Coop is, you’ll excuse the expression, a hot artist. I dig his art the most, to say the least. Coop designs everything from Hot Wheels to Hotties and I’m excited to present on 6-6-6 the following interview…
1) I love how you are informed by comic book artists but didn’t become one yourself. Who are your faves?
When I was a kid, I had a copy of Jules Feiffer’s “The Great Comic Book Heroes”, which my father had swiped from a base library while in the Air Force. I wore that book out, obsessed with the crude crazy art and lurid stories inside. The Will Eisner Spirit story in particular made a big impression on me, as even then I could see a much higher level of craft at work than in most of the other stuff on display in the book. When I was a little older, I tracked down some of the Kitchen Sink Spirit reprints and started trying to emulate that slick inking style.
Around the same time, MAD had begun reprinting the old MAD comics as inserts in the magazine, and another piece of the puzzle fell into place, as I discovered EC. The EC guys, particularly Wally Wood, Jack Davis, and Jack Kamen are also big influences on how I try to do stuff. I love those Wally Wood girls!
My first exposure to Kirby (other than the cruder Golden Age stuff in Feiffer’s book) was in an issue of Kamandi. My first reaction to his art was something like “THIS IS WRONG!!” My tiny kid brain couldn’t process the crazed concepts and gonzo unconscious pop-culture pilfering of Kirby’s writing, and his art (at his peak then, just before the beginning of his “Baroque Era” return to Marvel) curdled my brain like cottage cheese. I don’t know if I’m allowed to count him as an influence, but I definitely see him as a Picasso of comics, a Colossus who invented whole genres single handedly, moved through several significant stylistic periods, each influencing countless artists, and was such a unnatural creative force that it is almost impossible to find someone else as significant in the history of comics.
Love & Rockets got me back into comics after a brief detour into rock & roll and girls. Los Bros Hernandez made me see comics in a different context, as something cool and punk rock, and Xaime’s early work on band flyers and punk 45s encouraged me to try the same thing with local Oklahoma bands like future legends The Flaming Lips.
Last but certainly not least, Robt. Williams’ efforts to place cartooning and lowbrow culture in a high art context were hugely influential and truly groundbreaking, and his success certainly paved the way for me, as well as a bunch of other like-minded art hooligans.
Coop playing cards produced by my good fiend, Dave Scroggy at Dark Horse.
2) When did you draw your first devil girl?
I’m not entirely sure, but it might have been in a piece I did as an art trade for Frank Kozik. That probably would have been mid-to-late 80′s.
3) That’s a long time ago! So, what were you up to in Japan?
I did a custom two-car set for Hot Wheels, as a Japan collectors’ exclusive. I was the guest of honor at the collectors’ convention where the set was introduced. You can see the car set, and lots of Japan photos, on my blog, Positive Ape Index.
4) How did you approach your Art Young portrait for Arf Museum?
From behind, while wearing a hockey mask.
Coop’s portrait of Art Young appears in the new Arf Book, Arf Museum in the Cartoonists Go To Hell Section.
5) Oh, I hope you’ll do a penetrating portrait of ME someday, Coopster! What can we look for in upcoming “Coop Stuff” I can’t get enough!
I have a show coming up in September at my L.A. gallery, sixspace. It will be some more of my large works, 6′ X 12′ paintings, as well as smaller works on canvas and paper. Here’s a sneak peek at the one I’m working on now. The good news is, it’s already sold!!
(click for close-up)
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C. Yoe (in the funny papers)
