| Gene Ha | |
|---|---|
 Gene Ha in October 2024 | |
| Born | Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Area | Writer,Penciller,Inker |
Notable works | The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix Top Ten |
| Awards | 1994 Russ Manning Most Promising Newcomer Award FiveEisner Awards 2019Inkpot Award |
Gene Ha is an Americancomics artist and writer best known for his work on books such asTop 10 andTop 10: The Forty-Niners, withAlan Moore andZander Cannon, forAmerica's Best Comics, theBatmangraphic novelFortunate Son, withGerard Jones, andThe Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix, among others. He has also drawnGlobal Frequency and has drawn covers forWizard andMarvel Comics.
He was awarded the 1994Russ Manning Most Promising Newcomer Award, and won fiveEisner Awards, in 2000, 2001, 2006, 2008 and 2024.
Gene Ha was born inChicago and raised inSouth Bend, Indiana. According to Ha, his parents were well-educatedKorean 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 outescapist 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 ofJews creators from the 1930s, both of whom were children of immigrants struggling to fit into America.[1]
Ha cites as his influences numerous creators from the 1980s, such asJohn Byrne,Frank Miller,Bill Sienkiewicz,Walter Simonson,Alan Moore, and most importantlyMatt Wagner, whoseMage series Ha says is still "epic" to him, and its main characters "personal archetypes".[1]
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 theCollege 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.[1]
Ha's first published comics work was inGreen Lantern vol. 3 #36 (Feb. 1993), whose story, "The Ghost of Christmas Light", was written byGerard Jones.[2][3] He would draw a number of comics for DC andMalibu Comics, and did work for Marvel as well, illustrating the 1994 miniseriesThe Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix, which documented the childhood of the characterCable. He would draw that miniseries' sequel as well,Askani'son.
Ha was one of the artists on theShade limited series which spun off from theStarman series.[4] He would subsequently illustrate a number of different properties for various publishers, includingAliens: Havoc,Superman,JLA Annual, which included interiors and cover work. In 1999, he began illustratingTop Ten, one of the series of Alan Moore'sAmerica's Best Comics imprint forWildstorm. He would draw that series' twelve issues which ran until late 2001. Moore and Ha collaborated on theTop 10: The Forty-Niners graphic novel prequel published in 2005.[5]
In 2002 Ha wrote "The Stronghold", anIron Fist story published inMarvel Knights Double Shot #4, which represented his first published comics writing.[3]
In 2006, Ha was set to serve as artist on the first four issues of a relaunch of Wildstorm'sThe Authority, with writerGrant Morrison. Ha drew two issues, but the project stalled after the second issue, as DC needed Morrison to concentrate his efforts onBatman rather than on Wildstorm projects.[6]
In a December 2013 interview, Ha announced a sabbatical fromwork for hire comics and expressed his desire to focus on creator-owned projects.[7]
In June 2015,Dark Horse Comics selected for publication Ha's creator-owned seriesMae, which Ha funded through thecrowdfunding websiteKickstarter. TheMae fundraising campaign, which was for a 68-pageMae 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. Aportal 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.[3][8] The series holds a 7.8 out of 10 rating at the review aggregator website Comic Book Round Up, based on 35 reviews.[9]
In April 2022, Ha illustrated the second issue ofWonder Woman Historia: The Amazons.[10] Written byKelly Sue DeConnick, the three-issue limited series takes place before the birth ofDiana and tells of the creation of theAmazons and howHippolyta became their queen. The firstWonder Woman Historia: the Amazons issue was illustrated byPhil Jimenez and the third byNicola Scott; an omnibus edition of the comics miniseries was released in June 2023.[11]
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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 alead holder withH lead for sketching, and2B 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 faintblue line. He prefersXerox paper because he feels that the surface of marker paper tends to get smudgy or oily. When modifying art in his computer, he usesPhotoshop.[1]
To effect his currentink wash style of shading and inking, he uses a variety of warm greyCopic 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 whitegouache paint. He also usesStaedtler Mars technical pens.[1]
When not doing painted covers, he also uses aWinsor & Newton Series 7 Size 1 brush, Badger Air Opaque airbrush paint, water-soluble ink wash and Strathmore Windmillvellum 100 lb.Bristol board. He cleans his brushes with Masters Brush Cleaner, to which he adds water for a gel consistency. He usesPhotoshop to finish his work.[1]
Ha and his wife Lisa live inBerwyn, Illinois.[6]
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'sMae has found a home at Dark Horse Comics.
