F.A.Q.
What does "EHA" in "EHA Comics" stand for?
Eddie Hongil Ahn. That's my name, in case you needed further clarification.
Do you plan to break into the comics industry?
No, as much as I enjoy doing this, I'm not delusional about this hobby of mine. This is just for fun and will never become a professional career.
OK, so what are you going to do with your life?
Work for AmeriCorps throughout this year. Perhaps spend another year working in the education field. Go to law school. Practice law. Get into politics, run for office, and rally a progressive movement in America.
Huh, odd career choice. Why do you want to get into…that, of all things?
Our generation is dissatisfied, disengaged, and disillusioned. Without thinking deeply about how their government and communities should interact, so many people - from thirteenth-generation Americans to first-generation immigrants - have lost faith in America. But I'll get into this some other time.
Next question.
What do you use to make these strips?
It's all hand-drawn, with basic mechanical pencils, office-variety pens, and white-out. Post-production used to consist of typing dialogue in Microsoft Word and pasting speech bubbles onto the strip by hand. Nowadays, I've slightly modernized the post-production process by relying more on Photoshop.
Where did you learn to draw?
Although I've taken some art classes here and there, I've never had any good training in anatomy, perspective, or shading. So I'm mostly self-taught.
During my college years, my drawing ability significantly evolved through practicing in over 350 daily comic strips for the school newspaper (this body of work is now compiled under "A Family in Providence"). Nowadays, when I want to figure out how to draw something, I force friends to model for me, sketch from photographs, and study other artworks. My artistic influences range from Pablo Picasso to Edward Hopper to Bill Watterson.
Where do your ideas come from?
A lot of it comes from synthesizing casual reading, research work, and facets of my life. While my own imagination usually fuels "Canvas" and "The Variety Show," my conversations with friends inspire many comic strips and scenes.
For "The Assassination of X," I utilize a wide variety of research materials, including biographies, audio recordings of speeches, and photos. If "The Assassination of X" is completed successfully, I will use similar methods to create another biographical comic titled "The Magellan," following U.S. President Harry S. Truman's "whistle-stop" campaign of 1948.
In the organized crime series ("A Family in Providence" and "Land of the Morning Calm"), the details are derived from academic journals, current news sources, and books. Bibliographies are provided below.
Did you do the design and/or coding for this website by yourself?
Nope.
Mason Galindo, of TheSitePeople, designed the new snazzy look of the website. A friend of mine, Matt Gillooly, is the genius behind the original website design and handles all of the backend development. He also plays the guitar pretty darn well. His website is www.mattgillooly.com. And that pretty much concludes Q and A time. If you have other questions, you can email me at eddiekoma@hotmail.com.
Sources for "A Family in Providence"
Anastasia, George. The Goodfella Tapes: The True Story of How the FBI Recorded a Mob War and Brought Down a Mafia Don. New York: Avon Books, 1998.
Chin, Ko-Lin. Chinatown Gangs: Extortion, Enterprise, and Ethnicity. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Kelly, Robert J. The Upperworld and the Underworld: Case Studies of Racketeering and Business Infiltrations in the United States. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 1999.
Lintner, Bertil. Blood Brothers: The Criminal Underworld of Asia. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
Maas, Peter. Underboss: Sammy the Bull Gravano's Story of Life in the Mafia. New York: HarperPaperbacks, 1997.
Nash, Jay Robert. World Encyclopedia of Organized Crime. New York: Da Capo Press, 1993.
Naylor, R.T. Wages of Crime: Black Markets, Illegal Finance, and the Underworld Economy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002.
O’Neill, Gerard, and Dick Lehr. Black Mass: The True Story of an Unholy Alliance between the FBI and the Irish Mob. New York: Perennial, 2001.
O’Neill, Gerard, and Dick Lehr. The Underboss: The Rise and Fall of a Mafia Family. New York: PublicAffairs, 1989.
Robinson, Jeffrey. The Merger: The Conglomeration of International Organized Crime. New York: The Overlook Press, 2000.
Royko, Mike. Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago. New York: Plume, 1988.
Sack, John. The Dragonhead New York: Random House, 2001.
Stanton, Mike. The Prince of Providence. New York: Random House, 2003.
Stares, Paul B. Global Habit: The Drug Problem in a Borderless World. Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1996.
Whiting, Robert. Tokyo Underworld: The Fast Times and Hard Life of an American Gangster in Japan. New York: Vintage Departures, 2000.
Sources for "The Assassination of X"
Breitman, George. The Last Year of Malcolm X: The Evolution of a Revolutionary. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1992.
Breitman, George, ed. Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements. New York: Grove Press, 1990.
Breitman, George, ed. By Any Means Necessary. New York: Pathfinder, 1992.
Brinkley, Douglas. "The Man Who Kept King's Secrets." Vanity Fair Apr. 2006: 156-171.
Carson, Clayborne and David Gallen, ed. Malcolm X: The FBI File. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc., 1991.
Clark, Steve, ed. February 1965: The Final Speeches. New York: Pathfinder Press, 2003.
Clarke, John Henrik, ed. Malcolm X: The Man and His Times. Trenton: Africa World Press, Inc., 1991.
Collins, Rodnell P. and A. Peter Bailey. Seventh Child: A Family Memoir of Malcolm X. Secaucus, New Jersey: Carol Publishing Group, 1998.
Cone, James H. Martin and Malcolm and America: A Dream or a Nightmare. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2003.
Davis, Thulani. Malcolm X: The Great Photographs. New York: Stewart, Tabori, & Chang, 1993.
Dyson, Michael Eric. Making Malcolm: The Myth and Meaning of Malcolm X. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Evanzz, Karl. The Judas Factor: The Plot to Kill Malcolm X. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1992.
Ferguson, Herman. "The Price of Freedom." Souls 7.1 (2005): 84-106.
Friedly, Michael. Malcolm X: The Assassination. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1992.
Goldman, Peter. The Death and Life of Malcolm X. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1979.
Haley, Alex and Malcolm X. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. New York: Ballantine Books, 1992.
Kochiyama, Yuri. Passing It On: A Memoir. Los Angeles: UCLA Asian American Studies Center Press, 2004.
Marable, Manning. "Rediscovering Malcolm's Life: A Historian's Adventures in Living History." Souls 7.1 (2005): 20-35.
Shabazz, Betty, ed. Malcolm X on Afro-American History. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1990.
I am also indebted to many other sources for visual inspiration including movies such as Spike Lee's 1992 film Malcolm X, Arnold Perl's 1972 documentary Malcolm X, and Michael Mann's 2001 film Ali. For photographs, speech recordings, and oral histories, I mined information from these websites:
The Malcolm X Project
Malcolm X: A Research Site
Malcolm-X.org
Malcolm X's FBI File
Although the script for "The Assassination of X" has been mostly finalized, it may continue to grow based on Manning Marable's comprehensive biography to be released in 2009 (Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention. New York: Viking).
Sources for "Land of the Morning Calm" will be provided later.