostly written by other people), and an Emmy Award for working on a TV show, I don't have anything substantial to recommend me. I may have injected new energy into The Fox but I never changed the way we understand the likes of Daredevil or Batman like Frank Miller. I never got to rock long term commitments to Batman or Superman like Jim Aparo and Curt Swan. I never wrote a life-spanning comic book series like Harvey Pekar's American Splendor. I never created a well-liked independent character like Mike Mignola's Hellboy.

As I inch closer to being sixty years old, I've used more white out and rendered more revisions for my latest comix project, THE RED HOOK x DEAN HASPIEL in the last two months than I have in the last twenty years. It upsets me greatly as I begin to lose my confidence. It's harder to see. Harder to draw. My back hurts. My legs. I prefer to write these days but that may be a function of covering up my diminishing abilities to craft comix like I used to.

Listen, I know that comparing myself to a cop or a plumber is unfair and, frankly, obnoxious. What they do is a rough trade that puts their health and mortality in danger. Serving twenty years at those gigs is more than enough. They deserve the break. And I'm sure these folks accrue quite a library of stories which, if they so choose, can share to strangers (kinda like what I do). Their "retirement" could be the beginning of a lucrative career writing and recording books nee Hollywood movies. Or, they can keep their stories to themselves and just travel around the world. Go fishing. Manifest an earned quality of life. And, I guess that's really what I'm trying to figure out here. A better quality of life as I enter my twilight years.

Six weeks.

Those two guys eating Chinese food, talking about retirement, before heading back to their work grind. While I sit here on a sunny day in a windowless room, complaining about doing what I love, luxuriating my feelings next to an art table with a penciled page waiting to be inked.

Whitney Matheson, Gil Roth and I at MoCCA Arts Fest 2024

Last Sunday, I talked to Gil Roth about THE RED HOOK x DEAN HASPIEL Kickstarter for a Bonus episode of The Virtual Memories Show.

Here’s the episode description:

LEAN INTO DEAN! Cartoonist, playwright, schmoozer, etc.  returns for a Bonus Episode to talk about his new Kickstarter,  (closing March 28, 2024)! We get into why he's making the plunge into Meta-Mem-Noir and bringing Dean Haspiel as a character into his New Brooklyn comics universe, what it's like to be part of the story, and how this podcast is also becoming more autobiographical with each passing week. Plus, we talk about getting old and not being able to stay out all night (even though he tried this weekend), what it's like to treat comics as a reductive art rather than a rendering one, the play Dino's working on, what he's learned from his previous Kickstarter projects,  and , why he's holding off on reading the finale of Howard Chaykin's Time2 project, and more!

You can listen HERE.

Check out my Spring Dino Mix 2024 on Spotify!

Okay—party people! Only five (5) days left to pledge to my comix Kickstarter.

Pick a good one!

Love, Dean

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