World War III Illustrated / Eye of the Beholder / Stripped / INX / Give It Up! / Spy Vs. Spy

Kafka illustration by Peter Kuper

Interview by Erik Farseth

J Cruelty: When did World War 3 Illustrated first get started? Had you been doing political graphics before then?

Peter Kuper: I was in art school at Pratt Institute with my friend Seth Tobocman [ creator of War in the Neighborhood]. And we were both working on comics that were like the kind thing that had been published in underground comics for years, but there had been a collapse of that entire industry, so there were no more outlets. But he and I had done a fanzine together back in Cleveland where we grew up. So it wasn’t out of our realm to publish a magazine. Instead of waiting for someone else to do it, it was possible for us to find a printer and put the thing together. That was in 1979.

...It was never like a vanity press where were we were just publishing our own work. From the very first issue, we were publishing as many different people who were doing that kind of work that we could find.

...I was always into that [political] kind of thing. I was always doing bits and pieces of socially-geared stuff, but it had more to do with doing comics. They’re so hard to do that we were both drawn to doing comics that were about something. Besides just a fantasy adventure.

J. Cruelty: So you had known Seth even before WW3...?

Peter Kuper: Since first grade.

J Cruelty: And you did a fanzine together? What was it called?

Peter Kuper: We did a couple of them. They were real comic fan type magazines where we interviewed Jack Kirby... I actually interviewed Robert Crumb for one of them. But we were super hero comic fans, and a lot of fans did fanzines. You would go to conventions and meet the artists and do your interview, and then put it together over the course of the year.

J. Cruelty: So then you wound up going to Pratt Institute... had you intended to study comics? (Editor’s note: I don’t know why I asked him this, since I already knew that most art schools didn’t even consider comics to be a legitimate art form until MAUS won the Pulitzer Prize. Kuper’s classes at the School of Visual Arts were among the first at a major art school).

Peter Kuper: There weren’t courses in comics there, and I was just studying art ‘cause I really wasn’t that equipped. I was interested in comics, but they helped to introduce me to art in general -which was a very good thing- and got me to look at a lot of work well beyond comics. But the medium of comics never lost its appeal.

J Cruelty: I was looking at your website, and it said that Reagan coming into office had a lot to do with the decision to start World War 3...

Peter Kuper: It was an atmosphere. Reagan was part of an atmosphere -which he also helped to create- where it seemed like they were warming up to have a nuclear war in Iran... There were just a lot of things that made it feel like we were kind of on the edge, and that made a lot of people feel anxious to comment on what they were seeing around them- including stuff on the streets of New York. A lot of things were going on with homelessness. People were interested in commenting on the general tone of the country as seen through our experiences living in the city.

Illustration by Peter Kuper

J. Cruelty: I was going to ask you about that... I didn’t discover WW3 Illustrated until much later, about 10 years ago. And at that time most of the strips had to do with issues in New York. Thing like homelessness, police brutality, gentrification... Was a lot of that stuff [the Tompkins Square Riot, etc.] going on right where you were located?

Peter Kuper: Less where I was, but more where Seth was. And a lot of other contributors.

But a lot of it had to do with a desire to deal with subject matter that we could talk about from out own personal experience, so it would be less of the sort of broad brush approach to world issues. And also finding that what was going on a personal level reflected what was going on in the bigger picture. So we really liked putting down our own truths. Whether-or-not it was “THE truth”, it was expressing a sense of what that time period was like through our individual experiences.

And it seems like something valuable that one can do with their work. Because if nothing else, you have created an historical document of your experiences during that time period. Like oral history.

J. Cruelty: You’ve got such a large group of people who work on WW3. I was curious how you go about organizing and making decisions, and putting an issue together when you’ve got so many different perspectives coming together..?

Peter Kuper:There is a group of us -usually two or three people on any given issue- that get together. And then we contact other artists that we know. That we’ve worked with previously, or we’re aware of their work, or that we’ve come across.

Army Judge, by Peter Kuper

Very often there’s a meeting and people will present ideas and we get to talk to them about that. But we also just do it by telephone. They say what they might be doing. And we ask them to rough it out, so that then we can discuss it among the editors whether its working or not.

If I’m dealing with one artist, I will probably deal with them the whole way through, even though I will bring their work to the group. Then if -for example- someone has a problem with the work, and we conclude that something needs to be changed, I would go back to that person and try to deal with it. Or Seth would go back to the person and try to deal with it.

