Paul Pope
Nine books, nine years: An incomplete history of AdHouse
some of AdHouse/AdDistro's recent releases
A hearty and heartfelt congratulations to publisher Chris Pitzer on the ninth anniversary of the formation of his fine line of comics, AdHouse Books (and more recently its distribution wing, AdDistro). Pitzer is marking the occasion by telling the stories behind nine of the company’s releases, and the result is a mix insight into the kinds of challenges any small-press comics publisher must face, and the qualities that make this particular small-press comics publisher such a valuable one.
With an output ranging from high-end art books like Paul Pope’s Pulphope and James Jean’s Process Recess to thoughtful graphic novels like Josh Cotter’s Skyscrapers of the Midwest and Adam Hines’s Duncan the Wonder Dog, it’s tough to say exactly what “an AdHouse book” will be like, but with Pitzer’s attention to design and reproduction behind every one, you generally can count on it being gorgeous. And as the stories told by Pitzer about books like Pulpatoon Pilgrimage, Skyscrapers, Duncan and so on indicate, the chances are also good that he’s gone to bat for a largely unknown and unpublished talent. That’s an admirable thing for a publisher to do once, let alone over and over again for nearly a decade.
- December 20, 2011 @ 10:00 AM by Sean T. Collins
NYCC | A round-up of Saturday news
Avengers Assemble
Saturday at the New York Comic Con brought news for the Avengers, Superman, Legendary Comics and … Disney’s Prep & Landing? Here’s a round-up of announcements from the show today.
• With a big, blockbuster Avengers movie scheduled for next May, Marvel announced a new ongoing series, Avengers Assemble, by writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Mark Bagley. The book will launch next March and will feature most of the Avengers featured in the movie — Iron Man, Captain America, Black Widow, Hawkeye and the Hulk. The first arc will feature the villainous group the Zodiac.
• Speaking of that big, blockbuster Avengers movie, fans were treated to new footage from it featuring Bruce Banner and the Black Widow. Tom Hiddleston spoke to CBR about his work on the film.
• Marvel also announced that writer Rick Remender and artist Gabriel Hardman will take over Secret Avengers with issue #21.1, adding new members and pitting them against a new Masters of Evil.
• At the Cup O’ Joe panel today, Marvel also announced a Disney/Marvel crossover — Prep & Landing: Mansion: Impossible. It features the elves from the Disney television special who prepare homes for the arrival of Santa Claus every Christmas eve — only this time they’re trying to break into Avengers Mansion to get it ready for Santa. Written by director Kevin Deters and drawn by story artist Joe Mateo, the story will run in the back of the Marvel Adventures books as well as Avengers #19 in November.
- October 15, 2011 @ 08:42 PM by JK Parkin
SDCC ’11 | A roundup of Saturday’s announcements
Saga
Three down, one to go … here’s a list of the major comics-related announcements made at Comic-Con International in San Diego on Saturday:
• A number of new projects were announced or promoted at Image’s Creator-Owned Comics panel, not the least of which is the return of Brian K. Vaughan to comic books. Vaughan will write a book called Saga, which is co-created and drawn by Fiona Staples. Vaughan told CBR that the book is “an epic drama chronicling the life and times of one young family fighting to survive a never-ending war. 100 percent creator-owned. Ongoing. Monthly. Fiona and I are banking issues now.”
• Image also announced that Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman is collaborating with Charlie Adlard on a new series of graphic novels called Album. The books will be released roughly 18 months apart, 60 pages long, with different themes each year, with the first being Passenger. It’s co-published with Delcourt in France and will be available simultaneously in English and France.
• Jonathan Hickman and Nicky Pitarra will team up for The Manhattan Projects at Image. Hickman is also doing a book called Secret with artist Ryan Godenheim.
- July 24, 2011 @ 08:32 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
SDCC ’10 | Legendary announces new titles from Pope, Wagner [UPDATED]
The Tower Chronicles
Legendary Comics announced at its panel this afternoon at Comic-Con International that it will publish new projects from Paul Pope and Matt Wagner.
Set for release this holiday season, PulpHope is a more than 200-page retrospective of Pope’s career, featuring many pieces that haven’t been seen before. A previous edition was published in 2007 by AdHouse Books.
The Tower Chronicles, developed by Wagner with Legendary CEO Thomas Tull, is a supernatural action-adventure about a bounty hunter with a hidden past who, backed by a team of high-tech mercenaries, protects civilians from the things that go bump in the night.
