Last Thursday Paul Pope celebrated both his birthday and the launch of his “2089” clothing line for DKNY Jeans at THE HAPPY CORP headquarters in SoHo for a comics/fashiony bash. Guests included Dean Haspiel, Molly Crabapple, Seth Kushner, Arlen Schumer, Josh Bernstein (Royal Flush), Lindsey Reiman & Anna Van Slee (Devil’s Due), Michel Fiffe, Laura Hudson, Pornsak Pichetshote (Vertigo), and Gina Gagliano (First Second).
The party also celebrated HappyCorp / LVHRD founder Doug Jaeger’s birthday as well as his becoming president of The Art Directors Club. A comics-friendly bunch, The Happy Corp previously hosted the double launch party for Doug Rushkoff’s Testament & Anthony Lappe/Dan Goldman’s SHOOTING WAR and as LVHRD, the NYC-based ongoing creative social events organization, they produced a speaking “Bi-Fold” event mashing Paul against 8-bit music artist Mark Denardo.
Sadly we could not attend, due to a prior commitment, but it sounds like it was a groovetastic night.
DKNY Jeans just launched a mini-site for the Pope clothing line which includes a hand-drawn camouflage windbreaker hoodie inspired both by the natural patterns of butterfly wings and Kirby-krakkle. The site boasts a good bit of exclusive content, including a sketchbook and Inspirations section. The clothing is also hitting stores, so if you want the latest in comics-inspired clothing, now’s the time to go shopping.
Jeff Newelt was kind enough to pass along some photos from the evening, all taken by and © Andrew T. Foster.
Legendary Graffiti artist / sculptor Mare139 sporting the Camo Windbreaker
VJ Jonny Wilson of ECLECTIC METHOD collaborated with Pope on live visuals
Jahfurry aka Jeff Newelt (HEEB, SMITH, ACT-I-VATE)
Paul Pope DJ’ing a psychedelic space rock set
Paul Pope, Jonny Wilson (Eclectic Method), Jahfurry
ACT-I-VATE member Ulises Farinas
Dean Haspiel & Sarah Butterworth mingling
Happy Birthday and congratulations to little Paul Pope of New York City.
Belated happy birthday and congratulations to little Paul Pope of New York City.
i showed up much later, but still…good times and the clothing line looks great!
HEY!!!! This thing is much speedier than I thought. You can’t control this “Submit Comment”,…it’s tricky.
Remember when New Kids on the Block were big? They were everywhere and they were the flavor of the month. Paul Pope kind of reminds me of that. After the “cool” factor wears off, people are going to eventually scratch their heads and go, “I don’t get it.” The whole idea of mystical hippies producing art, seems about 4 decades behind. Enjoy your 15 minutes, you have about 5 left.
amanda and i were backed up with work …which sucked. happy bday paul…you crazy dude!
Blackeye, actually I think Pope’s work is going to have a lot more staying power than a lot of people think. I’m constantly amazed by how many young cartoonists he has influenced, and that’s going back to his 90s work.
Here’s the interesting thing, “a lot more staying power than a LOT OF PEOPLE THINK.” I guess that might suggest that I’m not alone in thinking that it’s all flash and very little substance. You could be right though, Britney Spears and Paris Hilton still seem to be popular. Maybe give an example of who, of merit, has been influenced by Pee Pee’s work.
Yeah, Beat, I was gonna say – I’m not as big a Pope fan as many others I know, but I respect his contributions and his influence, which is plain as day to anyone reading comics in the last 5 years or so. At this point his “15 Minutes” is nearly 15 *YEARS*…and counting.
As to influence, the most obvious example is Becky Cloonan, and I’m sure others will pipe in.
But here’s the thing, Blackeye: you’ve inserted the words “of merit” there, which ensures that any attempts to engage you on this will end up being circular and self-defeating. You’ve essentially bullet-proofed your opinion by allowing yourself to reject the “merit” of any cartoonist mentioned. I mean, if you don’t agree that Pope’s work has “merit”, it’s not like we’re going to be able to assign it backwards to him through some sort of transitive property by way of those he’s influenced.
Gah! Why am I even typing this….
Isn’t Rob Liefield, A good analogy. I think his path was very similar to Paul’s. Remember when he was making denim jean commercials? His “career” has been 15 years and still counting…yikes. I think I could name a lot more people that he has influenced, but is that good?
For this article I was kind of surprised when both Lemire and Shaw named named Chris Ware AND Pope as major influences.
Jim D. Yah, I think we had best leave Blackeye on his own. I forgot about Becky Cloonan but obviously the whole “5” group is influenced by Pope. Also, Sam Hiti.
Just sayin…
Ryan Kelley and Nathan Fox also seem quite influenced by Popel’s work. That Rob Liefeld analogy doesn’t work for me: Pope is designing fashions, Liefeld wore jeans.
It’s okay to defend your heroes. No need to feel defensive. People sure get worked up don’t they? I actually like some of Paul Pope’s work, I though his one shot story of Batman was great, I thought it was brilliant that Bruce Wayne was an effeminate homosexual. I’m just suggesting, that maybe his celebrity is more based on his allure than his art. Hippy chic is cool, I dig it. Peace to all!
I think just the mention of any kind of comparison between “Rob Liefield” (sic) and Paul Pope speaks for itself.
Instead of comparison in the above sentence, please insert the word “similarity”.
Looking at Paul Pope’s work, the LAST thing I would think of is “mystical hippie.” Not sure where that came from, especially since Paul is well known as being a rationalist.
I don’t really understand why it matters if it’s his fifteen min. of fame or fifteen years. A lot of people like to hate on liefield, even though a lot of us as little boys were probably all about him. And things like WWF, and transformers, etc. Having these convenient nostalgia filters, where some stuff is ‘crap’ and some stuff is ‘classic’, keeps us from looking at any work objectively. Yes, liefield isn’t an amazing artist, but his ridiculousness sure worked when i was 10 years old. Pop culture itself usually operates in spurts of trends and fads, and there’s nothing wrong with it. Whether paul pope is just a trend, or in someway transforms how others see comics, is really not that important. I guess by being the first to say he’s a fifteen minuter, somehow makes you feel like you’re ahead of the curve, and that’s just sort of juvenile. Both liefield and pope are completely different artists, at completely different times, just like it was cool back in the day to like new kids on the block and some pair of jeans, now it’s cool to have some artist design a special line of clothes and have a reunion of new kids on the block. 15 minutes, or 15 years, each artist has it’s own strength at its own time that appeals to a certain group. I liked liefield as a boy, now i like pope as a young man. I can still like liefield in the way i liked it as a boy, just like i’ll continue liking pope the way i do now. Don’t turn your back on some artists, acting like you’re too cool for school over here. Comics are an evergrowing medium, and they’ll be awkward times, but even then, could we know how to judge paul pope without going through that time where we learned how to judge liefield? That’s what is important.
What???!!!
Sorry Peter, I meant no disrespect, it of course is, “Liefeld.” I agree, when comparing the two, what else needs to be said? That kind of sums it up doesn’t it?
Hm, is that a crappy jealous cartoonist I smell?
Comments are closed.