Paul Pope (born September 25, 1970, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American alternative cartoonist. Pope's work combines the precision and romance of European comics artists with the energy and page design of the manga tradition. Pope's two protagonist types are the silent, lanky outsider male of One-Trick Ripoff, Escapo and Heavy Liquid; or the resourceful, aggressive, humorous young teenage girls of THB. He has self-published some of his work, most notably THB, through his own Horse Press, with other work for such publishers as DC Comics/Vertigo and First Second Books. Early life Born in Philadelphia, Pope grew up in Bowling Green, Ohio, with stops in Columbus, Ohio, San Francisco, and Toronto in between. He describes his influences as Daniel Torres, Bruno Premiani, Jack Kirby, Alex Toth, Tony Salmons, Hugo Pratt, Silvio Cadelo, Vittorio Giardino, and Hergé. Career Pope introduced THB in 1995, the same year he began work for Kodansha, Japan's manga publisher. Pope eventually developed the manga Supertrouble for Kodansha, which mined the "cutie-pie" girl adventure vein that THB exists in. His storytelling narratives continue to mature with well-paced, deftly-shaded combinations of science fiction, hardboiled crime stories and the Romeo and Juliet archetype. Pope's One-Trick Ripoff was published by Dark Horse Comics, and Heavy Liquid and 100% were published under DC Comics' Vertigo imprint. In 2006, Pope received an Eisner Award for Best Short Story for his work, "Teenage Sidekick", published in Solo #3. In 2007, Pope won two additional Eisners, Best Writer/Artist and Best Limited Series, for his Batman mini-series, Batman: Year 100. Discussing the story, which is set in 2039, one hundred years after the first appearance of the caped crusader, Pope said: "I wanted to present a new take on Batman, who is without a doubt a mythic figure in our pop-psyche. My Batman is not only totally science fiction, he's also a very physical superhero: he bleeds, he sweats, he eats. He's someone born into an overarching police state; someone with the body of David Beckham, the brain of Tesla, and the wealth of Howard Hughes... pretending to be Nosferatu." The story, colored by José Villarrubia, was originally presented in a four-part prestige format in 2006. DC Comics later published a trade paperback collecting Batman: Year 100 in early 2007. The trade also includes Pope's "Berlin Batman" story from The Batman Chronicles No. 11. "Berlin Batman" involves a version of Batman who lives in the