The World of Paul Pope

19 x 24

Character Roll Call: THB, HR Watson, Bumble Buzz, Super-Meks and Pope-Mek from THB. From Battling Boy: Haggard and Aurora West, Battling Boy and his father, Sadisto, Stain and various monster army minions. “S” and his shadow “Mr. Radiowave Spaceman” from Heavy Liquid. Adam Strange from Wednesday Comics. Batman from Batman: Year 100. From 100%, one of Eloy’s kettles.

Note: Above Batman, Pope also includes the Joker ??

********************************************

This commission started with a thought experiment: “what if Paul Pope drew a wraparound cover for an omnibus collection or career retrospective of his work?” The result conveys the breadth and quality of Pope’s work across creator-owned and mainstream comics over the last 30 years.

I was thrilled to see just how much love for THB Paul shows on this piece. While it wasn’t his first comic, Pope made his bones with his self-published comic about a young girl on Mars and her super-powered bodyguard and it’s clear he still has a lot of affection for the series and its characters. It’s fitting, then, that Pope positions THB prominently on the “front” of the cover, flanked by the Batman from his Year 100 story. HR Watson hovers overhead and exclaims “THB!”—a charming touch and one of several examples of Pope adding his distinctive lettering to the piece. I couldn’t ask for a better set of Pope characters to anchor the commission.

If Pope’s early and mid-career work dominates the “front” of this hypothetical cover, then characters from Battling Boy, his most recent published project, dominate the “back.” Battling Boy’s father strikes a Super-Mek from THB, while his son, Battling Boy (garbed in his T-Rex shirt imparting the powers of a Tyrannosaurus) battles Sadisto and his monster army minions. Haggard and Aurora West, heroes of Arcopolis, also appear prominently.

While characters from THB, Batman: Year 100, and Battling Boy loom largest, Pope also includes characters from other signature projects like “S,” the Paul Pope lookalike main character from Heavy Liquid, with his shadow, “Mr. Radiowave Spaceman,” just behind. Adam Strange, from Pope’s Wednesday Comics serial, launches into the air with a heroic “Hup!”. From 100%, Pope adds one of the kettles from Eloy’s art installation in the lower left above his signature.

Speaking of 100%, the lack of characters from that series reads as an oversight at first, unless you’re familiar with the series. Eloy’s kettles are used throughout as a significant recurring symbol—most strikingly on the cover of the second issue and in the introductory pages of the collected 100%. I read the omission of characters from 100% as a choice made to emphasize Pope’s most visually impactful and dynamic characters. I think it’s the right choice, because it helps to establish a composition in which multiple characters (Adam Strange, Battling Boy’s father, HR Watson) move along the horizontal and vertical planes in a more visually compelling way than a piece populated by Pope’s street-level characters might.

The flourishes of movement Pope imparts to a career retrospective piece like this can be read as a statement for where he is at this point in his career. Many creators could rest on the foundation of the work they completed and were celebrated for earlier in their career. Were Pope of that mindset, one could imagine him filling this retrospective with dozens of static character headshots and poses. Instead, the commission’s collision of characters—flying, exclaiming, and battling—suggests Pope’s creations occupy an energetic and dynamic imaginative space. To me, this signals that Pope isn’t content to rest on his creative laurels and that even better work lies ahead. As both an original art collector and a longtime reader of his work, I can’t wait to see what’s next.

I’m a reluctant commissioner so this piece was a leap into the unknown. Thanks to Paul for his incredible brushwork and for the decades of stories that inspired this commission and to Felix Lu for being the most collector and creator friendly art rep in the business.