PICNIC07: The Art of Paul Pope

Works exclusively in analogue. Most interested in comics and picture-making. Brought in influences from rock art albums as much as comics he grew up with, and sees a relationship between music iconography and comics. Loved silent film.

Lots of Japanese manga artists worked with avant-garde theatre in the 60s and 70s. Shows a piece of work he did, borderline-plagiarised: you can do cover versions of songs, why not other art?

Currently working on a line of clothers with DKNY, and a store installation for Diesel in Hollywood.

Batman: there have been many batmen, and everyone has a version of it in their head. How can you make it new and your own? (Aside from PP: is Popeye the first superhero?) He started with the logo: the silhouette of the character is instantly identifiable. The shape looked to him like oppressive german black type (as seen on rock/metal albums). Shows some examples of attempts to form the logo into a shape using this style of font and the bat motif.

Wanted to comment on "what is a secret identity", whether in a police state a superhero has a right to a private self: the mask as a metaphor for privacy. Batman should scare you. Early silent film: "even their mistakes are pregnant with possibility". Wanted to have a repeated theme, like a refrain through music.

Time lapse film of Paul working; he often jumps between 2 projects to prevent boredom. One of these was fashion design work: "I started out drawing her naked to make the job more interesting".