Home > Letters to CR
Paul Pope Answers All The Confessional Questions
posted September 8, 2008

Favorites
1. What is your favorite stand-alone publication of the last five years?
--don;t think I have one. It would probably be a reference source
such as Creative Mythology by Joesph Campbell or Man And His Symbols
by Carl Jung.
2. What is your favorite ongoing serial comic that's published an
installment in the last three months?
--All Star Superman by Morrison/Quietly, hands down the best.
3. What is your favorite webcomic?
--don't have one, I don;t like to read comics online.
4. What is your favorite ongoing newspaper strip?
--I don't know if this is an ongoing thing but SWIPE FILE by Charles
Burns in Arthur magazine is awesome.
5. What is your favorite comics web site that is not a link- or commentary-blog?
--http://www.samhiti.blogspot.com
Comic Shops
6. What's the best experience you've ever had in a comics shop?
--don't have one.
7. What's the worst experience you've ever had in a comics shop?
--dealing with the trollish guy who works the backbin room at St.
Mark's Comics on St. Mark's St. in NYC, by far the unnecessarily
rudest and most boorish person I have ever encountered in comics
retailing on 4 continents and a number of islands.
8. List the names of the comics shops that have been your shop in your
lifetime of buying comics.
--JC's Comic Shop in Toledo, Ohio. The Beguiling in Toronto Ontario.
Laughing Ogre and Monkey's Retreat in Columbus, Ohio. Village Comics,
Jim Hanley's, and Midtown Comics in NYC, Meltdown and Golden Apple in
LA. Album and Un Regard Modern in Paris, Continuara in Barcelona,
Gosh! COMICS in London, Lambiek in Amsterdam.
9. If a comic shop has opened within 50 miles in the last two years,
what exactly makes you think it will or won't survive until a fifth
anniversary?
--Rocketship in Brooklyn NY. They seem to be smart.
10. What is something you've done in a comics shop you're sorry happened?
--Definately flirting with any fans or employees.
Greats
11. Who is the Greatest Living Cartoonist?
--I would think a race between Robert Crumb and Moebius and Pfiffer.
If I had to pick one-- Crumb.
12. Name the female cartoonist highest up in your personal pantheon.
--Sherry Flenniken (Trotts and Bonnie)
13. Name the cartoonist with a non-white South American or African
heritage highest up in your personal pantheon.
--Aristophanes (RIP)
14. Who is the world's most under-appreciated cartoonist?
--I wouldn't know since I don't appreciate them either. Two great
cartoonists I would like to see get more acclaim would be Tony Salmons
and Steve Rude.
15. Name a cartoonist you know is great but whose work you find hard to enjoy.
--Jack Davis or Wally Wood.
Nostalgia
16. What was the first comic that you remember buying after the last
time you stopped buying comics?
--After the last time would be New XMen by Morrison/Quietly
17. What comic do you plan to revisit one day?
--Adolf by Tezuka
18. Name a comic that was even better when you tracked it down than
you remember it being the first time.
--Lone Wolf and Cub.
19. What is the worst comic in your collection that you keep for
reasons other than its quality?
--I don't know.
20. One word only: what is your primary non-comic association with comics?
--You mean a word others would use to describe comics? Obscurity
Self-Improvement
21. What one site not your own or a friend's does CR not in your
opinion cover near enough?
--I don't know.
22. Name a comics figure this site has never interviewed you'd like to
see interviewed.
--Chester Brown regarding the fate of his Gospels comics.
23. Name a comics figure this site has interviewed you'd like to see
interviewed again.
--I don;t know.
24. Name an under- or unreported news story from your perspective.
--The phenomenon of torrents used to unlawfully or at least
unethically distribute copyrighted material without the consent of the
material's lawful owners, myself included.
25. Name a resource this site could house that would be valuable to you.
--I don't know.
Bonus Section: Not Comics
1. What is your favorite sandwich?
--I don't have one.
2. Name three US vice-presidents in the order that they occur to you.
--cheney, gore, bush sr.
3. Name a movie that shouldn't have been remade and a movie that should be.
--Rollerball shold not have been remade, at least not the way it was.
An absolute piece of shit. So was the '90s version of Lord Of The
Flies. And Planet Of The Apes. The list goes on. I think A Clockwork
Orange could be done well a 2nd time.
4. Otto Graham, Joe Montana or Tom Brady?
--?
5. If you could have any middle name in the world not "Bronislaw,"
what would it be?
--?