Dean Haspiel never rests. The Brooklyn cartoonist has produced an unending stream of work since the mid-'90s as diverse as it is prolific, from collaborations with the late Harvey Pekar on his American Splendor series and standalone book The Quitter to the kids book Mo and Jo for Toon Books, to his The Thing Marvel Comics miniseries and art direction on the much-lamented HBO series Bored to Death (which earned him an Emmy).
Of late, Haspiel's work can be found on the pages of The Fox, a superhero book created in collaboration with The Flash/Captain America/Archie writer, Mark Waid. Haspiel's forthcoming book for his own Hang Dai Editions imprint (distributed by the newly revamped Alternative Comics) marks a decidedly more personal turn than much of the cartoonist's recent work.
Beef With Tomato is a collection of autobiographical comics that detail Haspiel's move from Manhattan to Brooklyn. The book mixes graphic memoir and essay, fiction and non-, featuring an introduction by his Bored to Death collaborator, Jonathan Ames.
What follows is an exclusive six-page preview of "Breathe," one of the book's short comics, which tells the story of an unfortunate encounter in a Brooklyn bike lane.
Beef With Tomato is due out Sept. 15 from Alternative Comics.
