Charlie Haggard is an artist and illustrator based out of Huntington, West Virginia. This self-taught, independent artist is the creator of the serialized zine, Bearqueft Comix. Known for his rich, colorful, quirky yet relatable character designs, Haggard’s work never fails to delight and amuse his fans.
Outside of Haggard’s work in comics, his artwork is largely centered around the archetypes we see in everyday people around us on a daily basis, presented with a tongue in cheek attitude that always feels a little subversive. One gets the sense when looking at his artwork that Haggard is taking shots at the passersby in his world. Through his artistic lens we see the superficial one-notedness of people on the surface. Like his piece ‘Chips’, we get the signature Haggard style of large rounded heads applied to a rosy-cheeked, gap toothed young man with melty, curving arms. One of these arms curves like liquid with a gardening shovel-like hand into a bag of potato chips labeled “Just Chips”. As the man reaches in formore,we can see the already chewed mash hanging out of the man’s mouth while chewed up pieces fly out around his chin. It’s a look we see in the people around us, kind of revolting but also the way that we feel when all we’re doing and all we want to do is be sitting on the couch just eating “Just Chips.” Like the best types of comedy, we laugh at it out of repulsion while relating and seeing that we’re laughing at ourselves at the same time. Often Haggard steps away from these more grounded archetypes to illustrate something more fantastical with the same humorous bent. For instance, there’s ‘Magic Spell’. Here, Haggard illustrates a knight in full armor sitting with a book at a table in a castle. As the knight flips through the book, a booger looking green spirit flies from one of the pages with a distressed look on its face like it’s trying to escape. Drops of sweat shoot from the knight’s helmet at the sight of the spirit. It’s just colorful, silly, visual fun. Sometimes that’s all we’re looking for in the world and that’s exactly Charlie Haggard’s brand.
