Latest / 22 Panels - A Comic Book Podcast / With Great Power #279... 22 Panels with Paul Pope

Transcript

With Great Power #279... 22 Panels with Paul Pope · 22 Panels - A Comic Book Podcast

0:00
Colin Corr: Thank you.
0:01
Tad Eggleston: Good evening, everybody. Welcome back to 22 Panels. Co-hosting tonight for the first time is, is one of my comic ship guys, Colin Cock… Comic Shop, not Ship, Comic Shop guys, Colin, and that's because he is a major fan of, of…
0:20
Tad Eggleston: The gentleman joining us for the second time, Mr. Paul Pope. How's it going, Paul?
0:26
paul pope: Groovy, dude. No, it's good. It's a chilly Sunday night in New York City. Hello, everyone.
0:33
paul pope: Very honored to be back, and lots of news we can share, and I'm sure we'll skip all over the place with topics, as usual.
0:40
Tad Eggleston: Well, since Colin hadn't actually heard this story, and I was so touched that you remembered, we're gonna start with my personal story, which is, like, I wound up with Paul's…
0:51
Tad Eggleston: phone numbers, so I can actually text him, and he hasn't decided to block me or anything, which is the.
0:58
Colin Corr: It's funny. Yeah, hey everyone, this is Colin.
1:00
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, so, I gotta… as all of our listeners know,
1:06
Tad Eggleston: about 2 years ago, actually, I guess it's two and a half years ago, it was, like, January, or February 23, I think.
1:12
Tad Eggleston: I got a concussion, and while I was in the emergency room, I was reading… Mark Russell's…
1:20
Tad Eggleston: Batman… or no, Superman Space Age, with Mike read doing art.
1:25
Colin Corr: And the Batman in that…
1:27
Tad Eggleston: looked like Paul Pope's Batman 100, and then I turned the page, and the Bruce Wayne looked like Paul Pope. I'm like, wait a minute.
1:35
paul pope: This…
1:37
Tad Eggleston: And I had a concussion, so I didn't even, like, think about, oh, I'm just… I'm gonna ask Paul about this.
1:43
Colin Corr: I remember you bringing it to the store.
1:46
Tad Eggleston: So I texted him a screenshot from the comic, and we texted about whether or not… I still haven't confirmed. I've talked to Mark a couple of times since then, but either he hasn't asked.
1:57
Tad Eggleston: Mike, or… or he won't tell me. One or the other.
2:02
paul pope: That's funny. I… I don't… I don't know, but there is a funny story, but you guys remember 100 Bullets, one of the best…
2:08
Tad Eggleston: Oh, yeah.
2:09
paul pope: It's coming back. I got a chance to see some of the art when… Praya Nesarella was in town last month, and we hung out.
2:18
paul pope: And it's gonna be big. I think it's really… it's going to be great. But early on in 100 Bullets.
2:24
paul pope: Brian's like, hey, can we…
2:27
paul pope: We want to use you as a character in the book.
2:31
paul pope: And,
2:32
paul pope: We went through… we went through Warner Brothers Legal, so they had to… they had to license photographs from me.
2:38
Tad Eggleston: Somehow, the process was too slow, so they wound up making this character somebody else.
2:43
paul pope: However, the character is…
2:47
paul pope: kind of not very likable. He's like a wimpy painter, artist guy, and then one of the Minutemen, I forget which one it was, the guy with, like, the kind of California-looking guy with curly long…
2:58
Tad Eggleston: Okay.
2:58
paul pope: Brown here, that guy. He comes and steals the girlfriend.
3:02
Tad Eggleston: Okay.
3:02
paul pope: And I'm like, you know, it's better off I wasn't in this book.
3:05
paul pope: Like, why did you… why couldn't you have ripped me in as a Minuteman?
3:08
Colin Corr: Literally touched before.
3:09
paul pope: I could have been Cole.
3:12
paul pope: I could, you know, somebody. Anyway, that's… that's my… that's my funny story. But yeah, Mike and I…
3:17
Tad Eggleston: Love it.
3:17
paul pope: Mike and I have a running joke about that. I mean, I've done some art for Madman in,
3:22
paul pope: I have a THB piece he did for me, which is gonna be published in… I think the fourth volume of THB is all the short stories and pinups.
3:30
Tad Eggleston: Oh, nice. We got a bunch of guest artists, I mean, Jeff Smith, Terry Moore.
3:34
paul pope: Allred, Jay Stevens…
3:36
Tad Eggleston: Both, or at least the first two are both 22 panels.
3:41
Tad Eggleston: Guests.
3:42
paul pope: Oh, yeah.
3:42
Tad Eggleston: was… Terry… Terry Moore was actually on… Couple of weeks ago.
3:46
paul pope: Oh, yeah, he's…
3:47
Tad Eggleston: Kickstarter.
3:48
paul pope: He's a beautiful guy, man. I mean, when we first started self-publishing, it was around the same time, and we just became good friends. Back in the day, before, smartphones, you know, like, he'd call me in the middle of the night.
4:01
paul pope: And you never know who's calling, right? Because it's just the phone rings, and it's like, you know what, it's like midnight, I better pick this up, it might be something important.
4:08
paul pope: Because who calls anybody at midnight?
4:11
Tad Eggleston: artists?
4:12
Tad Eggleston: at their table, you're also at your table.
4:15
paul pope: Yeah, we would just talk on the phone, while he's working, I'm working, and we'd talk about Led Zeppelin, or Inking, or Carl Sagan, or anything, you know, so… good memories.
4:24
Tad Eggleston: Right, so,
4:26
Tad Eggleston: You brought up THB, so that takes us perfectly into it. The first collected volume of THB is recently published from 23rd Street Books.
4:37
Tad Eggleston: Give us the front counter pitch, particularly because I asked Colin to join us late enough that he's ordered his copy, but not read it yet, so… Okay. Finally.
4:48
Colin Corr: I'm excited to read it, because I know it hasn't been collected for so long. What's been the…
4:52
paul pope: It's never been collected.
4:54
Colin Corr: Exactly.
4:54
paul pope: I did… I did only, first editions of everything, because I was on a pretty small budget as a self-publisher.
5:01
paul pope: And there were always plans to collect
5:04
paul pope: But at some point, when I kind of gradually shifted over into mainstream comics, started working on Captain America and Batman, these kind of things, which was a very good decision on my part.
5:15
paul pope: Because I had to get out of the,
5:18
paul pope: I was in sort of, like… I feel like I was stuck in kind of an estuary with self-publishing, where Terry Moore and Jeff Smith, their numbers were getting bigger and bigger, all the guys at Image were just getting bigger and bigger, and somehow THB was stuck. I mean, it's still good numbers. I was doing around 15,000, I think.
5:34
paul pope: At the height of it.
5:37
Tad Eggleston: I know a lot of people at Image that would love those numbers today.
5:40
paul pope: Well, now, yeah.
5:41
Colin Corr: Yeah, yeah.
5:42
Tad Eggleston: So, yeah.
5:44
paul pope: I took, I took the licensing to, McMillan.
5:48
paul pope: I almost went to Scholastic, that's where Jeff, Jeff took Bone.
5:53
Colin Corr: Yep.
5:53
paul pope: And I think he did another book with them, if I'm not mistaken, but because I always wanted…
5:58
Tad Eggleston: Turkey is… a turkey stern.
6:01
paul pope: I think, I think you're right, yeah, it's,
6:04
paul pope: Because I wanted international licensing rights, that's always one thing, that's always been on my mind since the beginning.
6:11
paul pope: And, yeah, so the first book is out, and the second one is coming in July 26th, and that's the one I'm… it's such a satisfying read, it's such a good story. I mean, I'm trying to say this objectively, I mean, I did make it, but…
6:26
Tad Eggleston: Like, I…
6:26
Colin Corr: We believe you, trust us.
6:28
paul pope: Well, I think that was… And when you read Volume 1, and then you see Volume 2, there's a…
6:34
paul pope: dramatic shift in style and design and intention, because I worked in between for 5 years making manga.
6:42
paul pope: and eventually living in Japan for a little while.
6:45
paul pope: For Kodansha.
6:47
paul pope: who did Akira and Vagabond. In fact, Vagabond was coming out when I was there.
6:51
paul pope: But, long story short.
6:54
paul pope: Thb, I think, was a bit ahead of its time. It's, now it's topical, which is strange, because it actually does deal with AI.
7:02
Colin Corr: Wow.
7:02
Tad Eggleston: It does.
7:03
paul pope: Yeah, I mean, I was thinking about this…
7:05
Tad Eggleston: AI element, it definitely has the…
7:08
paul pope: That's right.
7:08
Tad Eggleston: corporate versus art element. It's got, got, you know…
7:13
paul pope: Well, the long… the elevator.
7:15
Tad Eggleston: And capitalism up against each other.
7:17
paul pope: Yeah, that's true, and so,
7:21
paul pope: Yeah, organization versus chaos. I mean, there's a lot of themes that I think fit well in the science fiction world. And then the key to THB is… THB is the name of the story, it's also a character in the book.
7:32
paul pope: And the book is about a teenage girl whose name is H.R,
7:37
paul pope: And she's kind of a sheltered, like, catholic schoolgirl type.
7:43
paul pope: Who really wants to see the world, and she has a huge crush on this musician.
7:48
paul pope: Who's friends with her, like, stepbrother, and
7:53
paul pope: In this world, her father manufactured robots and AI, and he makes a special
8:01
paul pope: AI companion for her to protect her.
8:03
paul pope: When he's gone.
8:05
paul pope: And, so the story is about the emerging relationship between THB, which
8:12
paul pope: It's an interesting character, because he's a tiny little gumball-shaped… You know, I'm…
8:18
Tad Eggleston: Super Bowl.
8:19
paul pope: It's like a super… yeah, Super Bowl, basically.
8:20
Tad Eggleston: The Super Bowl.
8:21
paul pope: You can bounce them, and you can put them in your pocket, you know.
8:24
paul pope: But when he gets wet, he springs to life into this 9-foot-tall superorganism that is extremely intelligent, but doesn't say what it knows.
8:34
paul pope: And it's like, it's like her super, her personal superhero.
8:37
Colin Corr: Wow.
8:38
paul pope: And so as the story develops, we get to see…
8:40
Tad Eggleston: One fatal flaw that if he dries out, he goes back to being the ball.
8:45
paul pope: Yeah, exactly, because he, he, he has sort of a respiratory system. The more action he does in the duration where he's activated.
8:55
paul pope: he breathes, I'm putting
8:57
paul pope: air quotes around breaths. And then he will involuntarily go back into the ball. So that's… every superhero needs a weakness.
9:05
paul pope: Right? So that's his weakness. And then, yes, the story's about the two of them, and then there's this big, kind of, like, behind-the-scenes
9:12
paul pope: I guess kind of a conspiracy that she gets involved in.
9:16
paul pope: And then suddenly she's a fugitive, and then she and THP need to figure out how to save themselves. And then along the way, she meets a whole bunch of artists and…
9:25
paul pope: just cool people, and there's a lot of, like, meta stuff about comic books. So, like, in the book, they read comic books, and one of the characters is a screen printer, like I am.
9:34
paul pope: And he makes posters for, the band.
9:38
paul pope: that her, her crush is a member of, and I make…
9:43
paul pope: Screen prints for rock bands, you know, frequently.
9:47
paul pope: And so, yeah, it was just sort of like I threw anything at the wall that worked, but the strange thing is now, 2025, 2026,
9:54
paul pope: Strangely, the story is contemporary. It is no longer science fiction. So I think maybe its time has finally come.
10:01
Tad Eggleston: Well, except for the Mars part.
10:03
paul pope: Well, I mean, you know, expansion has always been on people's minds, especially the explorer types.
10:09
Tad Eggleston: Right.
10:10
Colin Corr: We got Space Force now.
10:12
paul pope: Yeah, well, for what that's worth.
10:13
Colin Corr: Yeah, exactly.
10:14
paul pope: I got a quarter, where's the pinball machine?
10:16
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, exactly.
10:17
Tad Eggleston: They cost more than a quarter now.
10:20
Tad Eggleston: They're coming back!
10:22
Tad Eggleston: When I was in Columbus for CXC this year.
10:27
paul pope: to that place?
10:28
Tad Eggleston: I…
10:29
paul pope: In German Village, the two-story pinball place. I got a good… I got a good story about that place, but yeah, I don't want to…
10:35
Tad Eggleston: No, my friend, my friend Katie, who's the… the volunteer coordinator, is like…
10:41
Tad Eggleston: She's a serious pinball person, so, like, she's a.
