Assassins of Pop: An Interview with Jason Copland and Curt Pires

Jason Copland and Curt Pires are two of our favorite creators in comics, which is why we were thrilled to hear they were joining forces on a new Dark Horse series called Pop. A post-modern sci-fi adventure starring Elle, a literally manufactured would-be pop star on the run from her creators, Pop is a bit like The Incal for the Phonogram generation. Curt and Jason have also assembled a ridiculously talented group to help them with the new miniseries, including Curt’s longtime collaborator Ryan Ferrier on lettering, Study Group wunderkind Pete Toms on coloring and comics design superstar Dylan Todd on covers and graphics. Even though the debut issue won’t be out until August 27th, I spoke with Curt and Jason online about how an open minded approach to drugs has helped Pop come together, the right kind of sexualization in comics and the duo’s unhealthy interest in all things Justin Bieber, amongst other things.

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Jason Copland:

You`ll have to pardon my typing speed. I`m a drawer not a writer.

Nick Hanover for Loser City:

Can you just sketch all your answers for this interview?

Curt Pires:

The typing speed is unacceptable! Repent Copland, repent!

Jason Copland:

I knew I should have taken typing in high school.

Curt Pires:

I couldn’t read when I was in grade one, so my teacher basically campaigned to have me classified as mentally challenged. Look at me now!

That is a true story.

I transcended her.

Loser City:

That should be your bio for now on

Jason Copland:

You should send her a copy of Pop.

Curt Pires:

I’ll send her a defecated on copy of the first issue.

Jason Copland:

“Signed by the writer.”

Loser City:

Your autograph is scrawled on there in a mixture of blood and fecal matter:

“Collector’s Edition, Contains Biological Waste, Limited to 100.”

Jason Copland:

Like KISS and their blood in the ink used to print the KISS comic

Loser City:

Segueway: Which one of you crapped the idea of Pop out?

Jason Copland:

Curt’s log.

Curt Pires:

I shit it out, and approached Jason, stool in hand, asking if he wanted to raise it as our own

Jason Copland:

I took one whiff and said “Yes.”

Loser City:

At what point did you guys realize you had turned shit into gold?

Curt Pires:

Very early on, since everything I touch turns gold/platinum.

Jason Copland:

For me, it was when I got to design [two enforcer characters] Girlfriend and Boyfriend. Once I had them drawn, I could see the road ahead of us very clearly.

Loser City:

I loved when those two showed up, and given whose kneecaps they’re shooting out, I think a lot of readers are going to love them, too. On the girlfriend/boyfriend note, since the comic is partially about bioengineered pop stars, were those two purposefully modeled after Joey Ramone and Joan Jett? They have a punk aesthetic, and they fit into Malcolm McLaren’s explanation for why they chose the “Sex Pistols” as the name for his punk experiment, since they’re literal assassins of pop…

Jason Copland:

Yeah, I definitely went to the polar opposites of what I consider a “pop star.” Although, I guess you can argue that the line between these poles is rather thin, now.

Curt Pires:

In terms of design, Jason could speak better to that. I know boyfriend is definitely modeled after Joey Ramone. With girlfriend, the Joan Jett is there, but that may have been unconscious. McLaren’s concept of “Sex Pistols” and Pop Assassination feeds into the book pretty clearly, the book is called Pop but has quite a bit in the way of “antipop” in it.

The more I’m thinking about it, I think the book is a fusion of the POP and ANTIPOP, parts of it are soft pastels, like inside a house, and the warmness of Drive; other parts of it are violent and barbaric like Only God Forgives. Some of it is My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy levels of maximalism; other parts the raw primal energy of Yeezus

Jason Copland:

One of the interesting things I see in the book is that the pop and the antipop figures are still controlled by the same people.

Loser City:

That’s something that definitely appeals to me about this comic, the way it understands and builds off the contradicting nature of pop culture. Obviously, there’s the Pop Art influence right from the first tier of panels, where an American Idol-esque sequence is narrated through a riff on a Warhol quote, but from there it builds into a visual and thematic riff on Richard Hell’s Blank Generation concept. With Pop, it seems like you’re commenting on and embracing the love-hate relationship everyone has with pop music and pop culture at large. Do you feel like that is something comic fans in particular struggle with? Like with the art versus pop comics divide and the belief that you can only be into one or the other?

