New to the scene, last year Josh Frankel launched Z2 Comics, a relaunch of his previous comic company Zip Comics. Having successfully released some Harvey Pekar comics, Z2 was all set to break onto the scene with the first collection of Dean Haspiel’s webcomic “Billy Dogma” as well as a reprint of Paul Pope’s previously self-published work, “Escapo.” And of course, we as a site and I as a person were very excited about this.
Honestly, though, saying that you’re going to be launching your new publication house with a reprint of an old Paul Pope comic is a lofty ordeal. Paul Pope is an incredibly talented and well-known creator, in our industry especially but in others as well (having had a bout designing clothes for DKNY amongst other commercial work — I still wish I could’ve afforded that jacket at the time). Not only was it an old comic, though, but a self-published one at that; not that coming across lost, old comics is hard if you have access to the internet, but this was certainly a comic that a lot of fans of Pope like myself hadn’t had the explicitly easy opportunity to see.
Which is what makes a release like this so daunting, but also quite exciting. A highlight of the opportunity to read this is the ability to look back on where Pope began as an artist, especially in the wake of his recent “Battling Boy” release and “One Trick Rip-Off” re-release. And with those things in mind, “Escapo” is a read that can be summed up, for better or worse, in one word: unexpected.
Taking into account the original existence of the book certainly seems prudent towards understanding and appreciating the comic. As it stands, the comic itself is over a decade old, originally put out by Pope in the late 90s, and features some of Pope’s earliest work post- the “THB” break, before he had fully developed his more recognizable style. As such, the art is a lot more clean than you might expect; it flirts with different styles, partially Japanese manga with a bit of inspiration from Federico Fellini (as the book points out), but it very much reads like an artist pushing himself, his limits, his capabilities. The lines are certainly more clean, the direction of the book much more direct and less fluid than it is in other books. Even the people seem much more specifically defined, where in other books the characters get a bit more wild in design, in their very existence.
That’s easily the most noticeable aspect of the book. So much of the book revolves around this experimentation, particularly in the use of perspective, and you can see the early elements that would grow into more confident work, like the recent “Battling Boy.” Pope swings the camera around, trying to get at the book from all angles; some scenes are wide open, literally showing you how a character sees what is in front of them, while others are much more tight, specifically focused on Escapo’s maneuvers through his act. Pope’s work evolved into a place where the flow of action in his books feels particularly fluid, almost literally liquid like, with scenes rushing into one another and playing off of the lines previously left. In this, that’s certainly a smaller element with narrower lines, but everything is so strongly focused on the art and what it — and Pope — is capable of.
Of course, that’s a double-edged sword. What “Escapo” provides here is very little; a surface read of the book will take you 15 minutes at best, the same as your average throwaway junk food comic. The story is rather simplistic, following an escape artist as he performs various acts while disporting with both love and death (it’s not as cheesy as it sounds, I assure you), and none of the inventive ideas present in his sci-fi bent comics are present here. Pope plays with some existential ideas in the book, embracing a grim tone while at the same time trying to push beyond it towards something a bit more optimistic, but there is nothing as exciting or dynamic as what we’ve come to expect. It’s a book about cheating, about getting away with things, and in a manner of speaking it does; it doesn’t spend too much time trying to build up any of the elements that other comics would spend ample amount of time building up, and it’s hard to get very emotionally attached.
Continued belowSo when you sit down to read “Escapo,” you would do just as well to take out all the words and just follow along with the art alone. While it may seem silly or perhaps even redundant to point out that any read in a primarily visual medium such as this should find the reader spending ample time pondering over the pages, this book essentially demands it. Escapo as a character provides very little to latch on to; his acts are daring and Pope brings them to life in exceedingly intimate and stylized fashion, but that’s essentially the draw. What you take from “Escapo” won’t give you an appreciation for the story so much as it does for the craft — and again, while that is slightly redundant when talking about comics, it seems never the less important to point out: this is a very talented creator’s early work on display, and the growing pains of a creator finding his voice is very noticeable.
