New York’s Philippe Labaune Gallery Celebrates the Iconic Art of Paul Pope

Few living comic book artists are as renowned as Paul Pope. That's why it's so fitting that Pope's work is the subject of the latest exhibit at New York’s Philippe Labaune Gallery. Running from June 19-26, the exhibit will showcase some of Pope's original artwork from projects like Batman: Year 100, Battling Boy, THB, and Heavy Liquid, as well as his personal work and artistic homages.

IGN can exclusively reveal some of the artwork featured in this exhibit. Read on to see several of Pope's stunning original pieces and see creator commentary from Pope himself.

HOUSE OF MOORE

Pope: This was a piece I did for myself after a long day of inks. I like to do personal pieces on occasion to keep the knife sharp, push style and technique a bit beyond what I'd normally do for a comics page or cover for Marvel or DC. I'm enamored with the sculptures and drawings of Henry Moore, there's a lyrical buoyancy and rhythm to his shapes and a dreamlike presence in how he presents figures and objects. I wanted to do a page exploring that--two Moore figures seeing each other in an empty desertscape.

SELF-PORTRAIT

Pope: Initially, I wanted to reprint an updated version of the cover to PULPHOPE, my first monograph (AdHouse 2007), which was designed to be at first an unreadable abstract expressionist canvas. I took a side self-portrait I shot on my old Nikon 8008 camera and blew out the levels until it was high contrast B&W, and added layers of abstract ink marks over a scan of some old yellowed paper I had lying around. I wanted something which was off-putting but irresistible, like it is just too strange to NOT want to pick it up. BOOM! asked me to update this idea and use a drawn self-portrait this time, add some color and make it distinct from the first cover design. I was a bit hesitant at first, thinking it'd feel a bit self-indulgent, but I started thinking about album covers and how it is customary for a recording artist to present themselves on the cover of an album. We don't think twice seeing the musician on the cover of their album, the album is a sort of snapshot in time or a confessional or a testimony. I approached this cover with the same spirit, here adding some subtle dotscreen textures and oil paint layers digitally after the inks dried. This is one of the more recent pieces on display at Philippe Labaune Gallery, made in 2024.

RODAN

Pope: This is an early concept drawing for the character Rodan, from Heavy Liquid, which is out now from Image Comics. In the book she is a sculptor, hence the slight nod to sculptor Rodin, and the Kaiju monster bird Rodan. In the '90s there used to be a heavy music group called Rodan, which I liked. Rodan herself is based on Bianca Jagger circa 1971, for my money one of the sexiest and most commanding faces of women in Rock'n'Roll.

THB LIPSTICK

Pope: Like House Of Moore, this was another one page thought experiment. I had an extra page at the back of one of my THB one-shots (THB:M3, Horse Press 1999) and wanted to do something funny and strange. I was re-reading "The Secret Life Of Salvador Dali," one of my favorite artist auto-bios (although it's full of Munchhausian fabrications), and thinking of the old dance/pantomime group Mummenschanz, whose short performance films used to be shown on Sesame Street in the '70s and '80s. Somehow those two disparate influences ended up in Lipstick. It's one of my favorite THB shorts.

Learn More About Philippe Labaune Gallery's Paul Pope Exhibit

The Paul Pope exhibit runs from June 19-26 at the Phillipe Labaune Gallery, which is located at 534 W 24th St, New York, NY 10011. The gallery will hold an opening reception on June 19 from 6-9pm ET.

“Paul Pope is a singular force in contemporary comics — a comics destroyer, who pushes the boundaries of traditional comic art, “ said Labaune in a statement. “His distinctive style brings together the dynamism of Japanese manga with the narrative depth of European Bande Dessinee, and the spirit of American pulp. Pope blends a manga awareness with a European attention to mood and form. Moebius, Hugo Pratt, and Enki Bilal are all clear touchstones.”

The exhibit itself is timed to the release of PulpHope2: The Art of Paul Pope, an art book published by BOOM! Studios. You can order a copy of PulpHope2 on Amazon.

For more, find out where Pope's Batman: Year 100 falls on our list of the top 27 Batman graphic novels.

Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on BlueSky.