10:44
paul pope: Oh, yeah.
10:44
Tad Eggleston: all leagues and, and…
10:46
paul pope: Oh, yeah.
10:47
Tad Eggleston: Wow. So I… I needed to know what it was all about, so I'm like, you gotta just take me to a pinball place. I wanna watch you play. I wanna see, like, what this obsession is.
10:58
Tad Eggleston: So, yeah, I… She actually bumped into one of her league people in Columbus. They were in town for a wedding, but…
11:05
paul pope: No kidding. Had to go out to the pinball place.
11:09
paul pope: Sorry, go ahead.
11:10
Colin Corr: Yeah, if you ever come to Chicago, Galloping Ghost, the world's largest arcade, is around here, and they have a whole building dedicated to pinball.
11:18
paul pope: Wow. What's interesting about their machines there is every machine that they have is a gimmick machine.
11:24
Colin Corr: For instance, there'd be, like, a Frankenstein machine where you play pinball, and there's a pinball machine within the pinball machine. Or Pac-Man Jr, which actually links a Pac-Man video game to a pinball machine. Very fun. Yeah, that's a classic. I mean, just the novelty of it.
11:40
paul pope: What was the name of, that pinball place, do you remember?
11:44
Tad Eggleston: I don't know if the one that I went to was two stories.
11:49
paul pope: It might not be, it's been a while.
11:51
Tad Eggleston: to video games, and I heard that it was somewhat newer?
11:56
paul pope: Oh, okay, it might be a…
11:58
paul pope: Well, there was a place in… German Village, for those who don't know, it's like the old… it's one of the old… there's a lot of breweries in Columbus, Ohio, for some reason, and German Village, they just…
12:08
Tad Eggleston: college town.
12:09
Colin Corr: What a nice thing to do.
12:11
Tad Eggleston: Old North Arcade Bar was the one that I went to.
12:14
paul pope: Oh, okay, I don't remember if that was the same one, but .
12:17
Tad Eggleston: I Street.
12:18
paul pope: Oh, it was on High Street. No, this… I don't think this one was on… High Street is, like, the main street in Colorado.
12:23
Tad Eggleston: Level 1 Bar and Arcade that has pinball, there are two places called Pins Mechanical Company, one on Worth and one on 4th.
12:31
paul pope: Okay, geez, it's been… trying to remember…
12:34
Tad Eggleston: Oh, no, there's a… well, no, that one's in Dublin, Ohio, which isn't quite… There's a lot of… I just… I just googled Pinball Columbus, and there's a lot of… There's a lot.
12:43
Colin Corr: Well, I'm glad it's coming back then, because everyone loves pinball.
12:47
paul pope: Yeah, there's a pinball league here. I have a friend who plays in a league in Brooklyn, and there, you know, there's, like, in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where I used to live.
12:55
paul pope: There's a place called Sunshine Laundry, and it's literally a laundromat, like, you go and you throw your clothes in. But in the back, there's a… there's… on the back wall, there's a machine. That isn't a machine. You pull the door open, there's a giant pinball arcade in the back with a bar.
13:10
paul pope: And it's like, you would never know it's there.
13:12
Colin Corr: Like a speaker.
13:13
paul pope: easy. It's kind of like a, yeah, like a laundromat.
13:16
Tad Eggleston: See, like…
13:17
Colin Corr: Up front.
13:18
Tad Eggleston: This is what I don't get. Why on earth Wood.
13:23
Tad Eggleston: you decide to supplement your deli or whatever with a freakin' roulette machine, which it seems like all of the delis around where I live are, oh, you can bet here! But is it actually that much more money than a good
13:40
Tad Eggleston: Good arcade, where they're not expecting to get any money back?
13:44
paul pope: Yeah, that's… I asked the owner of that place once, because he was slowly collecting
13:49
paul pope: So, like, when I lived there, like, I was where I would do my laundry.
13:54
paul pope: Like, one day there's a pinball machine in there. Oh, cool, I'll play pinball while I'm waiting for my laundry. And then there's suddenly three.
14:01
paul pope: And then he had, like, the one that I liked a lot, there was a Spider-Man pinball machine that, for some reason, was really good.
14:07
paul pope: And then I asked him one time, he's like, oh yeah, no, this is what I'm doing, I'm… I'm…
14:12
paul pope: I, you know, I use my money to buy pinball machines, and I'm going to buy the back of this building, and I'm gonna open an arcade.
14:21
paul pope: And I thought he was insane.
14:23
paul pope: And then I moved back to Manhattan, so now I live in SoHo, in Greenwich Village.
14:28
paul pope: And I went back over there, and someone told me that there… I was like, oh, that place used to do my laundry there.
14:34
paul pope: And sure enough, he opened a pin… an arcade. He has, like, 50 machines back there.
14:39
Tad Eggleston: Right?
14:40
paul pope: Good for him.
14:41
Tad Eggleston: I mean, what else are you gonna do while you wait for your clothes to dry?
14:46
paul pope: Well, there is a barback.
14:47
Tad Eggleston: bring a book, you're in good shape. But otherwise, you already have the quarters.
14:52
paul pope: Yeah, yeah, right. There's a really good… That's true. There's a really… we're giving an endorsement. I'm not making any money from this endorsement, but there's a good pizza place across the street called For Nino, and they have a wood-fired grill, and…
15:04
paul pope: I went in there one time, and I had the best wood-fire grilled clams. Like, just a bowl of clams.
15:11
paul pope: You know, they're just perfect. I didn't know I liked clamps till I became a grown-up.
15:17
paul pope: So, yeah.
15:18
Colin Corr: Just takes one.
15:19
Tad Eggleston: Wait a minute, you grew up…
15:21
paul pope: Believe it or not.
15:23
Tad Eggleston: Paul, I'm so disappointed.
15:25
Colin Corr: It all comes for us eventually.
15:27
paul pope: Well, there is still, like, the… you know, the beauty about making comic books, or probably even reading comic books, is that,
15:35
paul pope: You're able to access that child.
15:37
paul pope: the childlike quality, right? Like, THB was a thing I used to think about when I was a kid. I didn't know what it was yet, but it was… I had this fantasy about,
15:47
paul pope: like…
15:48
paul pope: dropping water on… I think I was watching a Tex Avery cartoon, actually. It was, House of Tomorrow.
15:54
paul pope: There's, like, a house that can fold up into, like, a little box.
15:58
paul pope: And then it's like this… it was just a great idea, and I started, like, God, how cool would that be if I had a robot that I could…
16:05
paul pope: he could be my friend, and it just… I'd get him wet, and he turns into a big robot, nobody knows.
16:10
paul pope: You know, and so, just over the years, I started… I kept thinking about this idea, and adding to it, and adding to it, and…
16:18
paul pope: You know, then, when I started self-publishing.
16:20
paul pope: in my 20s, I just was like, you know what, I think… I think there's enough here I can make a series out of this. And it's different enough that it's not like another, you know, like… at the time, Image had so many characters like Wise Blood, and Youngblood, and Bloodsport, and Bloodbag, and…
16:36
paul pope: Bag Sport, you know, like, these kinds… I'm like, I don't want to do another character like that, so let me…
16:41
paul pope: I like science fiction, I like… absurd humor, like Tex Avery.
16:46
paul pope: So I just threw all that stuff together, and…
16:49
paul pope: then we just sat on it forever, and now it's coming out, and it looks like it's doing well, so… I'm pretty stoked about it.
16:55
Colin Corr: In collecting all those ideas, did you actually write them down, keep a journal, or did you just keep them all up in your head?
17:01
paul pope: Oh, no, no.
17:02
Colin Corr: Bring them out.
17:03
paul pope: No, I've got scripts, and when I revamped THB,
17:08
paul pope: So I, I did the first…
17:10
paul pope: Five issues of THB were done in pretty much a whirlwind pace.
17:15
paul pope: 1995-96.
17:17
paul pope: And then I got a contract with Godansha in Japan.
17:21
paul pope: And that was like, okay, this is like a serious contract, I'm gonna… I'm gonna put THB on hiatus and start making manga. And that was fascinating, because I was learning so much new stuff about manga, and they would send me stuff
17:35
paul pope: Like, every month, a box, like, literally, like, a box of manga that they hand-selected, like, we want you to look at this.
17:41
paul pope: Look at this, this is sort of in your style.
17:44
paul pope: This is a very popular one, please, please read this.
17:47
paul pope: And so, when I eventually got over to Tokyo and I was working there.
17:51
paul pope: I was thinking about THB all the time, because we were developing a thing called Super Trouble.
17:57
paul pope: which was sort of the Japanese remix of THB.
18:01
paul pope: like, they liked the teenage girl characters, but they didn't quite understand the super robot thing, which I found surprising.
18:08
Colin Corr: Rising. Mongoose.
18:10
paul pope: manga's full of super robots, you know, Gundam and Appleseed and all that, so… I developed…
18:16
paul pope: a new script for THB in Tokyo, And,
18:21
paul pope: I had the option to stay there longer.
18:24
paul pope: I was paying taxes over there, I had a place to live and everything, but it's like, okay, I really want to move to New York, and so I'm gonna come back, save up some money. And I had this script for THB, I'm like, you know what? I'm just gonna trash THB and restart it.
18:39
Colin Corr: Okay.
18:40
paul pope: And… So, I came back with manga principles, even though my style doesn't look like manga.
18:46
paul pope: And it's interesting, when you read the first book, it's all work I did…
18:51
Tad Eggleston: I mean, it looks… looks like some manga. I mean, like…
18:54
paul pope: It gradually starts.
18:56
paul pope: shipping. Yeah.
18:57
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I mean, because, like, two… and don't get me wrong, I love my One Piece, I love a lot of the sports manga, that sort of thing, but I think too often we think of that as, oh, all manga is this way in the United States, whereas.
19:11
Colin Corr: Yeah.
19:11
Tad Eggleston: That manga is just as varied as, you know, THB has lone wolf and cub influences.
19:18
paul pope: Oh, yeah.
19:18
Tad Eggleston: has, Who's the horror guy that everybody loves right now is Junji.
19:26
paul pope: Oh, no, actually, I didn't know… I didn't… he was being published when I was over there, too.
19:30
Tad Eggleston: then maybe he was just looking at the same stuff that you were. Probably. But, like, there's plenty of manga that has…
19:40
Tad Eggleston: a feel. Like, more… more of your characters have a Western jaw structure.
19:49
Tad Eggleston: But, like… I can totally see them.
19:54
paul pope: They told me something interesting when I was over there, because I developed a number of… basically, they do pilot episodes. So, I think I did… I don't remember how many, a lot.
20:04
paul pope: And, like, okay, we'll try this, try that, like, here… all they wanted was a successful pilot, and if you had… pilot meaning 18 pages.
20:13
Colin Corr: Gotcha.
20:13
paul pope: And if you introduce a character that's compelling.
20:17
paul pope: Then people want to read it again and again, and the contract, the way it was written, it was an open-ended contract. So, if you look at something like Astro Boy.
20:27
paul pope: I mean, there's thousands and thousands of pages of Astro Boy.
20:31
paul pope: Because people love the character. He's relatable.
20:33
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
20:34
paul pope: He's charming. His story… his story's interesting.
20:37
paul pope: So, when we got around to THB,
20:40
paul pope: I redeveloped it as Super Trouble, And,
20:45
paul pope: kind of the same premise, but I took out the super robot part, and…
20:51
paul pope: Where was I going with this? I distracted myself.
20:55
Tad Eggleston: Sorry.
20:55
paul pope: No, oh, oh, oh, I, sorry, I remember. So, at one point, I, I was having dinner with my editors, and
21:03
paul pope: I said, how important is it that… because I'm developing my manga style at this point, right? Like, I'm like, I don't draw like Tezuka, so I'm not going to do the big-eyed…
21:12
paul pope: you know, like, sugary-looking cartoon character types. I can do that, but that's not what I want to do.
21:18
paul pope: I said, how important is it that the characters look Asian?
21:21
paul pope: Like, do they have to look Japanese? And they said something interesting. They said, no, because
21:26
paul pope: No, that doesn't matter to us. You could draw on your style.
21:29
paul pope: It's more about the character, because young people look the same everywhere.
21:34
paul pope: I thought that would… I thought that was interesting.
21:38
paul pope: It's liberating, in that sense.
21:39
Colin Corr: That's a good point, honestly.
21:41
paul pope: Yeah, because if, you know, in our American tradition, a lot of people were influenced by Alex Ross, or Neil Adams, or Frank Miller.
21:50
paul pope: You know, or Jack Kirby, obviously, and it's like, you pick up the mannerisms of that artist, and then maybe you infuse it with something else. It's like, I want this to look a little bit like Jack Kirby, a little bit like Frank Miller.