In many ways, reading “Escapo” is like finding the early demos of your favorite band. All those songs you love now, the ones you sing in the shower and drive to on repeat are the ones that brought you to the group. Listening to those garage-made junky b-sides, though, is often a hit or miss experience. But often times, you can still hear all the elements that would inform the act you love now: the lead singer’s scratchy and breaking voice, the lead guitar’s missed notes and not-quite-there-yet solo. All these things are there, but they’re not “there” yet.
That’s “Escapo.”
Granted, I fully believe that in the comic medium, a so-so story with beautiful, lush illustrations is perfectly fine. There are plenty of books in my collection that I love not because the story is compelling but because the book is beautiful and exciting (“Mesmo Delivery” comes to mind). When you’re looking at the work of someone like Paul Pope, the emphasis has always been on the art over the story; whether you’re looking at something like “100%,” “One Trick Rip Off” or even “Batman: Year 100,” the story almost always seems secondary. He’s certainly gotten better at developing yarns that are haunting and interesting, and “Escapo” being rather light in that fashion isn’t anything to snub the nose at.
That, and adding Shay Plummer’s colors into the mix really does help a lot. I’ve not seen the black and white version of “Escapo” (aside from what’s on Pope’s site), but having read other black and white comics by Pope, seeing Plummer’s colors on top really makes the book pop. Pope does wonderful things with black and white, as he’s an artist that grew with the limitation of no color (or perhaps the avoidance of color on purpose?) and he certainly knows how to use stains of ink and large black swashes across the page to evoke specific ideas and mood; but the color very strikingly changes the book. I can only imagine that reading the colored “Escapo” is like reading a different book; without Plummer’s colors, the book seems like it’d be much more grim. Escapo’s skeleton costume and his brush with death very literally would play together, but thanks to Plummer’s colors this changes everything. Now it’s almost light-hearted, like a coquet instead of something more macabre, and that mood is everything.
So what ultimately makes this specific collection worth buying is the entire production behind it. As I sort of touched on earlier, this is a big coming out party for Z2 Comics, and they didn’t take that lightly. The book features design work by Jim Pascoe, and that (pun intended) is what holds everything together. “Escapo” is presented as something almost found in a gutter, with a frayed cover and tattered edges that evoke the idea that what you’re reading now was buried and just unearthed. It strikes a very specific mood, a sort of grunge-atmosphere, but that aspect of the design plays very well with the comic inside.
Not only that, but the inclusion of the extras very much makes the collection worth buying — particularly for fans of Pope. Given that “Escapo” as a comic is basically about seeing what Pope was like over a decade ago, seeing the production material for the comic (as much is still available) is crucial towards appreciating the material even more. It’s like being given a free backstage pass, and it’s incredibly fascinating when paired with what is the current iteration of the finished product. For those that enjoy buying art books and seeing early art and design work by their favorite creators (like that recent Alex Toth book), the collection that Z2 have put out here very much falls into a similar category.
Continued belowThat, and some pin-ups and an essay by Pope reflecting on “Escapo” is not to shabby either.
“Escapo” and the two stories contained within this book is like two b-sides by Paul Pope. You can see everything about what makes his work so great now visible in the pages, but it just wasn’t fully there yet. “Escapo” showed off an artist to watch, and it’s fun to get a look at this type of work now in retrospect. What Z2 have put out is very much an ode to Pope, and something for his fans — those that are very interested in having on their shelf a logical progression of talent that becomes more apparent the more you can add to it chronologically. While “Escapo” is certainly not something I’d recommend for someone who is trying to figure out what all the fuss is about an artist like Paul Pope, it’s definitely something worth taking a look at for those interested in art and process, because that is this book’s main appeal.
So calling Z2’s “Escapo” a graphic novel or a collection seems a bit off. Z2’s “Escapo” is more like an art book, and a prelude to something much bigger to come.
