Beef With Tomato

by Dean Haspiel

A native New York bruiser is fed up with life in the dregs of a drug-addled Alphabet City where his neighbors are shut-ins and his bicycle is always getting stolen. He escapes from Manhattan to make a fresh start in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, only to face a new strain of street logic — where most everything he encounters is not as it seems. Emmy award winner and Eisner and Harvey Award nominee Dean Haspiel created BILLY DOGMA, illustrated for HBO's "Bored To Death," was a Master Artist at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, is a Yaddo fellow, a playwright ("Switch To Kill"), and is the co-founder of HANG DAI Editions. Dean's comics include The Fox with Mark Waid, The Alcoholic with Jonathan Ames and The Quitter with Harvey Pekar.

Genres: Comics, Memoir, Graphic Novels, Nonfiction, Sequential Art

95 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 8, 2015

About the author

Emmy award winning artist, Dean Haspiel is a native New Yorker who created the Eisner Award nominated BILLY DOGMA, the semi-autobiographical STREET CODE, and helped pioneer personal webcomics with the invention of ACT-I-VATE.com. Dino has collaborated on many great superhero and semi-autobiographical comic books published by Marvel, DC, Vertigo, Dark Horse, Image, Scholastic, Toon Books, and The New York Times, including collaborations with Harvey Pekar, Jonathan Ames, and Inverna Lockpez, and draws for HBO's "Bored To Death," for which he won an Emmy for his contributions to the opening title sequence. Dean is a founding member of DEEP6 Studios in Gowanus, Brooklyn and steeps in psychotronic movies, cosmic electronica, and Jack Kirby pulp.

Photo by Luigi Novi

Reviews

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 3 out of 5]

A series of comics stories that are essentially a love letter to New York from Brooklyn artist Haspiel, who also illustrated The Alcoholic for Jonathan Ames, and The Quitter for Harvey Pekar. They're pretty amusing at times. Just sort of slice of life, not Deep Thoughts, and they don't have to be, though if they were, maybe I would remember them better.

I call them memoir but they are mainly just documenting stories he sees and hears. The title itself references a meal he has had all his life that he has eaten at his favorite restaurant. He details stolen bikes, being doored. They feel very much like a guy's stories, things he finds funny about bad smells, stories about various girlfriends. His 9/11 story. The art is solid, pen and ink, black and white. Bold lines. I thought these were pretty good, not very memorable, not that reflective. Just sort of slice of life things.

Okay, okay, I'm a guy, too: Maybe the most memorable one for me was his tale of a former girlfriend "The Beautiful Girl with the Bolshevik Breasts," who always comes home and takes off her bra and shirt and dances wildly all the time. This is New York, the curtains are not drawn, so this leads to others watching, including an older man (spoiler alert) who has a heart attack apparently because of watching her, which they find to be essentially pretty funny. I guess it is, actually, though both I and they admit that it is less than admirable to smile about that.

[J.T. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite Dean Haspiel comic yet. It's got the feeling of hanging out with a friend while they tell anecdotes (but with the bonus of gorgeous ink drawings with tons of lovingly rendered action and compelling page layouts). A few of the reviews I read complain about lack of introspection, but I'd argue that while these stories aren't meant to be earth-shattering studies in soul searching, the artist is observant of his own feelings and of those around him. There is intelligence, curiosity in his community and sometimes just a willingness to relate a funny story.

[MariNaomi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book directly after reading Lucy Knisley's DISPLACEMENT, and this book is kind of the exact opposite of Lucy's. Sharp, hard line art (really gorgeous); edgy, dark stories of being a young white guy in NYC during troubling times. Not for the faint of heart. Storytelling-wise, it reminded me of Dennis Eichorn's REAL STUFF comics, which are some of my favorites.

[Derek Royal · Rating 4 out of 5]

We discussed this one on The Comics Alternative podcast in an episode devoted specifically to recent Hang Dai Edition books: http://comicsalternative.com/episode-.... Haspiel is a great artist, but he truly excels as a storyteller in his more autobiographical and/or more realist narratives.

[matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sort of graphic novel/diary. A series of stories about the authors life in New York City and Brooklyn. I love the artwork, and the stories have some fun surprises in store for the reader.

[StrictlySequential · Rating 4 out of 5]

2-5 page prose shorts are strewn throughout the last half and it's probably best to wait to read them when you've finished all the sequential because they aren't linked to each other in any continuity.

