Paul Pope (born September 25, 1970) is an American alternativecartoonist. Pope's work combines the precision and romance of European comics artists with the energy and page design of the manga tradition. Pope's two protagonist types are the silent, lanky outsider male of The One Trick Rip-Off, Escapo, and Heavy Liquid; or the resourceful, aggressive, humorous young teenage girls of THB. He has self-published some of his work, most notably THB, through his own Horse Press, with other work for such publishers as DC Comics/Vertigo and First Second Books.
Pope introduced THB in 1995, the same year he began work for Kodansha, Japan's manga publisher. Pope eventually developed the manga Supertrouble for Kodansha, which mined the "cutie-pie" girl adventure vein that THB exists in. His storytelling narratives continue to mature with well-paced, deftly-shaded combinations of science fiction, hardboiled crime stories and the Romeo and Juliet archetype.
In 2007, Pope won two additional Eisners, Best Writer/Artist and Best Limited Series, for his Batmanmini-series, Batman: Year 100. Discussing the story, which is set in 2039, one hundred years after the first appearance of the caped crusader, Pope said: "I wanted to present a new take on Batman, who is without a doubt a mythic figure in our pop-psyche. My Batman is not only totally science fiction, he's also a very physical superhero: he bleeds, he sweats, he eats. He's someone born into an overarching police state; someone with the body of David Beckham, the brain of Tesla, and the wealth of Howard Hughes... pretending to be Nosferatu." The story, colored by José Villarrubia, was originally presented in a four-part prestige format in 2006. DC Comics later published a trade paperback collecting Batman: Year 100 in early 2007. The trade also includes Pope's "Berlin Batman" story from The Batman Chronicles No. 11. "Berlin Batman" involves a version of Batman who lives in the German Weimar Republic on the eve of World War II. The Weimar Batman helps keep the papers of Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises from falling into Nazi hands. Both Batman stories in the collection reflect implicit libertarian themes that often appear in Pope's work.[2] He also wrote Endgame for Toonami's website and came up with the character Orcelot Rex.[3]
Aside from comics, in the fall of 2006 Pope worked with Italian clothing company Diesel on a big store installation during their fall fashion week campaign, and a screenprint series based on their 'Chelsea Hotel' campaign as a 51st birthday present to Diesel's founder, Renzo Rosso. In the fall of 2008, Pope went a step further by partnering with DKNY to create the DKNY:2089 collection.
Pope's first art book, titled Pulphope: The Art of Paul Pope, came out in June 2007. A collection of his most representative work, the 224-page hardcover was published by AdHouse Books.
In 2009, Pope was featured in The Cartoonist, a documentary film on the life and work of cartoonist Jeff Smith.[4]
Pope spoke at the 2005 New York and 2006 Sydney Semi-Permanent creative conference.[citation needed]
In 2010, Pope served as a Master Artist with the Atlantic Center for the Arts, a Florida-based artists' community providing artists an opportunity to work and collaborate with contemporary artists in the fields of composing, visual, literary, and performing arts.[5]
^"New Publisher, New Artist, New Graphic Novel: Horse Press Launches New Line with Paul Pope's Sin Titulo," The Comics Journal #152 (Aug. 1992), p. 12.
^"Paul Pope to Release Dr. Richardson," The Comics Journal No. 163 (Nov. 1993), p. 25.
Sources
Mescallado, Ray. Two-part interview with Pope in The Comics Journal No. 191 (Nov. 1996) and 192 (Dec. 1996)
