Paul Pope

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Paul Pope (b. 1972) is a United States alternative comic book artist. Influenced by Ray Bradbury and William S. Burroughs, Pope's stories evoke poignant, under-explored aspects of youth culture. Pope describes his own influences (listed in his book P-City Parade) as Daniel Torres, Bruno Premiani, Jack Kirby, Alex Toth, Tony Salmons, Hugo Pratt, Silvio Cadelo, Vittorio Giardino, and Hergé.

Pope introduced THB in 1995, the same year he began work for Kodansha, Japan's best-known manga publisher. Pope eventually developed the manga Supertrouble for Kodansha, which mined the "cutie-pie" girl adventure vein that THB exists in. Pope has self-published some of his work, with One-Trick Ripoff coming from Dark Horse Comics and Heavy Liquid and 100% published under DC Comics' Vertigo imprint.

Pope's work combines the precision and romance of the European artists he studies with the energy and page design of the manga tradition. His storytelling narratives continue to mature with well-paced, deftly-shaded combinations of science fiction, hardboiled crime stories and the Romeo and Juliet archetype. Pope's two protagonist types are the silent, lanky outsider male of One-Trick Ripoff, Escapo and Heavy Liquid, or the resourceful, aggressive, humorous young teenage girls of THB.

In 2006, Pope received an Eisner Award for Best Short Story for his work, "Teenage Sidekick", published in Solo #3.

Born in Philadelphia, Pope grew up in Bowling Green, Ohio, with stops in Columbus, Ohio, San Francisco, and Toronto in-between, Pope now lives and works in New York City.

1 Current Work
2 Upcoming Work
3 Bibliography
4 External links

[edit] Current Work

In February 2006, DC Comics began publishing Pope's new Batman mini-series, Batman: Year 100, set in 2039, one hundred years after the first appearance of the caped crusader. He comments on the new series, "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 over-arching police state; someone with the body of David Beckham, the brain of Tesla, and the wealth of Howard Hughes... pretending to be Nosferatu." The series is colored by José Villarrubia.

[edit] Upcoming Work

Originally scheduled for Summer 2006, Pope's first art book titled Pulphope: The Art of Paul Pope should be released by Summer 2007. A collection of his most representative work, the 224 page hardcover will be published by AdHouse Books. Pope has also announced that 2007 will see the publication of two original graphic novels, Battling Boy from First Second Books, and La Chica Bionica from French publisher Dargaud.