22:04
paul pope: Over there, there was such a spectrum of styles and subject matter, it was really, like.
22:10
paul pope: You know, I mean, it's a serious… I mean, of course, comic books here are a serious industry, but manga is, like…
22:16
paul pope: It's like a fourth-dimensional version of American comics, it's just there's so much stuff and so much production.
22:22
Tad Eggleston: Right. Which I…
22:23
paul pope: That's it.
22:23
Tad Eggleston: You know, you lived it, so you might have answers to a couple of the questions that I've kind of developed about manga.
22:29
paul pope: The first is, like, you talk about the pilot, and part of the reason that there's a.
22:33
Tad Eggleston: pilot is manga is generally released in digest form, so it's…
22:39
Tad Eggleston: you know, there's, what, Shonen Jump, and there's… whatever, you know, there are all of these digests that have…
22:47
Tad Eggleston: X number of stories in them each, so how do they know which ones are popular?
22:53
paul pope: Well, that's what… I was at the competitor for Shonen Junk. I was at Morning.
22:57
Tad Eggleston: At first.
22:57
paul pope: First, I was in a… I was in a, and these are all, like, newsstand magazine-sized manga.
23:05
paul pope: Which we don't get over here, really.
23:07
Tad Eggleston: I mean… I mean, I would say, like, almost… Almost old catalog size.
23:13
paul pope: Yeah, yeah. No, it's hundreds and hundreds every week.
23:16
Tad Eggleston: Think of your old, like, Sears catalog that would come at Christmas, or JCPenney catalog.
23:23
Tad Eggleston: One of those every week.
23:25
paul pope: Yeah, previous, yeah, no.
23:26
Tad Eggleston: It's almost like a preview. Only it's actual comics inside.
23:29
Colin Corr: Yeah, the amount of content.
23:31
paul pope: Yeah, Afternoon came out on, I think, a Friday or a Saturday once a month, and it was hard science fiction, had some more, like, sex material and violence. That was more, like, for adults. That came out once a month. And then they moved me over to Morning, which came out every Monday morning.
23:48
paul pope: And the idea was that afternoon was the one that you read after work.
23:52
paul pope: And it's kind of like you're watching an R-rated Netflix film or something, and then morning.
23:57
paul pope: Was supposed to invigorate you for the work week, and you read the manga during the week, and you've got maybe 30 stories in there?
24:05
paul pope: And a few gag cartoons, and maybe a couple articles about some pop star or something.
24:11
paul pope: And that had just all kinds of stuff in. When I was there, there was a manga about a chef, there was one about a golfer, there was one about a sommelier.
24:20
paul pope: Then there was me with a bunch of different, like, you know, throw darts at the wall, whatever.
24:25
paul pope: works, and then they had a few hits, I mean, Gonagai was doing,
24:32
paul pope: Dragon Man. Or, sorry, Devil Man.
24:35
paul pope: Which was fascinating, I got to see his work every week. Like, literally his artwork every week, in the office.
24:42
paul pope: And they just… they have a very good,
24:46
paul pope: Research and development team that followed audience participation. Like, they… they…
24:52
Tad Eggleston: Okay.
24:53
paul pope: They would do, like, focus groups.
24:57
Tad Eggleston: Okay. Margaritas to find out what they liked.
25:00
paul pope: And, that's why they kept changing me around, like, okay, well, you know, okay, well, you live in New York City, so why don't you try something with a young male protagonist?
25:09
paul pope: More of a slice of life, and that…
25:11
paul pope: eventually became my book, 100%, which was published for Vertigo. And then Heavy Liquid was developed for manga, you know, so…
25:21
paul pope: It was, like, a strange…
25:23
paul pope: like a messy map, almost. Like, I eventually got to where I was supposed to be, but…
25:29
paul pope: For a long time, I thought everything was going to be done in Japan.
25:33
paul pope: Kind of an odd…
25:34
Colin Corr: helped us that helped inspire you? Like, Japan helped.
25:37
paul pope: Oh, yeah.
25:37
Colin Corr: I encourage you to get to the 100%, the heavy liquids.
25:41
Colin Corr: Moving on from there. That's awesome, man.
25:43
paul pope: And luckily, you know, some of the stuff in THB, if you look side-by-side with the stuff that I did for Super Trouble and the stuff that I did for THB,
25:52
paul pope: It's… Because I would draw them at the same time.
25:56
paul pope: So a lot of times, I would just basically draw the same page twice, one for THP, one for Super Trouble.
26:02
paul pope: And it was a lot of work. I mean, I didn't have a social life.
26:06
paul pope: You know.
26:07
Tad Eggleston: A cartoonist with a social life?
26:10
Tad Eggleston: I think… I think one of the times I talked to Terry Moore, he was like, yeah, no, people are like, oh, you must… you must travel the world, and you show all this stuff, and he's like, yeah, I sit at a table for 16 hours a day.
26:25
paul pope: Yeah.
26:25
Tad Eggleston: That's 30 years!
26:27
paul pope: I got a… I have a friend who got married, and he… he told, how did this work out? His wife calls him the back.
26:34
Colin Corr: Oh, boy.
26:35
paul pope: Because she only sees his back, because he's constantly at the drawing table.
26:40
paul pope: the back.
26:41
Tad Eggleston: You know, Kirby apparently spent time with his kids, but he didn't sleep.
26:46
Tad Eggleston: When they went to bed, he went down to the basement and started trying.
26:49
paul pope: Well, he's like George Burns or Keith Richards, he defies logic.
26:53
Colin Corr: Yeah, you got the… yeah, the amount of pages, yeah.
26:57
paul pope: And he had a swimming pool, and he had a wife, and he had kids.
27:00
paul pope: He smiled. He smiled, I mean, he seemed to… I mean, the only sad thing about Kirby is he didn't get to manifest the billion-dollar brain that he had. Like, he knew… I mean, he's the engine of Marvel Comics.
27:13
Tad Eggleston: Stan Lee's the front man.
27:16
Tad Eggleston: Yeah. You know?
27:17
paul pope: And I…
27:18
Tad Eggleston: Flashman?
27:19
paul pope: The funky… yeah, he's the funky… yeah, he's the funky flash man.
27:23
paul pope: And I believe that they eventually made some sort of a settlement with Kirby's estate, so I think he's being compensated for all of his… I mean, at this point.
27:32
paul pope: you know, thank… you know, thank you, Marvel Studios, because…
27:37
paul pope: You know, they've changed the perception of
27:40
paul pope: you know, civilians, you know. Like, in the old days, people thought you were weird if you weren't a child and you read comic books.
27:48
paul pope: And if you made them, they thought you didn't have a job.
27:53
Tad Eggleston: You can't get real work?
27:55
Colin Corr: And now manga's becoming definitely way more popular and mainstream as well now.
28:01
paul pope: Well, it's also because there's so much content, you know? I mean, if you're a publisher, you can license a popular manga
28:08
paul pope: And then you could do the production to, you know, get the translations and things. I mean.
28:12
Tad Eggleston: Alright.
28:13
paul pope: You don't have to pay the artist to make the manga, it's already been made.
28:16
Tad Eggleston: Right.
28:17
Tad Eggleston: Right?
28:18
Tad Eggleston: I think Colin actually had a 100% question.
28:22
Colin Corr: Well, yeah.
28:23
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, so she brought up 100% and everything.
28:27
Colin Corr: Easily, that is my most…
28:31
Colin Corr: a treasured work that you've created. Thank you. I love 100%, and it really helped me a lot, I would say. Specifically, the one character, Eloy Kettle, Kettlehead. His storyline in the book really touched me.
28:45
paul pope: Thank you.
28:46
Colin Corr: I'll just never forget the moment in the book, for some background for everyone. He has a very important art project he wants to complete in the book, where he essentially sets off all these electric, or tea kettles, you know, he wants them to whistle in harmony at that one note.
29:03
Colin Corr: And those pages, that storyline really meant a lot to me, because everyone's going, what do you mean? What's the deal with this? That's such a silly premise. But it's his art, it's his passion.
29:15
Colin Corr: And so they go to the place, they see him do it, and he creates it, and they go, well, how many you got? He goes, I only got 32.
29:23
Colin Corr: And then they go… but they… he sets them all off, and they go off.
29:27
Colin Corr: And they go, well, how many do you want? How many do you need? And they see the beauty of it. It starts raining down, they all go on at the same note, they appreciate it all.
29:35
Colin Corr: And they go, well, I need 100 for 100% sound. And that… that just really stuck with me, the… because in the book, he really… he has a vision, he has a passion, he goes for it, he knows what he wants, he doesn't compromise, you know, that's the end of the story, but not…
29:52
paul pope: I've got the art right here, I'm gonna show it to you.
29:53
Colin Corr: Oh my goodness, I would love to. But anyway… Well, as you get that.
29:59
Colin Corr: reading that really spoke to me in the moment, because it taught me the lesson, it made me learn of the moment. For you to be successful in something, for you to, you know, succeed in life, you gotta give 100%.
30:12
Colin Corr: You know, you gotta give the full effort and not compromise. And I remember at the time, you know, it was between schools, between jobs, and a, you know, a little rough place. I took a photo of that page where he says, you know, for 100%. I took a photo of that page, and I made that my phone background.
30:31
Colin Corr: Oh, amazing. So I constantly look at that every day, see it, you know, because…
30:36
Colin Corr: You just can't compromise. You gotta put the effort in, in order to succeed. He never compromised. He wasn't even at… he was only, oh, look at that.
30:46
Colin Corr: Yeah, that's it, that's the exact same one, I mean… It's… wow, it's one of the pages from 100%, yeah. Yeah, that's… that's… yeah, like, the four 100% part is the part that just resonated for me, for… and it just… ever since that moment, and I just wanted to thank you for that.
31:02
paul pope: Oh, yeah.
31:03
Colin Corr: Creating that storyline for putting that image there.
31:06
Colin Corr: There really aren't…
31:08
paul pope: Thanks for reading it.
31:09
Colin Corr: No, it was beautiful. I mean, ever since that moment, you know, you turn it around. I turned it around, you know, I got better at school, found a better job.
31:17
paul pope: Wow.
31:17
Colin Corr: social, just… it was definitely a spark, you know, a moment. Yeah, yeah. So my question for you, based off of that.
31:25
paul pope: Did you ever have a 100% moment? Oh, absolutely. Was there anything that you read, or was there a certain moment, or a person.
31:31
Colin Corr: That sparked you, just like you did with me, with your… You know, 100%.
31:36
paul pope: Well, before I moved to Tokyo, I… my best friend and I, who I eventually hired to work with me on manga, he was doing the dot screen layouts and stuff, he was a painter.
31:49
paul pope: We went to art school together, and I'm just like, man, I want to get out of Columbus. I'm like…
31:53
paul pope: I want to move to New York City, but in between, I want to go somewhere else. So we were making manga.
31:59
paul pope: Now, the trick with manga is that the page rates are good, but you only get paid when they accept the work.
32:06
paul pope: So you… you… you kind of are subject to revisions, which could be very tedious and time-consuming.
32:13
paul pope: So we move into this,
32:16
paul pope: this lamp factory, and it was, like, a converted lamp factory in Toronto.
32:21
paul pope: on Able Street and King… King or Queen? King or Queen and Able Street, I forget, for anybody in Toronto hearing this.
32:30
paul pope: And, it was full of artists, and we lived in this giant…
32:35
paul pope: empty warehouse space, you could have put a Cessna in there.
32:39
paul pope: And we had a bedroom, I had a bedroom, we don't have a refrigerator.
32:42
paul pope: And money was getting sparse, because the manga just… it's like they're so demanding, and it's almost like they're trying to break you.
32:50
paul pope: I'm like, alright, I'm gonna do it again, put on the coffee pot.
32:54
paul pope: And one Sunday morning, I was walking…
32:58
paul pope: on College Street, which is kind of the hip area by the university, and
33:02
paul pope: I literally had $2 in my pocket.
33:05
Colin Corr: Yeah.
33:06
paul pope: And everybody's on their dates having brunch, and here I am walking around starving.
33:12
paul pope: with my $2, and I was like, fuck it, man, I am not giving up. I am not giving up.
33:18
paul pope: And I went into a used bookstore, and I bought a copy of Voltaire's, Candide.
33:25
paul pope: And specifically in that edition, he has another short story called Zadig, which is a really good one. And this story's just about innocent fools who
33:34
paul pope: Wind up doing well.
33:36
paul pope: And I think that was the 100% moment, because you could easily just be despairing and like, God.
