IMAGE [&] NARRATIVE Vol. 18, No.1 (2017) 138
Kent Worcester, ed., Peter Kuper: Conversations
Jan Baetens
This is another excellent volume in the « Conversations with Comics Artists » series edited by M. Thomas Inge. It is an all the more deserved and necessary publication since Peter Kuper’s important work, both as an artist and as a political activist, is to a certain extent clouded by the success of some of his books, such as of course his 2003 The Metamorphosis, an adaptation of Franz Kafka’s short story –a fascinating work, but
probably not the one that most clearly expresses Kuper’s prominence in the world of comics. Edited by Kent Worcester, author of several key books on comics (all published with Mississippi), this collection of interviews –well illustrated and usefully complemented with some intriguing historical documents– is an example of what a good interview book should be: not a mechanical alignment of more or less self-promotional statements, but a series of in-depth dialogue disclosing not only the career and the personal stance of the author but the position of his work and person in the larger cultural, social, and political field.
For readers less introduced to Peter Kuper’s work, three elements are particularly interesting. First of all, the creation of in 1979 World War 3 Illustrated, a magazine (currently an annual) that offers a forum to political graphic art, more precisely to a wide range of leftist comics –all types of left oriented comics, since Kuper and his coeditor Seth Tobocman open this publication to more than just authors who expand on their own ideas and preferences. WW3 Illustrated is exceptional in many senses of the word. Not only because it is so long-running and completely not for profit, but also because it continues to fill a gap in a field that is either completely market driven or mainly author driven. WW3 Illustrated is also a comics laboratory in the strong sense of the word, since it does not only publish works that are aesthetically and narratively “finished”: young contributors are welcomed even if they do not yet perfectly master all aspects of the art. This book does gives many stimulating inside takes on the history of WW3 Illustrated as well as on the distribution problems of this type of magazine, which is becoming increasingly difficult and problematic due to the vanishing of the bookshops where it used to be sold. Once again, it demonstrates that the book as well as the bookshop are not something that can be simply replaced by the apparently greater distribution possibilities of the Internet.
Another crucial dimension of these conversations have to do with Kuper’s contacts with Hollywood and the plans to create an animation series in the wake of some of his earlier comics and illustrations. Kuper describes and analyzes with great lucidity and without any resentment the always slow and always somewhat vague discussions with television executives and the concrete ways in which deals are made and eventually unmade. Granted, Peter Kuper’s story may be that of many artists that are invited to participate in the mass media without ever getting the possibility to actually do something –and certainly not to do something that could make a difference–, but here the story is the starting-point of many thought-provoking exchanges on the way in which comics artists make a living (or don’t). Similar but more positive observations are made on
Peter Kuper: Conversations
Edited by Kent Worcester
Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2016. 214 pages, 24 b & w illustrations ISBN: 9781496808370
IMAGE [&] NARRATIVE Vol. 18, No.1 (2017) 139
the integration of creators in the teaching system (Kuper commutes once a week from New York to Boston to teach a class at Harvard, and he has very smart things to say on his students and the organization of the comics curriculum).
Thirdly, this book also makes very clear how much Peter Kuper’s political work has to be linked with a very specific way of being in the world. Kuper is more than a traveler, he has been living abroad for two years, more precisely in Oaxaca, México, where he and his wife wanted to go in order to enable their daughter to learn a second language and where his hands-on experience will translate in different ecocritical works that do not simply copy or rapidly appropriate local mural traditions, for instance.
Peter Kuper: Conversations is however much more than the mere foregrounding of these three dimension
–the political, the cultural-industrial, the postcolonial– that are essential to the work of the artist. Next to a selection of nine interviews spanning the (long) career of Kuper (° 1958), the book also contains a very long chat with the editor, Kent Worcester, who tackles in a systematic yet synthetic way all personal and professional aspects of the artist’s work. The book ends with some interviews made by the young Peter Kuper himself, namely to amazing interviews, among which one with Robert Crumb (in 1971, that is when Kuper was only 13 years old; the interview is also reprinted in facsimile) and one with Jack Kirby (one year later, and one feels throughout that Kirby cares about his young interviewer), both for a small fanzine that Kuper was already publishing with his friend Tobocman. Amazing and essential documents from more than one point of view.
Jan Baetens is editor in chief of Image (&) Narrative. Email: jan.baetens@kuleuven.be