Curt Pires:

Yeah, most of my comics work has sort of commented on the art comics/pop comics divide, and to a degree how bullshit I think that is. I’m an auteur who operates in a medium where the biggest selling stuff is hypersexualized men and women in costumes beating the fuck out of one and other. I also refuse to write off that comics like that can also be beautiful, while pursuing that which is to a larger degree only pursued in the art comics scene. So yeah, I’m all about breaking down the walls between these two things. I don’t believe in walls, I don’t believe in obstacles, I believe in making art that feels true to you, however that is.

Jason Copland:

For me, I am very conscience of the line between “art” comics and “mainstream” comics when it comes to drawing “style.” I feel that there is a definitely line comic readers don’t seem to want to cross. For the most part, people like one side more than the other and finding a drawing style that rides that line is something that would seem to be beneficial in making a “popular” comic.

Meaning, most comic readers like a certain style and don’t usually dabble in books that cross that line to the other side…

I’d love to break that wall, too.

Loser City:

I’m glad you bring that up because your style in Pop is very different from the work you did in Kill All Monsters, Jason. It’s fascinating to me because your work here seems to be in a Love & Rockets vein, with heavy but simple linework and a lot of clean detailing, but it also seems to pull from Heavy Metal, with its body horror elements and Pete Toms’ soft, saturated colors. Did you switch your aesthetic up in order to play off of the ’80s pop elements Curt brought to the narrative? Were there specific works (like, say, the original Dark Horse adaptation of Alien by Goodwin & Simonson, which seems to get a visual reference in the first issue’s creepiest scene) that you drew from when you started developing Pop?

Jason Copland:

The work in Pop is a more distilled version of what I was doing in Kill All Monsters, I think. Again, I feel like I’m being very conscious of the line where “art” comic art starts to fall out of the mainstream style and I’m trying to make sure that I ride the line a little more than I might normally would. There isn’t one source that I’m going to for inspiration but I would list books like Elektra: Assassin, Dark Knight Returns and Automatic Kafka as definite influences.

Loser City:

On the aesthetic front, you guys also seem to have made a very conscious decision to stand out from your peers with the covers and coloring and lettering on Pop. All of it is has the feel of the ’80s indie comic boom, and Dylan Todd’s design work on the covers has more in common with ’80s indie music than your standard Dark Horse release. Did you put your support team together with that in mind?

Jason Copland:

I’ll let Curt discuss the Pop crew, as he pulled this team together.

Curt Pires:

It wasn’t a conscious decision to plug into the vibe of the “80’s indie comic boom” but I think it’s something that sort of just happened, with how high energy the comic was. I’m interested in constructing beautiful comics/art on every level, so when putting the project together I was definitely thinking about this. Ryan [Ferrier] is a big part of this with his letters, Pete [Toms]’s colors are a huge part of this, and Dylan’s design systems/containers are a big part of this. Everyone is helping to make this book special and shape it into what it is.

Jason Copland:

I really don’t think there is another book coming out that will look like this.

Loser City:

I agree completely. Elsewhere, Pop has been described as the last part of a thematic trilogy for you, Curt, and I think it’s interesting that LP, Theremin and Pop all have connections to musical history. But there’s also a lot of body horror elements to these works, and weird technology, with Pop specifically featuring a really bad ass scene involving a grotesque, murderous nanobot that is surgically removed just before we meet Pop’s take on Justin Bieber. Do you think music and weird science are intrinsically linked? What’s the story behind your taste for merging these two worlds?

Curt Pires:

I don’t think music and weird science are in and of themselves intrinsically linked, I think perhaps in terms of my output they find themselves bleeding together. It all really comes back to my influences really, which would explain it. I pull from music as much as I do from film as much as I do comics. So you have Eddie Van Halen, Julian Casablancas and David Bowie coexisting with Cronenberg and Carruth and Lynch and Glazer and Kirby and Casey and Milligan. It all mushes together and forms the soup that is my work.