33:42
paul pope: I have no money.
33:44
paul pope: But I've got a lot of ideas.
33:47
paul pope: I have a place to sleep.
33:49
paul pope: you know, I got a… I got a bag full of pretzels and a bottle of orange juice, I'll be fine.
33:54
Colin Corr: You'll survive, yeah.
33:56
paul pope: Until… until they pay me.
33:58
paul pope: You know? And that was… I think as an artist, or as an intellectual, as a writer, whatever.
34:06
paul pope: You, you have a series of these Obstacles.
34:11
paul pope: And then the character Eloy is supposed to represent that character type who…
34:16
paul pope: has a crazy idea. His nickname's Kettlehead, which is not a good nickname.
34:21
paul pope: Like, a lunk hat or something.
34:23
Colin Corr: Yeah.
34:24
paul pope: Jughead.
34:25
Tad Eggleston: I was about to say, I mean, Jughead does okay.
34:27
paul pope: Jughead.
34:28
Colin Corr: is fine.
34:29
Tad Eggleston: Well, yeah, but…
34:32
paul pope: this character, Eloy, he just is obsessed with this crazy idea, and…
34:38
paul pope: He eventually makes it work, but his story is about the struggle of
34:43
paul pope: like, you know, by day he's a superintendent. He lives in a grain silo in Brooklyn.
34:50
paul pope: Not too different from the… lamp factory I lived in.
34:54
Colin Corr: Just what you were describing.
34:56
paul pope: Yeah, it's, I mean, it's the same type of character, so I… I wanted to honor
35:01
paul pope: that struggle, because I know a lot of… like, I know now for sure, because the book's been in print for a long time.
35:07
paul pope: All over the world, even.
35:09
paul pope: People everywhere relate to the characters in 100%, because they're all based on real people.
35:14
paul pope: And so there's elements of Eloy that are me, elements of John the busboy that are me.
35:19
Colin Corr: Hell yeah.
35:20
paul pope: The boxer's not me, the boxer's my cousin, Jamie, who was a semi-pro fighter.
35:25
Colin Corr: Oh, that's cool.
35:26
paul pope: And, there's the backstories to everybody in that book.
35:29
paul pope: And, yeah, so that's… It was…
35:32
paul pope: kind of like, you know, I lit the arrow on fire and shot it into the air, in the darkness, for the other artists.
35:38
paul pope: That was what that was.
35:40
Colin Corr: Oh, that's beautiful.
35:42
Colin Corr: No 100 tecals, though? You just came up down in the Euro?
35:46
paul pope: I saw an art installation when I… I lived in London for a while when I was in college. I got a scholarship to study painting in London, which was…
35:55
paul pope: Great.
35:56
paul pope: I mean… That's a whole other story, but .
35:59
Colin Corr: Yeah, no.
36:00
paul pope: I saw an art installation that was just this cacophonous Noise machine some guy made.
36:07
paul pope: And I was… it was, like, really hard to listen to. It was in just the big, like, brick building, and it just was designed to be chaos.
36:15
paul pope: And it was interesting for that, but I thought about it later, I'm like, it would be really… because I love Beethoven, right? So…
36:21
paul pope: Your opening note for, like, his fifth or his second.
36:25
paul pope: like, there's always, like, this harmonious sound. I'm like, wow, what if…
36:29
paul pope: Because, you know, tea kettles have a pitch.
36:31
Colin Corr: Yeah. Right, and there's… you can…
36:33
paul pope: You know, I've got a friend who has perfect pitch, and she could tell you the
36:36
paul pope: The note that the, you know, the relative note of your Air conditioner.
36:42
Colin Corr: Hmm.
36:42
paul pope: Like, just… or the washing machine, just think… I… I'm like, God, it would be so hard to have perfect pitch.
36:48
paul pope: And so, I thought about it, I'm like, yeah, this guy is just obsessed with making a huge volume
36:55
paul pope: Perfect pitch C. That's what he wants.
36:59
paul pope: And I'm like, it would be incredible if this thing was ever actually made, an installation of 100 tea kettles all tuned to the key of C,
37:08
paul pope: Like, what an overwhelming experience that would be.
37:12
paul pope: So that was, that was, you know, I mean, some people might cynically say it's a gimmick for the book, but it was just an interesting…
37:19
paul pope: You know, think, because, like, of the 6 or 7 main characters in…
37:23
paul pope: 100%. I wanted each one to have a different trajectory.
37:26
paul pope: And then that guy is the artist archetype, right?
37:29
Colin Corr: For sure. And yeah, that's his vision, that doesn't need to make sense, that's what he wants, you know? That's his… and that's why he's happy, because he's the one working towards it.
37:38
paul pope: He winds up… yeah, because it's… it really is…
37:41
paul pope: We all need completion with our work. You know, like, if you have a regular job, you clock out at 5 o'clock or something. But when you're in the creative fields.
37:50
paul pope: Like, you know, in the case of comics, you have deadlines, and you have contracts.
37:55
paul pope: And you have to finish the book, and it's done, and then you can relax, and your dopamine levels go up, and you're…
38:01
paul pope: Cerebellum, you know, then…
38:03
paul pope: But in the meantime, it's a lot of work, and it's like, God, I'm gonna fucking do this again.
38:07
paul pope: I gotta get up and, you know, put on my tea kettle, make some coffee, sit down, and do it again. And do it again, and do it again.
38:15
paul pope: Until it's done.
38:17
Colin Corr: Yeah.
38:18
paul pope: And that's usually at 3 in the morning when it's down and there's no one around, it's quiet.
38:23
paul pope: You know, even in New York City, like, the court stuff…
38:27
Tad Eggleston: late night phone calls from Terry Moore.
38:29
paul pope: Yeah, I won'.
38:30
Colin Corr: There it goes, full circle.
38:31
paul pope: I like that, I like that.
38:33
Tad Eggleston: I'm sorry, I don't…
38:35
paul pope: I don't mean to hog up the conversation, guys.
38:37
Tad Eggleston: No, you're supp…
38:38
Colin Corr: Oh, don't be.
38:39
Tad Eggleston: If anybody hogs the conversation, it's best when it's the guest that does. This is what I've been told, anyway.
38:45
paul pope: Well, you know what's funny about
38:47
paul pope: Manhattan is, like, when I… I moved here basically… well, first of all, I fell in love with New York City, but,
38:54
paul pope: you know, at the time, all the major publishing was here, you know, like Marvel, DC, Playboy.
39:00
paul pope: Conde Nast, Scholastic, McMillan, just go down the list.
39:04
paul pope: Simon Schuster, Overlook Press, these different…
39:08
paul pope: you know, publishers, and you… this is where you would network. Like, you basically had to be here to meet people.
39:14
paul pope: And it was good. I mean, I started working in fashion, I started working in film, it's all because I was here.
39:20
paul pope: And I was available, I was able to meet people. Now it might be a little bit different.
39:24
paul pope: But, and which is for the better, because there's, like, for example, there's a number of great artists I know in Brazil who are starting to get a workup here.
39:33
paul pope: And, you know, I've got publishers in Europe, All over the place.
39:37
paul pope: So… It's a different phase of the career.
39:42
paul pope: But, yeah, this was kind of where you had to be, I think, at the time.
39:48
paul pope: If you know what I'm saying.
39:49
Colin Corr: Yeah, that makes sense.
39:51
paul pope: And I just stayed.
39:53
paul pope: I decided I liked it.
39:54
Tad Eggleston: a little bit. I was… I don't know how I hadn't realized… Until I was reading…
40:02
Tad Eggleston: your introduction to THB, That… that you…
40:07
Tad Eggleston: had gone to OSU. I just… I had missed that. And, like, as I read the first part of it, and obviously, reading the end of it, you did get there, but the first part of it, where you talked about being in the art program and… and… and…
40:23
Tad Eggleston: you know, comics weren't something that you were supposed to be doing, etc, and I'm like, but you're at OSU, hasn't anybody taken you to the Billy yet? It didn't exist! So I'm so happy!
40:34
paul pope: No, it didn't exist back then, man. I mean, we had the graphic… it was called the Graphic Arts Library, and Lucy Caswell, who runs the Billie Ireland now, she was the person at the front desk, so that was a tiny little… there were 26 libraries on the campus at the time.
40:51
paul pope: And I was really… I had a 4.0, I was really studious, so I'd spent all my time in libraries, basically.
40:56
paul pope: And, either that or listening to Nick Cave.
40:59
paul pope: Or some other sad bastard music. And then…
41:03
paul pope: I remember going to the, graphic art library back when it was just this tiny little, like.
41:09
Tad Eggleston: Second, third floor…
41:11
paul pope: garage, basically. And then now look at it, they've got an international.
41:14
Tad Eggleston: Oh, absolutely. I just… like, hearing the same story from Jeff, half the reason that he was at Ohio State was, like, Bill Waterston had been there, and Milt Kniff had given all of his stuff there.
41:27
paul pope: That was… that was when we…
41:29
Tad Eggleston: We were…
41:29
paul pope: We were… I think… I don't remember when he graduated, but, I mean, he's a good friend of mine now, but…
41:34
Tad Eggleston: Right.
41:35
paul pope: I just saw him, actually, a few weeks ago, it was great, gave him a big hug.
41:38
paul pope: And,
41:42
paul pope: we were kind of walking the same path at the same time, but we didn't know each other. And then.
41:48
paul pope: I moved to California, Los Gatos, to live with my sister.
41:53
paul pope: And Jeff was living out there, because his wife was in, Silicon Valley, something or other.
41:58
Tad Eggleston: Right.
41:59
paul pope: And I could look… I could… we lived on top of a mountain, I could look across the mountain over to where he was living.
42:05
paul pope: I'm like, Jeff Smith is on top of that mountain, I'm on top of this mountain, but we don't know each other.
42:09
Tad Eggleston: And you'd both gone to Ohio State?
42:12
paul pope: But yeah, and by that point, I was reading Bone, and I sent him.
42:17
Tad Eggleston: Started in the lantern.
42:19
paul pope: Which started in The Lantern. They published me in The Lantern, too. See what I mean? These, like, weird parallels.
42:25
paul pope: We probably ate the same cafeteria, you know?
42:28
Tad Eggleston: I mean, again, that's just what caught me as I was reading your… as I'm sitting there going.
42:34
Tad Eggleston: I've talked about the Ohio State cartoonist experience with Jeff a couple of times, and he.
42:39
Tad Eggleston: I think was there before you, and I'm sitting there going, how did you miss Jeff's world?
42:45
paul pope: We… we didn't meet until, let me think, it would have been… it was pretty early on for me. I have a photograph the day we met, I think it was 1990…
42:54
paul pope: $4.95. So, Bone was pretty early, but it was already a big hit, and then THB was coming out, it was getting some traction.
43:03
paul pope: And God bless the Image guys, because they picked up me and Jeff and Terry, and they kind of, like, brought us along. They love the…
43:10
paul pope: the self-publishing movement, you know? So, like, we were kind of like the cousins, I'd say. Like, we were… I mean, they did offer me a job. I worked with Image eventually, but…
43:19
Tad Eggleston: I mean, you were the cousins, but I think you were also the ones that gave him the guts.
43:24
paul pope: I mean.
43:25
Colin Corr: some truth, yeah.
43:26
paul pope: That could be. I mean, potentially.
43:28
Tad Eggleston: Particularly Jeff and Terry and Dave Sim were doing it before Image. Oh, that's true. So, I think it's the three of them made them go.
43:37
Tad Eggleston: Hey, what if we not only did it on our own, but we did it together on our own?
43:42
paul pope: Let's not forget Mutant Turtles.
43:45
Tad Eggleston: Right. Oh, yeah, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. Laird, yeah.
43:48
paul pope: Yeah.
43:49
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
43:49
paul pope: I mean, that's how I got the… that's how I got the guts to self-publish, because by this point.
43:55
paul pope: I think… I can't remember if I wrote Dave Sim or not, but, I was reading Cerebus, I was reading Mutant Turtles, and then eventually I was reading Allred, the Madman.
44:04
Tad Eggleston: Madman.
44:04
paul pope: when… I think he was self-publishing, then Jeff.
44:07
paul pope: And it was like, there's a synergy here. Something's working, something's working. So I went to one of the 26 libraries.
44:13
paul pope: I found a book on self-publishing.
44:16
paul pope: Written by a guy who was a master parasailer, of all things, but he wrote a manual on how to parasail.
44:23
paul pope: And he sold a million copies.
44:25
paul pope: And he's… he's like, look, if you have a niche market.
44:29
paul pope: Just find what you're really good at, and focus on that.
44:32
Tad Eggleston: Right.