“We are thrilled to be working with Pope and Wagner on these upcoming projects for Legendary Comics,” Editor-in-Chief Bob Schreck said in a statement. “Just as our film division works with the best-in-class talent and filmmakers to produce content for the fandom demographic, so too will Legendary Comics move forward on our mandate to publish works from the best in A the industry.”
Legendary also will release Frank Miller’s Holy Terror in September.
Update: The Hollywood Reporter reports that Simon Bisley will provide artwork for the Tower Chronicles. They also provide additional details on the PulpHope book, calling it “a revamped version of the artist’s out-of-print art book titled PulpHope, stripping away 100 pages and throwing in 100 new ones incorporating work Pope has done in the music, toy and clothing spheres, as well as other material.”
- July 23, 2011 @ 05:00 PM by Kevin Melrose
Paul Pope original art sale explosion
Renowned Canadian comics retailer and art dealer the Beguiling has just made a massive selection of original art from Paul Pope available for purchase. Virtually everything that the cartoonist has touched over the past ten years is represented here in some form: THB, Batman Year 100, Spider-Man: Tangled Web, Strange Tales, Fantastic Four, the Star Trek comic he did with J.J. Abrams for Wired, illustration work for Diesel and DKNY, posters for the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, unseen and unused sketches and pinups…Best of all, there’s something for buyers of nearly every budget, as the prices range from a princely three grand all the way down to a measly $50.
“I remember how it felt to be a kid in school and have no money but a passion for art so Beguiling always prices out some inexpensive art,” Pope tweeted, complete with a smiley-face emoticon. Even if you’re only just looking, this stuff’ll put a smile on your face, too. But if you are in the buying mood, better hurry, as it looks like stuff’s going fast.
- June 15, 2011 @ 05:00 AM by Sean T. Collins
Your Wednesday Sequence 13 | Paul Pope
Pulphope (2007), page 32. Paul Pope.
Creating the illusion of movement is one of the main goals of comics art. It’s what sequence is there for. That said, it’s not the hardest thing to do when the movement in question is that of human figures or familiar machines. Dynamic posing and composition work quite nicely much of the time, even when it isn’t quite certain where the movement is being directed, or how. Comics have a library of stock gestures and shot transitions for artists to pull from in order to sell their action. Creating a sense of real life on the page is one thing, but to simply put some jump in the pictures, two words — “copy Kirby” — are often all that’s needed.
However, that’s only true as long as the artist is dealing with easily recognizable forms. Abstract comics have become a more and more significant part of the dialogue surrounding the art form over the past few years, and artists in that section of the medium are faced with a different set of challenges. How does one animate pure shape or color or linework, how can these things be convincingly brought to life? It’s not a question with a solid answer yet. There’s no How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way for abstraction, no solid set of rules cartoonists can turn to to string their non-figurative drawings into sequences that work as comics, accumulations of images that build power and function as more than the sum of their parts. I think it’s probable that one day some artist is going to come along and lay down a broad, workable grammar for abstract comics the way Kirby did for action or Ernie Bushmiller did for gags, but until then abstract comics are shots in the dark, unarmed forays into unknown territory.
- June 1, 2011 @ 04:00 PM by Matt Seneca
Vertigo reveals cover, contents of Strange Adventures
Strange Adventures #1
Vertigo has released the cover and more details on Strange Adventures, the science fiction anthology they plan to publish in May.
The cover, above, is by Paul Pope, and as previously reported, the first issue will include a chapter of Spaceman by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso, which will get its own series from Vertigo in the fall. Other contributors include Jeff Lemire, Ross Campbell, Kevin Colden, Peter Milligan, Paul Cornell, Denys Cowan and many others. You can find the complete table of contents after the jump.
- April 28, 2011 @ 10:30 AM by JK Parkin
Paul Pope shows off process for new “Liberty Tree” print for CBLDF
Although he’s constantly at work, every new bit of Paul Pope art that’s released is like catnip for a certain section of comic fans — including me.
So it comes with particular delight to not only receive news that the artist is doing a new fine art print for CBLDF, but that he did a process video showing how it was made as well as talking about why he’s doing it for CBLDF. Here’s the video:
The print is available if you buy a $500 or $1000 membership with the CBLDF. The video was directed and shot by Shahriar Shadab, with music by Sons of the West.