We try to revolve it [the editorship] a bit, so that people don’t burn out. Because it is a lot of work and everyone is doing it on a voluntary basis. Its all gratis.

J Cruelty: So how many editors work on an issue?

Peter Kuper: Two or three.

J. Cruelty: And those positions rotate a bit?

Peter Kuper: Well, at one point there was four editors, regularly. And then they did rotate. But a good dynamic seems to be three. If you come to a stalemate, its easier with three. You don’t get in a stalemate if the majority rules. But a lot of it can be that if one person feels very strongly about a piece and that it shouldn’t be in, and the other two may be for it, but you convince the other two. Like any arrangement, its sort of difficult to compromise. There’s a lot of negotiation.

J. Cruelty: How would you describe your own politics?

Peter Kuper: They’re based on experience as much as possible. Which is to say they are affected by my life experiences. I’m definitely Left-leaning, but not subscribing to a dogmatic single view. ‘Cause there isn’t one that I could say that “THAT’s THE ONE for me”!

A lot of it is just that I am commenting on my own work, trying to comment on the inequities that I encounter and see. And when I listen to what comes out of our government I just try to comment on it based on if it sounds like bullshit. [laughs] -Regardless of which party is spouting it.

J. Cruelty: Did WW3 do anything special during the Gulf War?

Peter Kuper panel from WW3 Illustrated #32

Peter Kuper: Yeah, “The Gulf War Issue” - which came out pretty quickly. It was #14. That was one of our best issues, I think.

I think the latest issue [September 11] is the best issue that we’ve done. It really was. It was done by people who were here and experienced the whole thing first hand. There’s nothing to compare with first-person narratives. So it has a value in terms of adding to the knowledge of the event. And because our perceptions are all individual, we didn’t all have the same reactions. We tried to capture that in the issue. Along with pieces that are more about research on the history of US policy. Along with a guy who was down at Ground Zero who was a priest doing Last Rights, and what he heard from the firefighters and the workers who were there.

J. Cruelty: How far were you from Ground Zero when it happened?

Peter Kuper: About four miles. I could see the event from my window as far as a huge plume of smoke, but I don’t have a direct line of sight to the World Trade Center.

But in a certain way it was a really long distance. Because things were eerily calm in my neighborhood. The weather was fantastic, and that it made it even stranger. But the rippling impact was tremendous -as it was for the whole country, and even the whole world. But being that this was my home it had a very profound effect. Like being on the subway. People were wondering “Is the train going to explode at this stop?” Suddenly the New York subways had a lot in common with people in a lot of countries. Like the Middle East.

J. Cruelty: You also do the strip “Eye of the Beholder”. I understand that was the first comic strip that was ever run in the New York Times. Is that right?

Peter Kuper: It only ran there originally for about six months, and I just kept doing it and selling it other papers.

J Cruelty: How many papers is it in now?

Peter Kuper: Its sort of a mishmash... But a grand total of about five.

J. Cruelty: Where did you get the idea for doing a comic strip that basically has no words?

Peter Kuper: They initially said they wanted... Well, first off, I was always interested in comics because of the possibility of communicating with people who didn’t speak the same language, and just using images as language in general.

When they [The New York Times] approached me they said they wanted it to be an ongoing strip that was consistent in some way from strip-to-strip, and yet has no ongoing characters! And I thought, you know, if I do this as a written piece, every week I’m going to be contending with a New York Times editor who is going to be nit-picking over the words. And so by making it wordless, it really put it in my area: the visual medium. So it allowed me to be pretty much left alone. I didn’t get edited -EVER.

And yet the strips were connected. It was was connected, if for no other reason, because they were wordless. But the concept was that you were sort of following a person, place, or thing. With four panels giving you the puzzle pieces and the fifth panel giving the answer to it.

And it had room for doing stuff that was political, but also stuff that was more observational. Observing the city. It was for a section of the Paper of called “The City”. I could just walk around the streets and kind of look around and get ideas for the weekly strip.

J. Cruelty: You’ve also done more autobiographical kinds of comics. I remember reading “Stripped” back when that first came out...

Peter Kuper: Yeah, that was one of my collections.