44:33
paul pope: And, meanwhile, I'm, like, you know, studying Caravaggio and, you know, Robert Motherwell and, you know, whoever else in art school.
44:41
paul pope: Yeah, I really, I really love comics, I think this is kind of going against my conditioning, but I'm gonna become a comic book artist and publisher.
44:50
paul pope: And then I started working at a print shop.
44:53
paul pope: To get skill, and to make a little money, and get a discount on printing.
44:57
paul pope: And back in those days, we used to make our own film negatives. So I would send film negatives up to Caboquir in Montreal.
45:05
paul pope: you know, I had a guy up there, and, you know, I would go to press checks, you know, like, how does this look? I like that, you know. And I still do that to this day, because I love screen printing. I have a new print coming out soon.
45:16
paul pope: Another lone wolf and Cub print.
45:19
paul pope: And we're doing I'll send you guys a link to it. We're doing a THB t-shirt this month.
45:24
Tad Eggleston: Oh, nice.
45:25
paul pope: And, I've got a couple book contracts I'm working on, so, you know, I've got Battling Boy, I have to finish that.
45:31
Colin Corr: For a while.
45:33
paul pope: It's… yeah, 10 years, that's a whole other…
45:38
paul pope: for all the young artists out there, I would…
45:40
paul pope: Strongly caution you against signing a film contract before your book's done.
45:46
paul pope: Let alone start working on the script and concept art.
45:50
paul pope: It's gonna take up a lot of your time.
45:52
Colin Corr: I believe it.
45:52
paul pope: Just gonna say that.
45:54
Tad Eggleston: I mean, you mean that, like, it might not have just been laziness on George R.R. Martin's part? He might have gotten…
46:02
Tad Eggleston: Busy and burned out, doing all sorts of stuff.
46:06
paul pope: I had… I had dinner one time next to him. He was sitting… it was really weird, I was there, it was at San Diego Comic-Con.
46:13
paul pope: And, I think they just announced that the last season of Game of Thrones was gonna be written by somebody else.
46:21
paul pope: Because he was still working on the book.
46:23
Tad Eggleston: Alright.
46:23
paul pope: And I had great…
46:27
paul pope: empathy for him, because I was suddenly in the same position with Battling Boy. And so here we are going to some restaurant on the marina.
46:35
paul pope: Me and my editor and a couple other people.
46:37
paul pope: And there's George R. Martin with his back to the room, Sitting in the corner.
46:43
paul pope: eating his dinner by himself, and I asked my editor, Mark Siegel, I'm like.
46:47
paul pope: I really want to go talk to him.
46:49
paul pope: Like, I want to… I wanna talk to him about this experience. He's like, no, don't bother him, don't bother him. Which is the rule of thumb, because in… where I live in Greenwich Village, you run into famous people all the time.
47:00
paul pope: And it's like, no, don't bother them, that's the rule. You know, one time I had drinks next to Michael Shannon.
47:06
paul pope: We were just talking about sports or something, and then it was right after he got his Oscar.
47:11
paul pope: And the minute I mentioned, oh, I write and draw Batman, he… it was like his… it was like the cat with the hair that goes up.
47:19
paul pope: And then my friend who's the manager, came over, and he's like, don't talk to him about anything related to movies.
47:26
paul pope: I was like, oh, okay.
47:27
Tad Eggleston: Like.
47:27
paul pope: That wasn't moving.
47:29
Tad Eggleston: That was… that was a comic book.
47:31
paul pope: Bill Warner Brothers, but yeah. No, I made the fatal mistake of mentioning General Zod.
47:37
Tad Eggleston: Wow.
47:37
Colin Corr: Well, there you go.
47:38
paul pope: And he just… you could tell from him it was a job, and he might not even watch the movie, for all I know. I think he's a great actor, but that was… yeah, that's rule of thumb. When you meet famous people, don't talk about their work. Talk about anything else.
47:53
Tad Eggleston: Yeah. That's why it's cool to meet you on podcasts.
47:56
Tad Eggleston: Because then I'm expected to shock about your work.
47:59
paul pope: Well, yeah, but I'm passionate about my work, and I chose not to become an academic.
48:06
paul pope: you know, I thought about that for a long time, actually, and, you know, I had an offer to teach at SVA, the School of Visual Arts, here in the city.
48:15
paul pope: And I thought about it, like, okay, well…
48:18
paul pope: Like, I think this would conflict with my creative endeavors, like.
48:23
paul pope: Like, I'm not really… I'm not… the time I did teach, I did a residency.
48:30
paul pope: at a place called Atlantic City… Atlantic Center of the Arts in Florida. And I had a hand-picked team of 8 associate artists, they're all young people. They've all gone on to do great things.
48:41
paul pope: But on day one, I told him, I said, hey, I'm… I'm just gonna let you know right now, I am… I have no course curriculum.
48:47
paul pope: I'm not gonna grade you.
48:50
paul pope: But I'm gonna show you things which you can choose to…
48:54
paul pope: engage in or not engage in, and here's a list, and here's where I'm staying, here's where I'm sleeping.
49:01
paul pope: Just put your name on the list, and when you want to meet me, come over to my place, and we'll talk about whatever you want to talk about.
49:08
paul pope: And it worked, everybody was happy, and they've all gone on to creative endeavors.
49:12
paul pope: One of… one of the… one of the kids became my kids, he's in his 40s now, but…
49:16
Tad Eggleston: Cute.
49:18
paul pope: he,
49:19
paul pope: You know, when you meet somebody when they're, like, 21, you're always gonna think of them as a kid.
49:24
paul pope: Chris Hunt is his name, and he has a successful, clothing line
49:31
paul pope: a brand called Code of the West, which just blew up, and now he's got all kinds of creative projects going on.
49:37
paul pope: Other people I work with are now working in animation.
49:41
paul pope: A couple of them are film directors.
49:43
paul pope: writers, just, you know, it's like, it worked. The idea of having no structure worked.
49:50
paul pope: At least in that time, that place, for those kids.
49:53
paul pope: Kids.
49:54
paul pope: It worked, and they all came, they all took the advantage of the opportunity to come and.
49:59
Tad Eggleston: I, I actually, I actually, love that you…
50:03
Tad Eggleston: That you put it that way, the no structure, the no rules, because one of my favorite comics of the year
50:11
Tad Eggleston: Is the middle grade book that Raina Telgemeyer and Scott McCloud did.
50:19
paul pope: Oh yeah, gna.
50:20
Tad Eggleston: Club.
50:21
Tad Eggleston: Where, where, where it's, like, one point… one part, just a Raina Telgemeyer graphic novel, you know? It has a lot…
50:28
Tad Eggleston: Feels a lot like drama, but it's also one part, like, how to make comics, but one of the things that, like, the librarian that's the faculty advisor for the…
50:38
Tad Eggleston: the Cartoonist Club says is there are no rules. You could use the… you know, because there's one kid that said, which brush do I use? Which… let me write this down. And it's like, well, some people use this, and some people use that, and some people use something else entirely.
50:54
paul pope: Yeah, well, that's what Mobius told, you know, because I was… I'm not flexing here, I was friends with Mobius at that time.
50:58
Tad Eggleston: I am very, very jealous of that one.
51:01
paul pope: Well, we had the same publisher, and so I did a lot of PR in France for a while, for Battling Boy and for Batman, and so I would wind up seeing him.
51:12
Tad Eggleston: Right.
51:13
paul pope: And, people would quake around him, quake.
51:17
paul pope: I've only seen two human beings. That happens with Frank Miller, and it happens with Mobius.
51:22
paul pope: And, but, you know, I just knew him, and for some reason, he liked me, Mobius.
51:27
Tad Eggleston: Right?
51:27
paul pope: And, you know, we'd go out for dinner or something, and we're talking, and we talked about craft at one point, and actually, a lot of the time we talked about craft, but…
51:35
paul pope: He was telling me he one time drew with, a fork and coffee grounds.
51:41
paul pope: And he said, it doesn't matter what you draw with.
51:44
Tad Eggleston: Right?
51:45
paul pope: You know? And he's like, don't draw… don't draw… it's the same thing Frank said. Don't draw like I draw. Don't do it the way I did it. Don't follow my path, you're gonna get lost.
51:54
Tad Eggleston: Neil Adams fired Bill Sankiewicz.
51:58
Tad Eggleston: That's great, probably the best thing ever…
52:00
Tad Eggleston: Because Bill was being… he's like, Bill, you need to go be Bill Sienkiewicz. Right now, you're a better Neil Adams than I am.
52:07
paul pope: Yeah, well, he was.
52:08
Tad Eggleston: You need to go pee your Pilsen cabbage.
52:12
Tad Eggleston: Wow, that's great, I didn't know… I didn't know. Because Bill was one of, one of Neil's assistants.
52:18
paul pope: Oh, yeah.
52:19
Tad Eggleston: Before he started making his name, and he said.
52:21
paul pope: Yeah.
52:21
Tad Eggleston: But… I mean, it was a… it was a gentle firing, but it was like, dude…
52:27
paul pope: Well, it's the same. You know, Little Richard kicked Jimi Hendrix out of his band.
52:31
Tad Eggleston: Right.
52:31
paul pope: He's like, you're too good.
52:33
Tad Eggleston: Rent.
52:34
paul pope: I can just hear his voice. You're too good to be in my band!
52:37
Tad Eggleston: You know?
52:39
paul pope: And Jimi Hendrix got fired. What does he do? He goes on and becomes the legendary Jimi Hendrix, greatest guitar player of the 20th century.
52:46
Tad Eggleston: And Little Richard kept being Little Richard.
52:48
paul pope: Right. They both were great, but it's like…
52:51
paul pope: you know, Alex Tope did the same with me. When I was, you know, in my late teens, early 20s, I was sending him letters.
52:59
paul pope: And he'd write back, and he'd give me critiques, and, you know, I never met him in person. But at one point, he's like, I've had enough of you.
53:06
paul pope: Like, go make… go make something that I want to read.
53:10
paul pope: And at the time, it was kind of crushing, because I was like, oh, God, I just got fired by Alex Toth.
53:15
paul pope: Like, here, I think… I'm thinking I'm gonna know him for the rest of my life, and he's like, my grandfather.
53:21
paul pope: And,
53:22
paul pope: But looking back on it, I know why Adams fired St. Cavich. I think it was the right thing for both of them.
53:28
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's Sienkiewicz that tells the story, not even Neil, so I'm certain it's Sienkiewicz.
53:35
paul pope: Right.
53:36
Tad Eggleston: I've heard him tell it a few times. Well, I hope Sienkiewicz has fired someone by now, because that person's gonna go on and become the next big one, you know? Yeah.
53:45
paul pope: Bill's one of the greatest living artists, I think. Without hyperbole, I think he's one of the greatest artists.
53:51
Tad Eggleston: I have not had him on the show, but I was lucky enough to meet him Because he actually…
53:58
Tad Eggleston: Did you get to his exhibit in Libertyville, Colin?
54:01
Colin Corr: The Lake County, yeah.
54:02
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah. Alex Ross.
54:03
Colin Corr: Class is there now, but yeah.
54:04
Tad Eggleston: So because Alex Ross is local to us, the, the, like.
54:09
Tad Eggleston: County art, or county, like, natural history slash art museum has had a couple of Alex Ross exhibits and a Bill Sankiewicz exhibit. Wow.
54:18
Colin Corr: rail for.
54:19
Tad Eggleston: And managed to have them come in… For, like, talk signings.
54:24
Colin Corr: Yep.
54:25
paul pope: Wow.
54:26
Tad Eggleston: So, like, there was one summer that I went and stared at original Bill Sienkiewicz art on the wall, like, literally 3 times a week for the whole summer.
54:36
paul pope: Wow. Oh, yeah, no, I…
54:37
Tad Eggleston: I slept on my way home.
54:39
Tad Eggleston: I just stopped on my way home, and…
54:42
paul pope: There have been a few… I've been lucky to get to know Bill. Actually, Frank Miller introduced me to Bill, and then we became friends, and we've traveled some times together. We've been to Brazil twice.
54:51
paul pope: We've been to Spain together.
54:54
paul pope: And every once in a while, you get a chance to draw together.
54:56
paul pope: You know, like…
54:57
Tad Eggleston: ain't a good word for me, because I'd love to talk to you again.
55:00
paul pope: Okay, I will, but my point is,
55:04
paul pope: Drawing with Bill Sienkiewicz is literally watching a maestro.
55:09
Tad Eggleston: I believe it.
55:10
paul pope: And he's so fast and so calm.
