PAUL POPE Guest blogger

It's tough to write about a work in progress, in fact, it is perhaps wiser not to do so. If it were easier to communicate the ideas and intentions you are trying to convey with a story, you'd probably be able to skip writing the story altogether and just tell it to people, like you would with a good joke, or with directions to the beach. But how do you communicate all the invisible, ethereal things that go into the alchemical mixture that eventually leads to a story? All the music and sensation and hope and memory that informs the page? How to explain the mysterious thing without killing the mysterious thing in the process....?

Might be impossible. Might be better just to show you some of what I've been doing. Might be better to just pull the curtain back and give you a bit of the cast.

So, here we have him. BATTLING BOY.

Battling Boy is the son of a god or a super hero—it is left unspecified—who comes down from the top of a mountain (or rather, from inside a cloud/UFO contraption/contrivance from above a mountain top) at this father's behest, in order to rid a giant city from it's plague of monsters. Hercules had his labors, Batman has his Gotham, Battling Boy has his Monstropolis.

Monstropolis is a city the size of an entire continent—and it is absolutely overrun with monsters. These are horrible, Grimm's fairytale, Beowulf-ish monsters, awful things. Child-stealers. Plus some of the vampires and mummies and wolfmen we remember from the old black and white Hollywood horror films. Which—if you remember—aren't very funny. And they don't all like each other, either. Even a monster can't stand another monster, this has been proven time and time again.

And so, here is a taste of it, then. This is a bit of Battling Boy versus Humbaba, the toughest monster (or maybe at least the oldest—Humbaba can be traced back to Gilgamesh; he is the guardian of the edge of a city, or the place where a forest meets the edge of a city, as you prefer).

All I can say is—this story is pregnant with mystery, it is pretty much writing itself, and I am as impatient to see it in print as you are.

paul pope

Comments

[Gadget Reviews]

I don't know so much about this comic. I love what you're doing here, Paul. The premise.. the art... I only wish my old eyes could see some of great details you always have...

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[Jess @ Guitar Strings]

Looks awesome! Where can I get a copy of this?

[Cheap Sildenafil]

I don't know so much about this comic, however if I look it well is more similar to a manga than a comic, surely I gonna take my time to search for more information and find out more of this.

[Gail]

"All I can say is—this story is pregnant with mystery, it is pretty much writing itself, and I am as impatient to see it in print as you are."

We have always known that the gift of imaginative writing was within you.
Paul Pope... is a genius and we thank you for letting us discover a little bit of how a genius works.
From signing your name backwards to the gentle demeanor you have possesd over the years displays to us , your family, that your gift will keep on giving for generations.
Congrats on the Paramount Deal with Brad Pitt!!!
Dream on!!! Imagine on!! Believe!!
Your Cousin,
Gail

[Dylan]

This looks amazing thus far! Thank you for pulling back the curtain good sir.

Perhaps its too early to ask this, but who will be coloring it?

[SIMS]

YEAH!
KICK SOME MONSTER ASS BOY!!
ahem...
(To both the Artwork and the
Character)

[eric Hews]

I love what you're doing here, Paul. The premise.. the art... I only wish my old eyes could see some of great details you always have...

Any chance you'll post these larger sometime soon [flickr?], or are you reserving that for the obvious end-game?

Thanks for being awesome and taking the risk of discussing your child.

[Mark siegel]

..."a place where the edge of a forest meets the city..." That got me too. And Gilgamesh is just the thin end of the mythic wedge in Paul's BATTLING BOY. He's drawing from a whole different set of wellsprings than in THB.

[samacleod]

Looks fantastic! As always. Love your writing, can't wait to read it. Thanks for sharing a little bit with us.

[James A. Owen]

You got me. I was already interested from the snippets that have been leaked here and there - but with that last paragraph, you got me.

Then again, who doesn't swoon for a good Gilgamesh reference?

Looks great, Paul.