SPOTLIGHT SERIES:
Justin Hall

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Justin Hall grew up in Providence, Rhode Island.  He started reading Tintin and Jack Kirby comics as a kid and became a comics art major in college at Purchase College, SUNY.  He began making his own comics nine years ago and has now visited over sixty countries, learning in the process how to carry his art supplies with him.

“At some point I learned to travel with my art supplies, figuring out how to pack my Bristol board in the bottom of my pack, and how to bottle my inks to stop them from exploding all over my clothes.  That enabled me to do comics about travel as I was experiencing it…  For example, I stayed at a small island in the Mekong River for a week as I drew a story about something that had just happened to me on that trip.  The island had no electricity or motorized vehicles, but I could rent a bungalow for a dollar a night with a hammock and a rope swing over the river, and so it was a perfect, peaceful place to get some work done.”

To support his traveling and his art, Justin has worked as a massage therapist for the last fifteen years, and acted in several gay porn films. Currently, he is in the process of editing a collection for Fantagraphics, The Best Queer Comics: Forty Years of LGBT, Underground Art, due out next year, has a book coming in December featuring his character Glamazonia the Uncanny Super Tranny, and is 2/3 of the way through a graphic novel named The Liar.

Regarding future projects he says, “I continue to return to the themes of travel and sex in my comics.  They’re both things I love, of course, but even more than that, they’re themes that are poorly dealt with in most narratives.  Both have complexities usually kept at arm’s distance and described only in cliched language, especially in comics, and that just infuriates me… When all those projects are finished, I’d like to start in on a story I’ve been developing in my head called Harvest, about the pot-growing scene in Northern California.  But I still have to get through the rest of this shit first!  Oy!  So many stories, so little time…”

JUSTIN HALL LINKS:
All Thumbs Press
Hard to Swallow Comics

Gay Marriage by Justin Hall

Food by Justin Hall

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The Rumpus Spotlight Series presents one time posts of select pieces from working cartoonists and comic artists.
Interview by Lucas Adams
Series Editor Paul Madonna