55:12
paul pope: And we're drawing, and I'm like, you know, I'm doing my thing over here, which I think looks like chicken scratches, and then he's doing…
55:18
paul pope: He's making this beautiful… Sistine Chapel type of…
55:22
paul pope: Or, like, you know, Rene grew a just flat graphic image and…
55:27
Tad Eggleston: Right.
55:28
paul pope: And he does it so fast, and it's like he…
55:31
paul pope: Like, we talked earlier about the childlike quality of being an artist.
55:35
paul pope: It's like he never lost that. Because, you know, when you have a bit of success, There's a thing…
55:41
Tad Eggleston: Seems like he enjoys himself.
55:43
paul pope: he enjoyed… and then… but the thing that happens is, you know, when you win a few Eisners, you know, people are paying attention.
55:49
paul pope: Then you're like, oh my god, like, what if…
55:52
paul pope: what if that was the best I'm ever going to be able to do? Like, what if… what if I'm washed up?
55:56
paul pope: You know, oh god, how can I do it again? How am I gonna do it?
56:00
paul pope: What am I gonna do now?
56:02
paul pope: And I think this is why Guns N' Roses never released Chinese Democracy, because they had so much success.
56:07
paul pope: With their first 2 or 3 records, and then they're world famous, and they got money, you know.
56:14
paul pope: Then the fear.
56:16
paul pope: kicks in. And for Bill, I mean, I don't know for sure, I've never asked him this question, but I…
56:20
paul pope: He never seemed to get that fear.
56:23
Tad Eggleston: I, I, I read…
56:24
paul pope: Going.
56:24
Colin Corr: Oh, goodness.
56:25
Tad Eggleston: I had an interview with Paul McCartney once.
56:27
paul pope: Where the interviewer.
56:29
Tad Eggleston: you know, it was a broad enough interview that it was clear that Paul was, like, willing to take all questions on, so the interviewer actually asked point blank, you know.
56:42
Tad Eggleston: You've had ups and downs, you know?
56:46
Tad Eggleston: particularly… you were in the Beatles, like, how… how do you keep going? You know, what…
56:52
Tad Eggleston: And Paul's just like… in my head.
56:57
Tad Eggleston: The last album I made is the best thing I've ever done.
57:00
Tad Eggleston: Now, I know that's probably not true, but if I don't feel like it when I'm putting it out, I'd never put it out.
57:10
paul pope: He's right! That's totally… well, let's also keep in mind.
57:14
Tad Eggleston: So, so, like, so, like, a year down the road, I might look at it and go, hmm, what was I smoking then?
57:21
paul pope: Yeah, well, Sir Paul Macca, right? We, we know…
57:26
paul pope: We know that, how old is he now? 70s, I think? He must be 70s.
57:30
Tad Eggleston: a…
57:30
paul pope: I think it's.
57:31
Tad Eggleston: Born in 42?
57:33
paul pope: Okay, he's about my dad's age. I mean, still touring, still recording.
57:37
Tad Eggleston: Yep.
57:38
paul pope: You know, he's taken the mantle of…
57:40
paul pope: elder statesmen of rock and roll and all that. But the Beatles were only together for 4 years.
57:45
Tad Eggleston: Me too.
57:45
paul pope: That's…
57:46
Tad Eggleston: 3.
57:47
paul pope: 83. Wow.
57:49
Tad Eggleston: 83 years old.
57:50
paul pope: I'd like to…
57:51
Colin Corr: Right.
57:51
paul pope: I'd like to see his vitamin supplement regimen.
57:55
paul pope: I guess it helps being a billionaire, but.
57:58
Tad Eggleston: It doesn't hurt.
57:59
paul pope: But think about it, the Beatles were only together for 8 years.
58:03
paul pope: And they stopped…
58:04
Tad Eggleston: Closer… closer to 10, because they spent almost 2 years…
58:09
paul pope: No, you're right, they were…
58:11
Tad Eggleston: Like, in Germany, they're in… In Germany, playing every night in Hamburg, yeah.
58:16
paul pope: I read that book about, what was it, The Love You Make? The history of the Beatles, and they… yeah, they played, like, 8 shows, some ridiculous number…
58:26
Tad Eggleston: Well, they were playing 2 shows a night, every… er, 6 nights a week, plus one on Sunday.
58:33
Tad Eggleston: for, like, 2… I mean…
58:35
paul pope: Two years.
58:36
Tad Eggleston: Malcolm Gladwell actually pointed out in
58:40
Tad Eggleston: in the introduction to his book that he talked about, 10,000 hours to become an expert. There it is, right.
58:48
paul pope: Which is about 3 years.
58:49
Tad Eggleston: More than 10,000 hours playing together.
58:53
Tad Eggleston: Before the first time the world… Listen to them.
58:57
paul pope: Well, that's what I think manga… manga did to me, because I know that book you're referring to, and…
59:03
paul pope: I tried to… I worked it out one time, and 10,000 hours…
59:07
paul pope: Yeah, and 10,000 hours, depending on how many hours you put in how quickly, It's roughly 3 years.
59:15
paul pope: And it's like, okay, well, I think I… when I got to early THB, I had already unlocked the ability to draw, because I'd already been drawing for 8 years.
59:23
paul pope: In university, before that, I was drawing as a kid, not really knowing what I was doing.
59:30
paul pope: Started working professionally, that's another 10,000 hours. And then I go to Japan.
59:34
paul pope: For 6 years, so that's 20,000 hours.
59:37
paul pope: And when I got back from Japan, it's like I had two 6 guns.
59:40
paul pope: and a Bandolier belt, you know what I mean? Right. It's like, okay, I'm ready to do this.
59:46
Tad Eggleston: Right.
59:47
Tad Eggleston: And when it's something that you like, you don't stop… getting.
59:51
paul pope: No, it never… you know, it's funny, but think back…
59:53
Tad Eggleston: You brought up Jimi Hendrix. Jimi Hendrix has one of my favorite quotes ever. I think it was Johnny Carson interviewing him, and he's like, you're so good, you must practice a lot. He's like, man, I don't practice at all. I just play for 12 hours a day.
1:00:06
paul pope: Oh, I like that.
1:00:07
Tad Eggleston: There it is, that's a good way to put it.
1:00:09
paul pope: That's a good…
1:00:10
Colin Corr: Really, it's the, the idea of no rules, your self-publishing, your creative, your school style, for this creative minds, having the no rules, the no structure, just the freedom, means that you're self-motivated to do your own thing.
1:00:24
Colin Corr: To be successful, because the only thing that's judging you is yourself, in a sense, you know? Exactly. You don't have a…
1:00:30
Colin Corr: And having that Eisner Award, like you said, raised that bar, you know? The bar was raised, and you were worried to get over the bar, in a sense, but as long as you still have that freedom, the no rules.
1:00:42
Colin Corr: It really motivates you and lets that creative juices flow.
1:00:45
paul pope: Yeah, it's funny, because… when I… I have 4 Eisners at the moment, and…
1:00:52
paul pope: you know, you take them in stride, and it's like, oh, this is great, this, you know.
1:00:56
Tad Eggleston: After the first one.
1:00:57
paul pope: Yeah, no, no, no, I mean…
1:00:59
Tad Eggleston: No, they're, they're, they're all…
1:01:02
paul pope: They're all perplexing. They're all perplexing. It's like, why…
1:01:05
Colin Corr: I don't flexion.
1:01:06
paul pope: Is there nobody else on the list? Why are they giving me one of these?
1:01:09
Colin Corr: Oh, we all…
1:01:10
Tad Eggleston: I talked to James Sturm recently, and he lost the one time he was…
1:01:14
Tad Eggleston: nominated, but… but the winner in his category was Will Eisner, so…
1:01:20
paul pope: Okay.
1:01:20
Tad Eggleston: He's like, you can't be upset.
1:01:23
Colin Corr: Can't be upset.
1:01:24
paul pope: Yeah, we're gonna give this Best Guitarist Award to Jimi Hendrix.
1:01:28
Tad Eggleston: I'm sorry, Tiny Tim.
1:01:30
paul pope: You know?
1:01:32
paul pope: But, but then you, you think, like, okay, this is what I… it's what I call the how am I doing department.
1:01:37
Tad Eggleston: Like, how am I doing? Alright, well, I want a nice turn, that's pretty good. Alright, good. Let's get back to work.
1:01:42
Colin Corr: That's a good way to look at it. It's a perfect way to look at it.
1:01:46
paul pope: Well, I'm a stoic, so, you know, I mean, I think the minute you start
1:01:52
paul pope: accepting the laurels, and you think you're king shit, that's when you get lost, you know? So it's like, good, good. This is the energetic field between myself and the audience. Enough people care about this, and they believed in… they went on the journey with me to get here.
1:02:07
paul pope: Okay, then my duty, next, is I need to keep doing it, and change it, and make it better. No rules, right?
1:02:14
paul pope: So I'll find a way to do it differently.
1:02:16
paul pope: And even with Battling Boy, you know,
1:02:20
paul pope: You know, I've got 100-something pages of Battling Boy 2 sitting here.
1:02:25
paul pope: And it'll be out soon.
1:02:27
paul pope: And I was… I was worried, because it's like, we've got T… we've got 4 volumes of THB coming out.
1:02:33
paul pope: I think a fifth, but the contract isn't signed yet, but, you know, that'll happen. And then, I'm like, well, what about Battling Boy 2? Like, they're like, don't worry, we can put both books out at the same time. And I'm like, this is incredible!
1:02:47
paul pope: two creator-owned series coming out from a major publisher at the same time, like, alright, well…
1:02:51
paul pope: I better get to work.
1:02:53
Tad Eggleston: I mean, it's a two-fold thing. First, they're… they're kind of different markets. I mean, THB kind of…
1:03:01
paul pope: Dope.
1:03:02
Colin Corr: Yeah.
1:03:02
Tad Eggleston: Well, I mean, I think… I think it could be… I think it's got some crossover to the YA, but… but Battling Boy is solidly YA.
1:03:10
paul pope: It's YA, yeah, and that's deliberate. Like, in the early days with Battling Boy, and you're right, it is different, this is the reason THP didn't go to Scholastic.
1:03:19
paul pope: because Bode is technically YA,
1:03:22
paul pope: And there's something… like, THB is in no means… I guess it's R-rated, but, you know, there's no sex in THB, and there's no, like, drug use or something like that. There's minimal swearing. People smoke cigarettes sometimes.
1:03:37
paul pope: But you're right, it's a little… it's for an older audience, so the idea is that the kids.
1:03:42
Tad Eggleston: I mean, I think it's actually more the philosophy and the… I mean, it's like…
1:03:46
paul pope: Yeah.
1:03:46
Tad Eggleston: Something that they call adult situations, where it's like…
1:03:50
paul pope: Yeah.
1:03:50
Tad Eggleston: what it.
1:03:51
paul pope: Oh, yeah.
1:03:51
Tad Eggleston: is the kids won't be interested.
1:03:54
paul pope: No, no, that's…
1:03:54
Tad Eggleston: couldn't.
1:03:55
paul pope: No, that's That's… yeah, because I remember trying to read 2001 Space Odyssey, or whatever the Arthur Clarke
1:04:02
paul pope: You know, that's a whole other story about that. I remember trying to read it when I was… 11?
1:04:08
paul pope: And it was just so boring, and I'm like, I can't read this. But I would… I would read Choose Your Own Adventure.
1:04:14
paul pope: Right. Yeah. That was age-appropriate, right? Right. And then, my dad gave me Dune when I was 14,
1:04:21
paul pope: And that was a… you know, because my name is Paul, Paul Atreides, it's like…
1:04:24
Tad Eggleston: Right.
1:04:25
paul pope: I mean, he was, I think, 14 or 15 in the novel, and it's like, perfect time to read Dune.
1:04:30
Colin Corr: Easy to connect.
1:04:31
paul pope: And again, I probably skipped over a lot of the philosophy and the, you know, the psychopolitics and things that.
1:04:38
Tad Eggleston: Probably would mean something a lot different today than it…
1:04:41
paul pope: Oh.
1:04:42
Tad Eggleston: team.
1:04:42
paul pope: Well, it's a… Dune is one of those books… I think I've read… I've read all of the Dune books, but over time, reading
1:04:50
paul pope: the first Dune novel, Six times.
1:04:54
paul pope: At different stages of my life, it always has a different meaning.
1:04:58
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
1:04:59
paul pope: Or a deeper meeting, at least.
1:05:00
Tad Eggleston: It's one of the reasons I actually am a big advocate of re-reading. There's so many people who's like, oh, I read that, I'm like.
1:05:06
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, but where were… I mean, the reader is the final collaborator.