The material within the stories is about 50% sad, 25% funny and 25% interesting while being 100% "slice of life" Brooklyn/Manhattan NYC.

He's so consummately New York that I felt a little sad for him- his incessant anxieties and sadness are so typically environmental in nature from spending his whole life in such (relatively) intense locales. People who spend more than 20 years in such surroundings become (for lack of a better term) culture shocked as the "hustle and bustle" wear you down emotionally. That's the theme and "take-away" of this book.

I'll bet he wouldn't have ended up drinking the same way if he had moved to a more relaxed atmosphere when his "invincibility of youth" (I lost mine at 30) ended.

[jdotpitts · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book to be an enjoyable low stakes book about life in New York City in the 90's-early 00's. For those hoping for some large narrative, this book isn't that, it's short, sometimes really short, stories about life in NYC. Some of the stories are even straight prose towards the end.

[Harris · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of short anecdotal memoir comics and a few essays by cartoonist Dean Haspiel, the stories in Beef With Tomato celebrate life in NYC during the late ‘90s and early ‘00s and is very evocative of those times. With an introduction by author and TV writer Jonathan Ames (whose show Bored to Death shares a certain sensibility and mood with Haspiel’s work here), the world inhabited by Haspiel is full of quirky personalities and absurd events, the types of situations that can challenge believability were life not stranger than fiction, perhaps. His tone is nonchalant, but a little bro-y, with the kind of earnest bragging you would expect- like how he had a girlfriend who was so hot she once gave a peeping tom neighbor a heart attack, or how he totally got a cop to admit to being in the wrong for hassling him unjustly (as a white guy during the height of the NYPD stop and frisk policy).

As can be seen, unchallenged problematic gender, race, and sexual attitudes pop up throughout, highlighting the dated aspects of the milieu, even by the standards of 2015 when this was published. However, Haspiel’s artwork is fun, with dynamic black and whites and expressive action, and his writing is punchy and approachable. From an affecting depiction of 9/11 to the community of a blackout, there’s a lot here that brings the city and its inhabitants to life, keeping the stories endearing for the most part (though the comics work more than the essays, I feel.

[Mark Schlatter · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been liking Haspiel's work on The Fox, but this volume of short slice-of-life city stories is much better. It's mostly four-pagers about vignettes in Brooklyn with Haspiel usually at the center. My favorite bit is when the author has a car door opened into him while biking --- Haspiel shows the collision from the side using half the page and captures both the violence and the humor of the moment. If you like alt comics, you'll like this.

[Michael Rhode · Rating 5 out of 5]

Autobiographical comics by a friend of mine about life in NYC>

[Steve Bearfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic look at New York City through Haspiel's eyes and experiences. Funny. Tragic. Heartbreaking. Enlightening. A great read.

[Andréa]

Note: I accessed a digital review copy of this book through Edelweiss.

[Taylor Daigneault · Rating 2 out of 5]

Considered closing it after the first story. Pressed on but there wasn't really anything in there for me. I'm closing this one and calling it done.

[Marvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading it since I am living in Brooklyn. It gave a glimpse into an male artist life living in Brooklyn and New York City. The daily issues that come up, different kinds of people, unusual happenings and catastrophic events. The stories felt like quick journal entries, which I enjoyed reading in my daily commute.

[Bekah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Easy read, bouncing between humorous and heartbreaking. A series of small scenes, snippets of the author's life, random little bits of life. It made me think, made me remember things, especially that huge blackout that pretty much killed all of New England and then some. It is about 90% Comics, with 10% flashes of text-based stories.

[Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I quite like Dean Haspiel's art and enjoyed a few of the vignettes here -- I do wish there was a little more introspection or reflection on his experiences rather than just straightforward illustration, though.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

PDF - An engaging series of short comics and essays detailing happenings in Dean Haspiel's life.

[Tara Schaafsma · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, I liked the stories, but not as a book. These were little anecdotes that I would tell at the bar, and they would be very entertaining. But as a book I didn't think it worked.

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dean Haspiel's love letter to NYC. Most of the stories are slice of life stories with no real point. Haspiel's art is good. The prose stories suffered in that they didn't really tell any story, It was just Haspiel's musings on life.

Received an advance copy from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.