April 12, 2018

Reilly Hadden ′15 is a stay-at-home father and the hard-working cartoonist behind Astral Birth Canal. The 2-year project (and continuing) is a collection of short and longer stories by Reilly that started as part of his thesis project here at The Center for Cartoon Studies. He currently funds his comic work through Patreon, releasing a mini comic every month from eight to sixteen pages. He also posts Patreon-only comics. Reilly did the following interview with Angela Boyle ′16.

Can you define the overarching mythos of the Astral Birth Canal universe?

Astral Birth Canal is a cosmic fantasy comic about gods and monsters and bird people and children in peril. It’s also an ongoing mini-comic anthology where I can make whatever types of comics that I would like, depending on how I’m feeling at any moment. For example, the stories range from giant space gods discussing creationist concepts, to kids dealing with scary monsters, to the current story about a woman who lives in my old neighborhood in Brooklyn, who is a pro wrestler and works at Trader Joe’s. So it’s not really a “universe” more like a multiverse, I guess. And in the stories, the “astral birth canal” is a literal road between dimensions/universes/whatever.

There are also some side-series that are exclusive to my subscribers on Patreon (wink wink). One is called Finch Island about a middle aged dad on a mid-life crisis nature retreat that’s co-written by my dad (director and playwright John Hadden). Another is a spooky swords and sorcery comic called Kath that just started. Lastly, a weekly comic strip called Rabbit about a rabbit-person and a cool bear on a pretty strange adventure. These stories take place within the greater Astral Birth Canal mythos as well.

It’s also an anthology in the sense that I try to give my friends opportunities to make small comics that I put in the back of the issues. I pay them a little money, and they get to try something weird.

You have recurring characters in Astral Birth Canal. Who are your favorites?

I guess if I didn’t love a character, they probably wouldn’t be in the comic. I will get really excited about odd new characters, though. Currently there’s this guy that I’ve barely used; he’s a dog, alien, kinda god guy named Mr Fruff. He’s hardly done anything yet, but I want him to be a kinda Peter Lorre in Casablanca kinda guy. Like a down-on-his-luck, noi, trickster god. We’ll see.

Who have been your guests so far? How has the process been including guest comics?

In the back of every issue of ABC I try to run two short stories and an illustration by friends and well-wishers. I pay ten bucks a page, funded by my Patreon So far I’ve gotten stories by Hannah Kaplan ′15, John Carvajal ′15, Anna McGlynn ′15, Dean Sudarsky ′16, Simon Reinhardt ′14, Stephane Zuppo ′15, Bridget Comeau ′15, Luke Healy ′14 (Permanent Press), Jenna Marchione, and Cooper Whittlesey ′16 (Omens of Normal Living). And illustrations or pin-ups from James Sturm (The Golem’s Mighty Swing), Josh Bayer, Sophie Yanow ′16 (What Is a Glacier?), Tillie Walden ′16 (Spinning), and Stephen R. Bissette (Swamp Thing, Tyrant).  The next issue of ABC (number 11, out in April) should feature Iona Woolmington ′15 and Audry Basch ′15 and a small thing I’m working on with my mom!

I like running the issues this way because I feel like it makes each mini comic a more complete package, and I really love the work of all my friends and want to show them all off.

Any standout favorite guest comics?

Anna McGlynn has done two backups so far, and it’s somewhat an ongoing story that is really out there and I love it a lot. Hopefully she’ll do another chapter for a future issue. Also, it was really a special feeling to get a drawing of my characters by Sophie Yanow, who is a person that has maybe helped me find my voice in comics more so than any other teacher, mentor, etc. Sophie is kinda my comics hero, so yeah, that was a huge honor.

Astral Birth Canal illustration by Sophie Yanow

What is your drawing process and what tools do you like to use?

I’ve gone through so many methods, and it took a long time to find what really worked. (I’ve only been doing this seriously for like six years.) I started with nibs and went to brush pens and then Rapidographs (Julia Gfrorer talked to our class about using one size of rapidograph, and the whole “no line weight variation” thing struck a chord). After a while, I realized that because I did so much editing in Photoshop and the line never varies, it would make sense to just ink digitally.  So now I pencil and letter the pages at size on graph paper (no ames lettering guide needed!) and then ink over them on an ipad using a program called Astropad. This program lets me control Photoshop on the tablet, and it works pretty well. I keep the pencil tool size at 10 and that’s that. It may come across as a bit “digital looking,” but I’ve actually started to like that aesthetic.