Paul Pope has written and drawn some of the most gorgeous comics of the twenty-first century — from “Batman: Year 100,” in which Batman challenges a dystopian surveillance state, to “Battling Boy,” with its adolescent god proving his mettle by fighting giant monsters.
But it’s been more than a decade since Pope’s last major comics work, and in a Zoom interview with TechCrunch, he admitted that the intervening years have had their frustrations. At one point, he held up a large stack of drawings and said the public hasn’t seen any of it yet.
“Making graphic novels is not like making comics,” Pope said. “You’re basically writing a novel, it can take years, and you work with a contract. No one can see the work, so it can be very frustrating.”
Thankfully, the drought is ending. A career-spanning exhibition of Pope’s work just opened at the Philippe Labaune Gallery in New York. An expanded edition of his art book, now titled “PulpHope2: The Art of Paul Pope,” was published in March. And the first volume in a collection of Pope’s self-published science fiction epic “THB” is due in the fall.
It’s all part of what Pope described as “a number of chess moves” designed to “reintroduce” and — he grudgingly admitted — “rebrand” himself.
Pope is reemerging at a fraught time for the comics industry and creativity in general, with publishers and writers suing AI companies while generative AI tools go viral by copying popular artists. He even said that it’s “completely conceivable” that comic book artists could soon be replaced by AI.
The contrast is particularly stark in Pope’s case, since he’s known for largely eschewing digital tools in favor of brushes and ink. But he said he isn’t ruling out taking advantage of AI, which he already uses for research.
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“I’m less concerned about having some random person create some image based on one of my drawings, than I am about killer robots and surveillance and drones,” he said.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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