Graphic Appetite · by Daniel Ha

Daniel Ha’s girlfriend knows what makes her boyfriend’s eyes light up. It happens rarely and it does not happen much but occurs every time he talks about comics.

Yes, comics, sequential art, graphic novels, manga, manhwa, … whatever you like to call it.

If Daniel Ha was born a few hours earlier, he’d only have 7 birthdays as of today. He was born and raised in Montreal of Vietnamese descent. He started drawing at a young age, inspired by cartoons such as He-Man and Transformers. Daniel drew all the time, and on any canvas he could find like walls, paper, and desks, … it was his thing. Then when he realized that Asian eyes came with Asian concerns, values and expectations, he almost stopped drawing. He studied science. He received 2 diplomas in science, one from Dawson College, and the other from the Université de Montréal. His eyes did not light up much during those years.

After university, he decided to go back to school instead of amassing a fortune as a healthcare professional. He went back to Dawson College, this time in Illustration and Design. He did well until he met his girlfriend and graduated in 2007.

In the early 1990s, his friend introduced him to X-men comics drawn by Jim Lee. Jim Lee became his idol and drawing comics became his vocation. Even when he was supposed to like girls like any normal teenager he still spent too much money and time on comics. Like marriage, his passion for X-men wilted but thankfully he discovered comics for a mature readership, especially the work of Alan Moore, thus rekindling the comics flame and stunting his social development (just ask his girlfriend how socially inept he is).

Daniel Ha wishes to make a living making comics. He wishes to write and draw his own characters and ideas. He would not mind drawing covers for a mainstream book but does not consider himself ready or good enough for superhero comics. He still loves and reads comics but as an aspiring creator, it is not what he cares to do. He is now semi-regularly producing a web-comic called “Casanovice” and shows it to the 6 people he knows. Casanovice is a short, often comedic strip about the boy/girl relationship from the point of view of clueless boys. Daniel is also working on a series of one-page comics called “1 Page Stand,” which tends to be more serious, and also happens to be the work he is most proud of. He believes “1 Page Stand” to be his smartest work. Once Daniel feels disciplined enough, he wants to move on to longer projects and more serious work.

Daniel is often inspired by his own life, although he would rather create fictional stories than autobiographical ones. Daniel is also interested in mythology and religion. As an illustrator, he has a rather loose style as opposed to a laborious one. He prefers drawing faces and organic objects instead of technical and inorganic material. He usually uses graphite, ink and the computer to produce his work. He sometimes also uses watercolors, acrylic paints and markers.

Although Daniel is very serious about comics and could chew anybody’s ear off talking about them, he does not believe himself to be a serious artist (yet!). Daniel believes in his ideas and his potential but his body of work is too small. He also prefers the term illustrator than the term artist. Being an artist has a sort of prestige and implies a level of influence that he does not think he has reached. “Art” is also a term he believes to have different meanings to everyone, much like “love”. He would rather not get into that debate right now.

Daniel would like to see comics gain as much respect as film or the written word. People may argue comics are just movie ‘stills’ or illustrated novels, but the truth is, despite sharing similarities with both, they are very different. You can do things with comics that you cannot with film or with words. An example of this is his comic “The Circle of Life,” by only using 1 page and 12 images Daniel creates a life that loops from beginning to end and from end to beginning. He also believes that the feeling is different when reading a graphic novel compared when reading a novel, just like watching a movie is different from both.

Daniel Ha is a part-time health care professional and a part-time aspiring cartoonist (guess which one pays). He has several skills and abilities differentiating him from the average person: superhuman self-deprecation, invisibility to women, superhuman procrastination, the inability to look and act his age and superhuman laziness. He would fight crime as a superhero but his mom did not make him a cool costume and the thought of him in tights is wince inducing. He also happens to be a puny weakling. He currently lives and draws in Montreal.

Check out more of Daniel at: dvhstudios.com