Speakeasy with - Peter Kuper

Graphic novelist Peter Kuper throws political bombs as co-founder and contributor to the 27-year-old, left-of-center anthology World War 3 Illustrated, and favors exploding cigars as Mad magazine’s illustrator of “Spy vs. Spy.” In his new book, Stop Forgetting to Remember (Crown, $19.95), Kuper puts his own life in the crosshairs, juxtaposing his recent years as an expectant father and struggling artist with his youthful misadventures with sex and drugs. A guest of this year’s AJC Decatur Book Festival, he’ll take part in a panel called “Comics, PATRIOTs and the First Amendment” (moderated by this reporter) Sept. 1.</
Stop Forgetting to Remember is presented as “The Autobiography of Walter Kurtz,” who’s clearly a fictional version of you. What’s the difference between Walter Kurtz and Peter Kuper? He’s self-centered, obsessive and very whiny, and I’m self-centered, obsessive and just a little whiny, so there’s a huge gap between us. It’s my story, but I wanted the freedom to move it around a little. The important thing to me is the story that’s being told, not the fact that it’s me. For instance, Kurtz in the book has spent years trying to get his graphic novel published, while in the same time, I got 10 published. That just didn’t seem as interesting. Also, I wanted to write a parody of “Spy vs. Spy” in the book, and I couldn’t do the real thing, because it would be a copyright infringement.</
How political is the new book? It’s a very funny thing: When I do more overtly political pieces, they seem more easily dismissed than the more personal ones about drugs or sex. Things like that have gotten a more political response than the overtly political ones. I believe it was Bazooka Joe who said “The personal is political.” To say you can do lots of drugs and then grow up and become a parent – that flies in the face of the whole “Don’t Do Drugs” mentality. I’ve spent a lot of time in my career doing overtly political statements, but now I don’t feel I have to make a stand on every page so people know exactly where my politics are. Something that’s honest and personal can provide more ground for discussion and maybe get people to rethink things.</
Why do you use a more realistic style in the new book, given that a lot of your work often features sharp angles and dark shadows? A lot of stuff I’ve done in stencils with spray paint, including my book Speechless and “Spy vs. Spy.” It’s a chunkier art form. My tendency is that if I do one book one way, I want to change it up for the next book, or I’ll get bored. I wanted Stop Forgetting to Remember to be more linear than my illustrative work, which is more graphic.</
Why do you think there’s such a trend for autobiographical graphic novels? I think that for a lot of people who do alternative-ish comics, this is an area that’s relatively unexplored. Comics had a reputation for so long as being “just for kids” because they were just genre superhero fantasies. Now that there’s more opportunity to do more adult subject matter, there’s a tendency to focus on more adult experience. Parenting is not well-trod ground in comics. When I started Stop Forgetting To Remember, I looked around and didn’t find many other people doing what I’m doing. I’m just thankful that there’s a trend toward people reading graphic novels. I’ve been waiting for that for 25 years.</
Can you tell me the story of your George W. Bush satire “Richie Bush” being held in U.S. Customs? I was an inker on the Richie Rich comic book when I was 18-19 years old, and right away I thought there was something in the material. Years later, I did “Richie Bush” as a parody for World War III Illustrated magazine, and it was also published in an Eastern European publication called Stripburger. About 14 copies of Stripburger were shipped back to the United States and were stopped by U.S. Customs in North Carolina. Even though they check only 5 percent of stuff that comes through, they not only opened the crate but thumbed through it. They said “Richie Bush” wasn’t a parody but piracy of Richie Rich, but I think they were concerned about the political satire. Chris Staros [of Marietta’s Top Shelf Comics] contacted the Comics Legal Defense Fund, their lawyers wrote a letter and Customs relented fairly quickly. Parody is not illegal in this country. There’s an animation of the story at www.richiebush.com. I’m just hoping they do that with Stop Forgetting to Remember, because the sales will go way up.</
How did you become the successor to Antonio Prohías, who created “Spy vs. Spy” in 1961? I’d done a number of wordless comics, such as a comic strip called “Eye of the Beholder,” and out of the blue Mad magazine contacted me about doing “Spy vs. Spy.” I almost passed on it, because taking over somebody else’s characters was not where I was headed career-wise. I decided to try one, and as soon as I sat down, I realized how much the cartoon and Mad magazine had influenced me. It was really encoded in my DNA. So I thought, “I’ll do it for a year.” That was 11 years ago, and I sent the latest in yesterday.</
Who do you like better, the white spy or the black spy? I think I’m naturally drawn to the loser. Every time I do one, I make a point of checking the previous story to ensure that whoever lost in that one will win in the next one. Otherwise, if it’s a night scene, I’ll be inclined to the white spy, and if it’s in the daytime, the black spy. Really, I want to take the groundwork that Antonio Prohías set up and run with it as far as I can. You can do so much with the characters – I’ve done them as being old, I’ve done them as cavemen. I have a lot of rope to run with before I hang myself.