Reilly Hadden ′15 is a stay-at-home father and the hard-working cartoonist behind Astral Birth Canal. The 2-year project (and continuing) is a collection of short and longer stories by Reilly that started as part of his thesis project here at The Center for Cartoon Studies. He currently funds his comic work through Patreon, releasing a mini comic every month from eight to sixteen pages. He also posts Patreon-only comics. Reilly did the following interview with Angela Boyle ′16.

Can you define the overarching mythos of the Astral Birth Canal universe?

Astral Birth Canal is a cosmic fantasy comic about gods and monsters and bird people and children in peril. It’s also an ongoing mini-comic anthology where I can make whatever types of comics that I would like, depending on how I’m feeling at any moment. For example, the stories range from giant space gods discussing creationist concepts, to kids dealing with scary monsters, to the current story about a woman who lives in my old neighborhood in Brooklyn, who is a pro wrestler and works at Trader Joe’s. So it’s not really a “universe” more like a multiverse, I guess. And in the stories, the “astral birth canal” is a literal road between dimensions/universes/whatever.

There are also some side-series that are exclusive to my subscribers on Patreon (wink wink). One is called Finch Island about a middle aged dad on a mid-life crisis nature retreat that’s co-written by my dad (director and playwright John Hadden).

Tags: Anna McGlynn, Astral Birth Canal, Audry Basch, Bridget Comeau, Cartoon Studies, Cooper Whittlesey, Dean Sudarsky, Hannah Kaplan, Iona Woolmington, James Sturm, Jenna Marchione, John Carvajal, Josh Bayer, Luke Healy, Patreon, Reilly Hadden, Simon Reinhardt, Sophie Yanow, Stephanie Zuppo, Stephen R. Bissette, Tillie Walden