Loser City:

Going back to something you said earlier about superhero comics being oversexualized, Pop also has a lot of phallic and sapphic imagery, but it’s almost anti-erotic. Stuff like the Pop Star generating biowombs and the aforementioned nanobot are inherently connected to reproduction, and Pop’s renegade pop star protagonist, Elle Ray, is even introduced in a Fifth Element-like diaper bikini get-up, but none of it really feels “sexy.” I imagine that it must have been difficult to find that balance between commenting on the sexed up pop industry in a fun, sci-fi way and not coming across as exploitative. What was the process like when the two of you were working on that element of the art?

Curt Pires:

In terms of that, I had mentioned at least in describing Elle’s outfit to Jason that it was sparse, but not exploitative. Jason, of course, was the one who totally nailed it, and brought it to life. There’s a lot of comics out that basically are just crafted with the male gaze in mind, and I don’t really have an interest in creating that. Or creating content that would make female readers feel weird or like shit. I like women, I don’t want to make things that contributes to the way our culture systemically marginalizes and abuses them. That said, there’s a place for sexuality and pornography in comics, and I am not afraid to go there either.

Jason Copland:

I’m always trying to be conscious of the way I draw people, male or female, and to make sure to not make them fall into visual stereotypes. Sexy is hard to do without oversexualization but I hope I can hit that medium ground when drawing Elle.

Loser City:

I definitely think you have, and I think a large part of it is that Elle’s body language and posture; even when she’s vulnerable, there’s never a submissiveness or forced seductive quality to it.

I may be reading too much into this, too, but I thought it was interesting that the cover has the barcode over Elle’s mouth, like her commercialization is silencing her, and then within the issue, her creators are trying to silence her because she broke through their system. Are we going to see more of the process she was supposed to go through? And is that process a commentary on the way “manufactured” pop stars are run through cycles that seem to break them and turn them into gossip rag fodder?

Curt Pires:

The barcode over Elle’s mouth on the cover was definitely a conscious decision. A commentary on her nature as basically a product, and how, if we are being honest, horrific the idea of people as products truly is. Inside the book: her creators are definitely trying to silence her, to make her a product again, trying to reassert control over someone they shouldn’t have had control of in the first place. We do explore the sort of process for them creating these “stars” a little more, but we spend most of our time showing how Elle transcends them, and really reclaims herself.

Jason Copland:

And I just want to say that these covers Dylan Todd is doing for the book are amazing. They set the tone of the book perfectly.

Loser City:

We joked about it on Twitter a bit, but did you guys do a lot of research into the careers and marketing of some of the real pop stars these characters are based off of, like Justin Bieber? I know the Dustin Beaver segment references a couple real life shenanigans the Beebs got into…

Jason Copland:

Curt is all about the Beebs!

Loser City:

Clearly he is the best Canadian export since Sum41.

Curt Pires:

Hah, yeah, that’s less research and more of my near constant observation of pop/celebrity culture at play. It’s always been something that has fascinated me

Loser City:

So basically Curt sends you a lot of Bieber reference photos, Jason?

Jason Copland:

Naw. I have all those on my wall already…I’ve said too much…

Loser City:

I’m not going to touch that, otherwise I will be get banned from Canada again.

Moving back to more technical questions, the first issue of Pop amazingly has both a 12 and 16 panel sequence, but outside of those pages and the Bieber reference art, what’s the craziest thing Curt has made you draw for Pop, Jason?

Jason Copland:

Something called the “Silent Duck”…

Curt Pires:

Haha!

Jason Copland:

Issue #3 has a 25 panel page…

Curt Pires:

Issue two has a four dimensional sequence. Oh, and a DMT trip.

Jason is flexing lots of muscles on this book.

Jason Copland:

Yeah, those were interesting to draw, too.

Loser City:

So instead of 3D glasses does the reader have to take a hit?

Jason Copland:

It was definitely out of my regular “knowledge zone,” in terms of drug references.

But if we ain’t learnin’, we’re dead, right?

Loser City:

They’re into some weird shit in Curt’s homeland of Alberta. Have to make it through the winters somehow.

