By Matt Dembicki
If you self-published comics in the D.C. area post-2005, you probably ran into Art Haupt at some point. Whether he was encouraging local comics creators, buying their books at local shows or penning his own stories, Art was a quiet but consistent presence in the D.C. comics scene. He passed away on May 3rd at age 78, after battling dementia for several years.
A copy editor by trade, Art had a keen eye for using the right word—or cutting a string of superfluous ones. He and I met in 2005 during his time at Kiplinger Washington Editors. Art was old school and very proficient in his craft, preferring to use a ruler and red pen when editing a printed article. During our work interactions, we found much in common, including our Polish heritage and love of comics.
Our conversations about comics started with his passion for comic strips--especially for the classics such as Peanuts, Calvin & Hobbs and anything by Milton Caniff or Hal Foster. It was during this time that a few comics creators in the Washington area started to mull an idea to create a local comics creators collective. I asked Art to join us for our first meeting, and he did--trudging through a snowstorm to get to a bar in Arlington, Virginia, where a handful of us gathered for the initial gathering of the D.C. Conspiracy (DCC) comics-making group.
At first, Art was mainly a supporter, talking with folks about their projects and perusing the portfolios they brought to meetings, which in the early days were held regularly at Dr. Dremo's Taphouse, a car dealership-turned-brewery in Courthouse section of Arlington that closed in 2008. It was when the DCC started to create its own publications that Art began to dabble in writing comics.
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Art Haupt (second from right) at a D.C. Conspiracy meet-up at Dr. Dremo’s circa 2006. (Photo: Matt Dembicki) |
Art's father, Zygmunt Haupt, was a renowned Polish author and painter, and Art was passionate about his father's work. He arranged to have much of his father's work housed at Stanford and helped to organize and speak at several Zygmunt Haupt Festivals in Poland in the 2010s. Art for years worked on his own unfinished opus that he guarded and only shared with family and let a few friends see a few chapters.
But comics gave Art an immediate creative outlet, especially in the anthology format. The works were smaller in scope and provided a chance for Art to collaborate with others in the DCC. His first published comic story was in DC Conspiracy Presents Shear Terror (2006), an anthology that featured stories with scissors in them. "They Gleam" was actually a prose story that included spot illustrations by local comics creator and DCC co-founder Evan Keeling. The opening paragraphs summed up Art's succinct writing style (and it also captures his fondness for crime noir, which carried into his other works):
He got annoyed as hell when she started playing around with the golden shears.
No more showing off his grand-père's archaeological trophies, he vowed silently. Should never have let her touch the damn things.
Aloud, he called out: "Dana...Dana! Those scissors are old and very fragile. They're valuable!"
But she only snatched a newspaper off the big carved desk. Waved the shining blades at him, safely out of reach. Then snick--and the shears worked.
The Dartmouth graduate's next comics writing was for Doctor Dremo's Taphouse of Tall Tales and Short Stories: The Spoils of Crime. The eight-page story "Murder Summer" again includes art by Keeling, this time in full comics paneling.
Art continued with his crime writing when he wrote an online comic called Porter Black, which he created with another local comic booker and DC Conspiracy member, Andrew Cohen. The strips were later pulled into self-published collections, "Porter Black" Murder Under Midnight Suns" (2011) and "Porter Black: True Romance" (2013). The two also teamed in 2012 for a Porter Black comic that was the center-spread in the 3rd issue of Magic Bullet, the D.C. Conspiracy's comics newspaper.
In 2012, Art teamed on writing "Truman" with another local creator, Rafer Roberts, who illustrated the seven-age story about the assassination attempt on President Harry S. Truman in 1950. It was published in District Comics: An Unconventional History of Washington, D.C. (Fulcrum Publishing, 2012).
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| Art Haupt, 3rd from left. See footnote for others. |
Art's body of comics work wasn't large, but he still had an impact on the D.C. small press comics scene. Aside from his creative work, he frequently participated in small press events, such as the signing of local talent's new releases, various venue presentations and he enjoyed meeting new people through gatherings such as the annual Small Press Expo, AwesomeCon and the D.C. Conspiracy's own Counter Culture Festival, which featured comics makers, crafters, musicians, magicians, tattoo artists, belly dancers, comedy troupes and more.
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| Awesome Con comics convention in Washington, DC. District Comics panelists - Art Haupt, Rafer Roberts, Mike Cowgill, Andrew Cohen, Jacob Warrenfeltz, Mike Rhode, Carolyn Belefski and Troy-Jeffrey Allen. |
Art and his late wife, Linda “Lee” Martindale, who passed away in 2013, also hopped on the occasional D.C. Conspiracy outing, such as when the group visited the now-closed Geppi's Entertainment Museum in Baltimore, which housed some of the comics distributor Stephen Geppi's most prized comics.
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Matt Dembicki is a co-founder of the D.C. Conspiracy, and a former editor of this blog. He's been on a creative hiatus since 2019.
*“District Comics: An Unconventional History of Washington, DC” Sunday, August 19, 2012 book signing at One More Page Books in Arlington, Virginia.
1. Evan Keeling
2. Grant Jeffrey Barrus
3. Art Haupt
4. Rebecca Goldfield
5. Mal Jones
6. Kevin Rechin
7. Michael Rhode
8. Michael Brace
9. Jacob Warrenfeltz
10. Jason Rodriguez
11. Rafer Roberts
12. Tabita Whissemore
13.Carolyn Belefski
14. Andrew Cohen
15. Joe Carabeo
16. Michael Cowgill
17. Carol Dembicki
18. Rand Arrington
19. Gregory Robison
20. Steve Loya
21. Matt Dembicki
22. Dale Rawlings
23. Paul Zdepski