- March 30, 2011 @ 01:00 PM by Chris Arrant
Paul Pope’s variant cover for Dark Horse Presents #1
Dark Horse Presents cover by Paul Pope
Dark Horse catches a tiger by the tail with a “special ultra-rare” variant cover by Paul Pope for the upcoming Dark Horse Presents reboot. Retailers will receive one copy with the variant cover for every 20 copies they order, which no doubt means they’ll be fetching a high price from your local retailer. Personally I’d love to see it released as a print.
- February 23, 2011 @ 06:00 AM by JK Parkin
Better than coal: First Second leaks pages from Paul Pope’s Battling Boy
Battling Boy
Here’s a nice pre-Christmas treat … First Second has started “leaking” some of the artwork for Paul Pope’s long-awaited Battling Boy project on their blog. Check’em out here and here. Those of you with long memories may remember that Pope told us earlier this year that Battling Boy will come out in 2011, and hopefully these teasers mean it will be sooner rather than later.
- December 23, 2010 @ 12:26 PM by JK Parkin
Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival unveils artist-packed programming schedule
Programming Director Bill Kartalopoulos has released the programming schedule for the upcoming 2nd annual Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival, taking place on Saturday, Dec. 4 in Williamsburg, and it’s a doozy. Lynda Barry & Charles Burns and Françoise Mouly & Sammy Harkham will be paired off in panels that are perhaps the highlight of the show, while other spotlighted cartoonists include Golden Age artist Irwin Hasen (in conversation with Paul Pope, Evan Dorkin, and Dan Nadel) and Big Questions author Anders Nilsen, who drew the still-awesome poster you see above.
Check out the full schedule in the BCGF press release after the jump.
- November 18, 2010 @ 01:00 PM by Sean T. Collins
Paul Pope talks Battling Boy, DJing and the new THB
Screengrab from the upcoming documentary 'Soul Trading' about the Thee Hypnotics (Director Phil Staines, Cinematographer Andrew Foster)
Paul Pope is comics’ closest equivalent to a rock star.
It’s a reputation he’s garnered by both his comics works and his personality — and by the fact he’s an active DJ. He now splits his time between New York City and Europe, the latter of which is the first to see some of his anthology work. Last weekend, Pope and AdHouse Books stealth-released a new issue of his seminal series THB at Baltimore Comic-Con, with extra copies now available on AdHouse’s website. The unique nature of this release was due in no small part to Pope being off the shelves of American comic book stores for years while he completes the graphic novel Battling Boy for First Second.
Just moments after riding back from Baltimore, I spoke with Pope about the new THB, as well as Battling Boy and a creation of his even more rare than the new THB.
- September 3, 2010 @ 05:30 PM by Chris Arrant
Take a look at color pages from Paul Pope’s Battling Boy
From Paul Pope's "Battling Boy"
Artist Paul Pope and colorist Nathan Schreiber have released what I think is our first look at color pages from Battling Boy, Pope’s highly anticipated — and much-delayed — graphic novel from First Second Books.
Announced in 2007, Battling Boy centers on the son of a god (or perhaps superhero) who’s sent down from the top of a mountain by his father to rid the continent-sized city of Monstropolis of the monsters that plague it. This is the fabled comic with “horrible, Grimm’s fairytale, Beowulf-ish monsters” and 50-page fight scenes.
It was suggested back in March that Battling Boy initially could be serialized online, presumably as part of First Second’s TBC/To Be Continued initiative. However, no additional information has been released.
- July 30, 2010 @ 03:00 PM by Kevin Melrose
Paul Pope does the Beatles
Abbey Road by Paul Pope
Come together, right now, over the author of Batman Year 100: Yesterday Paul Pope posted a sketch of the iconic cover of the Beatles’ swan song Abbey Road. It kinda makes me want to see bearded, white-suited John Lennon have sexy science-fiction adventures, but then again, I usually do.
- July 8, 2010 @ 01:00 PM by Sean T. Collins
Bizarro cartoonist Dan Piraro wins 2010 Reuben Award
"Bizarro," by Dan Piraro
Bizarro creator Dan Piraro won the 2010 Reuben Award for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year, presented over the weekend by the National Cartoonists Society. He beat out fellow nominees Stephan Pastis (Pearls Before Swine) and Richard Thompson (Cul de Sac).
The organization also 13 divisional awards in categories ranging from feature animation to book illustration to comic books. Paul Pope won the latter for “Strange Adventures,” his Adam Strange strip serialized in DC’s Wednesday Comics, while David Mazzucchelli took home the graphic novels award for his critically acclaimed Asterios Polyp.
The full list of divisional winners can be found after the break:
- June 1, 2010 @ 10:00 AM by Kevin Melrose