1:05:12
paul pope: Yeah, you're right.
1:05:13
Tad Eggleston: Your mood today matters. Your previous knowledge set matters.
1:05:19
Tad Eggleston: Are you sick? That matters.
1:05:23
Colin Corr: Price is a huge factor. Right. Huge factor whenever you read anything.
1:05:26
Tad Eggleston: Like, like, every, every, every reading is gonna be different. It's why I love to book club things, because they're so…
1:05:34
Tad Eggleston: so many things that, like, I read it and I appreciate it, but then I read it and I talk to other people who've read it, and, like, my level of appreciation changes immensely just because there's a shared amount of…
1:05:49
Tad Eggleston: Speaking of which, Colin, I think we're gonna have to do a Paul Pop Book Club soon.
1:05:54
paul pope: Oh, okay.
1:05:56
Tad Eggleston: So, Paul, I mean, there might be more talk of your work. You don't… wool.
1:06:02
paul pope: I mean, we'll get back to you.
1:06:03
Tad Eggleston: at the end of it.
1:06:04
paul pope: Good, I mean, I'm not gonna say no. Well, there's something… I was reading some C.S. Lewis essays, I think it was in his book, Surprise by Joy.
1:06:13
paul pope: And he writes about the joy of reading, and of course, joy was the name of his wife. Kind of a tragic story, but
1:06:21
paul pope: he was… Discussing how some books
1:06:25
paul pope: Some books you do read once, and some keep changing, and they keep growing with you, and as you grow older, and…
1:06:31
paul pope: I'm pleasantly surprised with THB. I'm not the type of guy to pat myself. I'm the type of the guy that's gonna whip myself on the back, not pat myself on the back.
1:06:39
paul pope: But I'm like, oh god, what's it gonna be, like, looking at this old stuff? I mean, God, is this even good? I'm like, you know what, this holds up.
1:06:46
paul pope: Strangely, there's a lot of coded information in THB that is contemporary.
1:06:52
Tad Eggleston: Well, and, like, I… For sure. I can't… I can't wait to talk about it
1:06:56
Tad Eggleston: When it's all out, because even watching this…
1:07:00
Tad Eggleston: or even reading this volume, both the philosophy, but watch… watching you grow as an artist, you're so good out of the gate at the beginning of this, but you…
1:07:13
Colin Corr: 10,000 hours.
1:07:14
Tad Eggleston: have…
1:07:16
Colin Corr: Then 20,000, then $30,000. That's right.
1:07:18
paul pope: Exactly, that's my point. I mean, it's like, we've been doing.
1:07:22
Tad Eggleston: A Love & Rockets book club, where we've been going issues.
1:07:25
paul pope: Oh, wow.
1:07:25
Tad Eggleston: issue.
1:07:27
Tad Eggleston: Like, if there's anything crazier than looking at the brothers and how good they are in issue one…
1:07:35
paul pope: Oh, yeah.
1:07:36
Tad Eggleston: And how, 30 years later, they're still getting better. 40 years later, they're.
1:07:41
paul pope: I know.
1:07:42
Tad Eggleston: You know, you're seeing, like…
1:07:44
paul pope: Ugh.
1:07:49
Tad Eggleston: So, we're starting to run up on time. There are two questions that… one that I always ask, but one…
1:07:56
Tad Eggleston: One has become a new one for me.
1:07:59
paul pope: I've been… I mean, I guess, brothers.
1:08:03
Tad Eggleston: Do we have you, Paul?
1:08:05
Colin Corr: Oop, you still there?
1:08:08
Tad Eggleston: I'm still… Okay, I'm here. He's good. Yeah, perfect.
1:08:11
paul pope: Alright, I was just listening.
1:08:13
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, we had a minimal blip there.
1:08:15
paul pope: I'm here, can you? Can you hear me alright?
1:08:18
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, all good.
1:08:18
paul pope: Oh, okay, okay.
1:08:19
Tad Eggleston: We're all good now.
1:08:21
paul pope: President's a hologram.
1:08:22
Tad Eggleston: Pretty, pretty, pretty regular,
1:08:25
Tad Eggleston: closing questions for me. One, you've, like, alluded to a bunch of stories, so I really want to ask you it.
1:08:32
Tad Eggleston: I have been blown away at even just 4 years of podcasting about comics and getting to know people, the number of surreal experiences that I've wound up having where, you know, this or that person that used to just be somebody that I loved their work is now somebody that I text during a World Series game, or…
1:08:51
Tad Eggleston: Or, you know, Jeff Smith took me on a backroom tour of the Billy Ireland.
1:08:57
Tad Eggleston: You know, that sort of thing.
1:09:00
paul pope: Ed.
1:09:01
Tad Eggleston: And what I've also discovered is everybody in comics, no matter how famous they are, has similarly surreal experiences that have occurred… that have…
1:09:13
Tad Eggleston: happened in their life only because they've chosen this path, that they've been part of this community. So…
1:09:20
Tad Eggleston: Is there one that you, you…
1:09:22
Tad Eggleston: Hold dear that you'd be willing to share?
1:09:25
paul pope: The first one that comes to mind
1:09:28
paul pope: It was my first trip to Anglem.
1:09:32
paul pope: 1998, so I would have been 27.
1:09:36
paul pope: And, you know, I studied French in school, had 5 years of French, and now I'm published in French and stuff, but I was intimidated
1:09:43
paul pope: My first time in Paris, my first time in Uncle Lemon.
1:09:46
paul pope: We're… I'm with Sergio Aragonese and some other artists. I think,
1:09:51
paul pope: I don't think Bilal was there, but Matoti was… I think Matoti might have been there, a few other, like, Jose Munoz, who I love.
1:09:59
paul pope: And I just wasn't speaking French, and all of a sudden.
1:10:03
paul pope: fireworks start going out… going off, and we're walking down this ancient French You know, street. Cobblestone street.
1:10:11
paul pope: And I look at Sergio, and I just nod at him, and I'm like, I have to start speaking French.
1:10:16
paul pope: I'm with fucking Sergio Aragonis, I have… And…
1:10:21
paul pope: So, it just… like, oh, Baru was there too, another artist I like a lot, Edwin Baru.
1:10:29
paul pope: it was like a light switch changed, and I was able to…
1:10:33
paul pope: have the confidence to communicate, so I think…
1:10:37
paul pope: That… that was the first one that comes to mind. But yeah, those sort of, like…
1:10:40
Tad Eggleston: Alright, what?
1:10:41
paul pope: Those strange things that just happened, you know?
1:10:43
Tad Eggleston: Just walking down the streets of France with Sergio Aragonese.
1:10:47
paul pope: Yeah.
1:10:48
Tad Eggleston: I mean…
1:10:49
paul pope: As fireworks… as fireworks go up at midnight.
1:10:52
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah.
1:10:53
paul pope: How the hell did this happen? What would 10-year-old Paul Pope say to that? Oh, I asked myself… I had dinner with Frank Miller a couple weeks ago, and every once in a while, like, I'm fortunate that we become friends, and I see him
1:11:05
paul pope: Once or twice a month at this point, maybe…
1:11:07
paul pope: You know, we get dinner or lunch or something. And, just talk.
1:11:12
paul pope: And we were talking about… Ronin. We were talking about his book, Ronin.
1:11:18
paul pope: And… it's like, in my mind, there are two Frank Millers. There's, like, Frank, Who's just my friend.
1:11:24
paul pope: And then there's Frank Miller.
1:11:26
Tad Eggleston: Right.
1:11:27
paul pope: And I'm like, Frank, you realize you changed everything. You know, you went from Daredevil to Ronin, and then you brought Lone Wolf and Cobb over.
1:11:34
Tad Eggleston: Right. And it's like…
1:11:37
paul pope: you know, I'm… one time we were looking at Ronan at his place, and I'm…
1:11:43
paul pope: It's like, I was having that feeling again, it's like, this is Frank Miller.
1:11:46
paul pope: This is not Frank. I'm not sitting in Frank's house. I'm not sitting in Frank's studio. I'm sitting with Frank Miller.
1:11:52
paul pope: And we're looking at Ronin art, and…
1:11:55
Tad Eggleston: I mean, it's crazy that you bring him up, because we were just talking about him on the… the…
1:11:59
Tad Eggleston: main weekly podcast this morning, and the way his Batman and Daredevil completely redefined the characters into a certain…
1:12:08
Colin Corr: For sure.
1:12:09
paul pope: Well, that's…
1:12:09
Tad Eggleston: stomachs in general.
1:12:11
paul pope: Yeah, that's the… I mean, and especially in my case, I had to get… I had… felt like I had to get the blessing of Frank to do Batman Year 100.
1:12:19
Colin Corr: Makes sense.
1:12:19
paul pope: And he… we were sitting at a place in Times Square, and I showed him the Xeroxes, and it's like…
1:12:25
paul pope: He didn't say much, but he's like, wow.
1:12:27
Colin Corr: You're beating them up more than I do.
1:12:31
paul pope: No, but get this, when we're looking at Ronin, we're looking at one of the classic pages. It might have been in the page with the samurai sticking a knife through himself to kill the demon.
1:12:41
paul pope: Like, no spoilers, the book's been out for 40 years.
1:12:44
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, you're gonna make me go read it again now.
1:12:46
paul pope: Oh, no, it's, it's worth… it's…
1:12:49
Tad Eggleston: No, it is. But…
1:12:50
Tad Eggleston: And I enjoyed the new volumes, so, like, I really need to go read them together.
1:12:55
paul pope: No, he's… he's… yeah, he's… he's… he's got a lot of life left in him, and we were looking at the page.
1:13:01
paul pope: he's contemplative, and he's sort of like, you know what, the only thing I can think of when I see this page…
1:13:07
paul pope: I thought if I don't finish this page today, they're gonna shut off my electricity.
1:13:13
paul pope: And then it's Frank again.
1:13:14
Colin Corr: Artists just going for it.
1:13:16
paul pope: You know what I mean? Right. It's like, for military, it was Frank Miller that he told me that story, it's like, he's Frank.
1:13:21
Tad Eggleston: See, see that? And I'm like.
1:13:22
paul pope: I had the same… the same problem. I mean, there are times when I'm like, they're gonna kick me out of my apartment, but… I mean, now I don't have a problem. You've got $2 in your pocket. $2 in my pocket on a Sunday brunch day with a bunch of these assholes having brunch, and I can't afford anything.
1:13:35
Tad Eggleston: This reminds me of another one of my recent, or relatively recent stories, in that, and I'll even name the publisher now, because they've continued doing it long enough that I feel confident.
1:13:47
paul pope: But, like, we had a run of smaller publishers.
1:13:50
Tad Eggleston: That went belly up, because they're trying too much to be Hollywood, rather than just…
1:13:54
paul pope: Right.
1:13:55
paul pope: Publisherism. Yeah.
1:13:56
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, and it seemed like too often I'd get excited, and we'd talk about, like, a bunch of stuff from this press or that press, and then suddenly we'd find out they weren't paying people.
1:14:06
paul pope: Oh, yeah, yeah. So when Mad Cave started putting out a lot of good books all at once.
1:14:11
Tad Eggleston: I was, I was hesitant to start plugging them.
1:14:15
Tad Eggleston: But C2E2 came up, and one of my friends was tabling, and he'd had some Mad Cave books, so I went up to him, and I said, hey…
1:14:25
Tad Eggleston: Tell me about your experience with Mad Cave, and he's like, They pay by direct deposit.
1:14:32
paul pope: And… It's 2025, baby.
1:14:37
Tad Eggleston: And… If you turn in work on Wednesday night.
1:14:43
Tad Eggleston: It will be represented on your check on Thursday.
1:14:47
Colin Corr: Wow.
1:14:48
Tad Eggleston: Thursday is the payday, so Wednesday night has become my most productive day, because if I get the kids…
1:14:55
paul pope: Thank you, Bob.
1:14:56
paul pope: That's very funny.
1:14:58
paul pope: Well, that's good to know. I met a bunch of the Mad Cave guys at BaltimoreCon this year. I went down there…
1:15:03
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, no, they've been doing some really cool stuff. I've been impressed with them.
1:15:07
paul pope: Yeah, it's great. I mean, I haven't done shows for a long time, but I did two appearances, in the last two weeks in Manhattan here.
1:15:15
paul pope: This documentary film just dropped about THB. You guys might have seen it. I think I sent you the link to it.
1:15:20
Tad Eggleston: You sent me the link, I haven't sent it on to Colin yet, but I will.
1:15:23
paul pope: Okay, good. And, we're submitting the film into, film festivals next month.
1:15:29
paul pope: Nice. And the director, Joe Carabello, is really, really good, and we're getting good reception for that.