Curt Pires:

Really all there is to do here in the winters is get fucked up, so not entirely wrong there.

I have a pretty open attitude towards drugs, which I think shows in the book. I don’t really believe in glorifying drugs, but experimentation in a safe way, can be fun, and unlock things

Loser City:

It seems like a lot of the newer wave of comic pros shares that attitude in general, whereas the older generations seem to predominantly skew towards being semi-functioning alcoholics, although your MonkeyBrain boss Chris Roberson certainly loves to lure people over to the wonderful world of South American rum cocktails. Do you think that’s partially why comics, at least in the indie sphere, are moving away from bleak and gritty and more towards introspective and colorful? Ales Kot in particular seems to bring a heavy hallucinogenic vibe to his work…

Curt Pires:

Hmm. That’s a really interesting question. I think that comics in general are still pretty caught up in the need to feel grim and gritty on the whole. Its connection to the heavy drinking tendencies of its creators is an interesting one to explore. I don’t know if I would attribute the exploratory nature of comics, like the one’s I’m crafting, to my attitude towards narcotics, but just my attitude in general. The way I view reality on the whole, is with an exploratory gaze. Fuck, I essentially became the person I wanted to become through sheer force of will. So I think when you talk about artists like myself or Ales, you’re talking about everything, and drugs fold into that.

I also have zero hesitation in saying that Chris Roberson is an American treasure.

Loser City:

The exploratory angle makes sense. I’m just intrigued by how so many newer comic pros are more open on the drug front, but that could also just be that our generation on the whole shares that. And 100% agreed on Chris. The last question I wanted to ask is something a little goofier.

I wanted to know what album you would each suggest someone listen to as a soundtrack for issue one of Pop, and why.

Curt Pires:

Issue One- Billy Idol, Rebel Yell (issue is named eyes without a face)

Issue Two- The Chemical Brothers, Further (issue is named “Pseudiologia Fantastica,” but the album that track is off is mostly bullshit)

Issue Three- Ozzy’s The Ultimate Sin and/or Thomas Newman’s score to the abortive Less Than Zero film

Issue Four- No idea because I didn’t write it yet.

Jason?

Jason Copland:

I think The Who’s Quadrophenia mostly for the way both are about the central figure trying to figure out who they are and what they want to be.

Loser City:

That album is sorely underrated.

Jason Copland:

Or maybe Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories as I listened to that A LOT when drawing the first issue.

And agreed. Quadrophenia is my favorite Who album, by far.

Loser City:

Anything else you guys wanted to make sure we talked about?

Curt Pires

Obama

Jason Copland

Gun control

Loser City:

We probably could have worked more scatological humor, too.

Very disappointed

Jason Copland

Ah shit.

Curt Pires:

We didn’t touch on bukkake even once.

Loser City:

You’re not supposed to touch the bukkake, Curt, just look at it

Jason Copland

D’oh!

Loser City:

Since you haven’t finished writing issue four, that means there’s still time to turn it into one big Aristocrats joke, right?

Jason Copland:

Elle was dreaming the whole thing while in bed with her husband, Bob.

Loser City:

The preview art that goes with the interview can just be drawings Jason has done in the snow with urine

Jason Copland

We don’t get snow here in Vancouver. I’ll have to go down to the local ice rink and piss on the snow scraped off the ice.

Curt Pires:

Jason is a problem solver, okay?

Jason Copland:

It’s in my DNA.

Pop will be out August 27th through Dark Horse, but you should go ahead and preorder it. Trust us, it’s worth it. Keep an eye out on Loser City closer to the release date, when we will feature a review and other Pop goodies.

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Nick Hanover got his degree from Disneyland, but he’s the last of the secret agents and he’s your man. Which is to say you can find his particular style of espionage here at Loser City as well as Ovrld, where he contributes music reviews and writes a column on undiscovered Austin bands.  You can also flip through his archives at  Comics Bulletin, which he is formerly the Co-Managing Editor of, and Spectrum Culture, where he contributed literally hundreds of pieces for a few years. Or if you feel particularly adventurous, you can always witness his odd .gif battles with Dylan Garsee on twitter: @Nick_Hanover