1:15:37
paul pope: You know, I'm still in the middle of the press junket, like, this kind of thing where we talk.
1:15:42
Tad Eggleston: Right?
1:15:43
paul pope: And then chop wood, carry water, right? You're only as good as your last book, right? So it's like, I gotta keep it up, man.
1:15:48
Tad Eggleston: Well, if you wind up at C2E2, I'll take you out for coffee.
1:15:52
paul pope: Okay. Maybe, I mean, I don't…
1:15:54
Colin Corr: See ya.
1:15:55
paul pope: I don't… I have a suspicion I'm going to…
1:15:58
paul pope: San Diego Comic-Con next year, because that's when THB2 is out.
1:16:03
paul pope: In the meantime, I…
1:16:04
Tad Eggleston: For that matter, the…
1:16:09
Tad Eggleston: ALA is in Chicago this year, too.
1:16:12
paul pope: Oh, yeah, I love… I've been to LA a couple times.
1:16:14
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, if you wind up at ALA. If you wind up in Chicago, Comment's on me.
1:16:19
paul pope: Last time… last time I was there, I was on tour for, Battling Boy, and, my publicist had me on this, like, torturous schedule, and I'm like, can I, you know, like.
1:16:31
paul pope: 12 days in a row, like, you know, from town to town, like that spinal tap moment where you wake up in a hotel room and you don't know what city you're in, that kind of thing. Like, where am I? Is this… is this Cleveland?
1:16:40
Tad Eggleston: No, in Chicago. Oh, good, this is the weekend I get a day off.
1:16:45
paul pope: Because they put me in a place, you know the place, the Blackstone? That hotel?
1:16:48
Tad Eggleston: Okay.
1:16:49
paul pope: Across from the museum.
1:16:51
Colin Corr: Right.
1:16:52
paul pope: And they had, at the time, I think it was, they had a Francis Bacon exhibit, and they had the Bowie exhibit that was touring with all of his costumes and his…
1:17:01
Tad Eggleston: Right?
1:17:01
paul pope: Lyrics, handwritten lyrics and stuff.
1:17:04
paul pope: I'm like, oh, thank God, I have a day off, I'm just gonna go to the museum and just soak in art.
1:17:10
paul pope: And look at David Bowie, he's my hero, Bowie, and…
1:17:13
Tad Eggleston: Look at his costumes.
1:17:14
paul pope: She calls me and she's like, oh, yeah, we, we signed up some events for you today.
1:17:19
paul pope: I'm like, huh.
1:17:21
paul pope: Is this something I can get out of? Like, I need to…
1:17:24
Tad Eggleston: Events that can happen as we walk at the museum.
1:17:27
paul pope: No, but…
1:17:28
Colin Corr: I do them on my phone.
1:17:29
paul pope: No, but it was… she… I forget what it was exactly, but it's something like, no, these are for kids with leukemia. You have to do this. I can't say… I can't say… I can't say no to that. Like, okay.
1:17:39
Colin Corr: Yep.
1:17:40
paul pope: At the very least, we'll have a nice dinner at the end of the night, but it's like, alright, well, no Francis Bacon for you, boy.
1:17:47
Colin Corr: I'll tell you. Okay.
1:17:49
paul pope: That's a The sad bastard Life of a cartoonist.
1:17:52
Tad Eggleston: Final question.
1:17:55
paul pope: Answer's yes.
1:17:57
Colin Corr: Okay. Perfect.
1:17:58
Tad Eggleston: So the question was, how much of your original art are you willing to hand over right now? And the answer is yes, so I assume that means all of.
1:18:05
paul pope: Oh, oh, oh.
1:18:07
paul pope: No, no, that's true.
1:18:08
Colin Corr: Oh my god.
1:18:10
paul pope: You have to talk to Felix Liu about that, because we have a long-term strategy for art sales, but we've been doing well, and Felix has become.
1:18:19
Tad Eggleston: That was my joke question, because the answer…
1:18:21
paul pope: I know it was… I know it was… well, that's fine, that's fine.
1:18:25
Tad Eggleston: The real question is, tell me something you love, preferably a comic.
1:18:29
Colin Corr: But we don't have rules.
1:18:31
Tad Eggleston: Preferably storytelling, but again, with the rules, but something that you love.
1:18:35
Tad Eggleston: And not enough people around you have experienced it, and you want more of them too, so you have more people to talk about it with.
1:18:42
paul pope: Okay, there is a, first thing that comes to mind is there's a book that Milo Monara did, I think in the early 90s, late 80s, called Desiree.
1:18:51
paul pope: As in, Wrath of God?
1:18:54
paul pope: DEI… I think it's… it's Latin, right? So it's D-E-I-E-R-A-I-S, I think? Desiree.
1:19:04
paul pope: And it's a very meta-comic, before we had the term meta.
1:19:09
paul pope: Very, very strange, but he does some really interesting things in that book, and
1:19:14
paul pope: Of course it's well-drawn, it's Monera, and it's a little bit of, you know, sex material in it.
1:19:20
paul pope: You know, not safe for work. Don't read it at junior high school.
1:19:24
paul pope: But,
1:19:25
paul pope: From an artist's point of view, or cartoonist, or comic book fan's point of view, it's interesting, because he breaks the fourth wall, he changes style.
1:19:34
paul pope: And he was really influenced, I think at the time, by,
1:19:38
paul pope: Louise Borgia, who's the, you know, the, South American writer.
1:19:45
paul pope: And so he was doing a lot of very interesting things with page design and style.
1:19:51
paul pope: And how the characters relate to us as readers.
1:19:56
paul pope: So it has a bit of, like, a Fellini-esque thing, or like,
1:20:00
paul pope: Borgia, like I was saying, or even Umberto Echo, like, just strange stuff, but it's a very interesting…
1:20:06
paul pope: unusual graphic novel that I'd recommend everybody reads.
1:20:11
paul pope: Tomorrow.
1:20:12
Tad Eggleston: China, China.
1:20:13
paul pope: On, on Wednesday, on Wednesday, before payday.
1:20:15
Colin Corr: Payday.
1:20:18
Colin Corr: Awesome.
1:20:18
Tad Eggleston: Kinda… Trying to find it listed.
1:20:23
paul pope: It was published in English by Casterman.
1:20:25
paul pope: And I think 1991. I don't know if it's been in print in English since.
1:20:31
paul pope: So it's probably on eBay, or Abe's Books, or something, or, Stuart Eng Books.
1:20:37
Tad Eggleston: I mean, just as you were talking, like, you brought up Borsia, and he did his book on the other Borsias written by Joe Dorosky, and you brought up
1:20:48
Tad Eggleston: Fellini, and he did a book on Fellini.
1:20:50
paul pope: Oh, I'm not surprised, yeah. Oh, no, no, yeah.
1:20:53
Tad Eggleston: I brought up Caravaggio earlier, his most… his two most recent…
1:20:58
Tad Eggleston: U.S, releases have been about Caravaggio. Yeah, he's a fascinating…
1:21:06
paul pope: You know what's… you guys know the artist Yuko Shimizu?
1:21:10
Tad Eggleston: I don't.
1:21:11
paul pope: She's a Japanese artist, she lives in New York, old… I don't want to say old friend of mine, but I've known her for a long time, I'd say probably 25 years by now. Okay. But when we… she was living with James Jean at the time, as roommates.
1:21:25
paul pope: And, James is like, you should meet my friend Yuko.
1:21:28
paul pope: And she does… she's a teacher at SBA and does a lot of illustration. She doesn't like to do comics, but she's got a really fascinating.
1:21:36
Tad Eggleston: I mean, that's a shame, because just looking at the beginning of the images that popped up immediately, she's got a style that would work for it.
1:21:45
paul pope: Oh, yeah, but you know, we've been fortunate to be published a few times together, and we're friends.
1:21:51
paul pope: And, when we first met, it was interesting, because we were just kind of going back and forth with influences, and like, oh, I'm really interested in Guido Krapex, and I'm interested in
1:22:00
paul pope: You know.
1:22:01
Tad Eggleston: We talked about Krepex the last time you were on.
1:22:03
paul pope: I mean, I'm obsessed with great effects, but…
1:22:06
paul pope: The point is, she grew up in Japan, I grew up in America, but we had the same influences, and so we had… we just naturally developed similar styles.
1:22:16
paul pope: Because I'm like…
1:22:18
paul pope: her style looks a lot like my style, and she's thinking, his style looks a lot like my style. And we start talking, like, I've never heard of you.
1:22:26
paul pope: Well, I've never heard of you.
1:22:28
paul pope: But we're looking at the same art. So, like, imagine that, like, the 30-year lifespan, not knowing each other.
1:22:35
paul pope: And then you finally meet, and you realize that, for some weird reason, out of the billions and billions of people on Earth.
1:22:42
paul pope: This one person was interested in the same stuff I was interested in.
1:22:47
paul pope: And then develop an art… Career.
1:22:51
paul pope: And then was living with, you know, James Jean's an old friend of mine, too, so…
1:22:55
paul pope: Like, he's like, you gotta meet my roommate, just what are the chances of this?
1:22:59
Colin Corr: That's another… okay, there's your other surreal story. Yeah.
1:23:01
Tad Eggleston: Yeah?
1:23:02
paul pope: It's a weird book.
1:23:03
Tad Eggleston: Love it.
1:23:04
Colin Corr: That's awesome. Well, we're living in my surreal story right now, so thank you, Paul Pope, because I never thought I'd have the chance to thank you, especially for that work that changed me. So thanks again for that moment and everything that you've done.
1:23:16
paul pope: Yeah, there it is, right there with the kettles.
1:23:20
paul pope: Holding up a page from 100%.
1:23:22
Colin Corr: Holding up the page, so… Just a reminder.
1:23:26
Colin Corr: You know, so keep doing it.
1:23:28
paul pope: I'm glad… well, I'm not gonna stop, I'm gonna die at the drawing table.
1:23:31
Colin Corr: That's exactly…
1:23:32
paul pope: I, I, I, I.
1:23:33
Tad Eggleston: Just not soon.
1:23:34
paul pope: I can't…
1:23:34
Colin Corr: That's true.
1:23:35
paul pope: Not with any luck, I mean, I just, I keep re-enlisting.
1:23:39
Tad Eggleston: Yep, mile.
1:23:40
paul pope: One more heist, right?
1:23:42
Colin Corr: Exactly.
1:23:43
paul pope: One more heist.
1:23:45
Tad Eggleston: I'd read a Paul Pope Heist book.
1:23:47
Colin Corr: That's a good idea.
1:23:49
paul pope: Well… It's not on my… my…
1:23:51
paul pope: medium-term list, although I… I have written re… written…
1:23:56
paul pope: Recently written a couple of Westerns.
1:24:00
Colin Corr: There you go.
1:24:00
paul pope: May or may not be announced in the next year.
1:24:03
Colin Corr: Love it.
1:24:04
Tad Eggleston: Pretty cool.
1:24:04
paul pope: But I did not say that, and I'm not here.
1:24:07
Tad Eggleston: Of course not.
1:24:08
Colin Corr: Understood.
1:24:09
Tad Eggleston: I mean, if you need me to, I'll clip it, but…
1:24:12
paul pope: No, it's… I didn't… I didn't give any…
1:24:14
Tad Eggleston: That was, that was.
1:24:16
paul pope: That's fine. I mean, the point is, is as I'm finishing Battling Boy, and now promoting THB, I am still working.
1:24:22
Tad Eggleston: Right.
1:24:23
paul pope: And I've got a stack over here of, at this point, hundreds and hundreds of unpublished pages, so…
1:24:29
Colin Corr: Perfect.
1:24:30
paul pope: You know, it's just…
1:24:31
Tad Eggleston: So what you're saying is, like, like Prince, like Prince, even when you die, we'll have… we'll have 3 or 4 more books.
1:24:41
paul pope: I hadn't… I hadn't thought about that, but…
1:24:44
paul pope: Bowie did the same thing. It's like, that actually would be pretty baller if I'm getting toward the end.
1:24:49
paul pope: This is hopefully no time soon.
1:24:51
Colin Corr: Yeah, no time soon.
1:24:52
paul pope: To plan for this?
1:24:54
paul pope: and keep having releases from the grave, I think that would be incredible.
1:24:59
Tad Eggleston: I mean… You never know. You heard it here first.
1:25:03
Colin Corr: Breaking news!
1:25:06
Tad Eggleston: Paul, it has been a pleasure. For Paul Pope, this has been 22 Panels. We will see you after the next page.
1:25:11
paul pope: Okay, guys, stay cool.