J. Cruelty: Had you done a lot of work like that? Or was that something new for you?

Peter Kuper: Its sort of ongoing. Its like one piece of... Comics is just so full of possibilities. And I find that I’m interested in all the different aspects of it. So, for example, I’m interested in using comics as a medium for journalism. And autobiography. Right now I’m working on an edition of Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis -so it it can be a literary vehicle that way. There’s just so many different aspects of it. And I’ve been exploring the medium for all those different possibilities. So periodically, I get an idea, and its a political commentary, straight up, and I’ll do that. Sometimes I’ll want to do something that’s more research.

Someone sent me to [cover] Burning Man in the Nevada desert -where people gather to express themselves artistically, and take off their clothes and have formed this community of artists. And Details Magazine sent me the cover it, and I did that as a comic strip -which is another way of applying that.

But autobiography I like a lot because I’m just telling you a story. Its like sitting around a table having a beer and telling you a story. I like that aspect of it. And how when you explore personal topics like that, I can be more effective and honest with it.

J. Cruelty: That was kind of the format that you used with that Mike Diana piece that was published in WW3.

(Editor’s Note: Cartoonist Mike Diana was convicted of obscenity by a jury in Florida for publishing a mini-comic called “Boiled Angel”. In addition to sentencing him to four nights in jail, the judge ordered Diana to pay a $3000 fine, undergo mandatory psychiatric evaluation (at his own expense), to perform over 1,200 hours of community service -and perhaps most frightening- Diana was told that he could not to produce any more “obscene” artwork -even for his own personal enjoyment- and that his home would be subject to random searches and inspection without a warrant -just for publishing a comic book! During the trial Peter Kuper and R. Seth Friedman of “Factsheet 5” testified on behalf of the defense.)

Peter Kuper: It kind of jumped around a bit. I talked about trial, but then I was in it. I also talked about the events and what happened. I sort of mixed things together for that one. I actually did a longer form comic strip about that, but I also did a one page strip. And the shorter one gave more of a history of the thing. The longer form, which was VERY autobiographical, started with me getting called to go down to Florida for the trial. And the shorter one gave more of a history of the whole thing.

But its like, if I do work in one area for a period of time, like autobiography, then I feel like “OK, well I’ve done that for a while, now I want to do something like Jungleland.” -Or some of these longer wordless pieces that I’ve done, like The System, which is a 96 page wordless graphic novel that D.C. / Vertigo published. And that was more like I took a combination of my experiences and imagination and put it together.

J. Cruelty: You’ve talked a lot about comics as a distinctive format... I’m wondering what are some of the things about that medium that attracted you to comics? - as opposed to more traditional sort of art -like painting- or something that’s hanging in a gallery...?

Peter Kuper: Well, there’s a number of things. First of all, it allows me to do all the different things that I do, which includes writing and storytelling. It gives me more room to move around than one dimension does. I can tell more of a story. So I can bring all these different aspects to bear. Its also the kind of medium that can be done so cheaply that I can do a book and get it printed or photocopied it and hand it out. Whereas the gallery end of things is so rarefied. Ultimately, only one person will end up owning it. And I much prefer to speak to a larger number of people. Part of what I’m doing is I’m interested in attempting to express ideas and make a connection with other people.

But I’ve fooled around with painting and done gallery shows and all that, too. I just find that comics are the most effective way to express myself in the way I want to -which includes an audience. And I think -at least on a smaller level- it actually serves a purpose. Its a way of making a connection with other people. And for that matter, when they read the comic book, it asks them to participate. They have to read it, and look at the pictures, and go from panel to panel from one to the next and make all the connections. That’s all a part of the process. Its a very interactive form.

J. Cruelty: Apart from the people who you work with on WW3, what are some of the other cartoonists whose work you especially admire, or whose work was inspirational for you?

Peter Kuper: Its such a long list! Ralph Steadman. -It actually moves around a lot. I really got into German Expressionism, at one point. Lynd Ward is a guy from the 1920’s, 30’s and 40’s who did woodcuts that were these wordless novels. I’m certainly influenced by a lot of the people who I work with at World War 3. We cross-influence each other. Its also a means of getting other peoples’ opinions while you’re working, rather than being isolated in what you do.

There was a show by Jacob Lawrence that I saw recently that I thought was just incredible! He died a couple years ago. He did a whole series on the migration of blacks from the South to the North that basically -in a gallery setting- reads like a graphic novel. Where you have all the panels and this longer story is unfolding. I find that I’m drawn to things that have that narrative quality.

J. Cruelty: How long does it usually take you to complete a strip?

Peter Kuper: Well it depends on what it is. If you’re talking about a graphic novel, it takes me about six months.

I work pretty fast, I guess. I do “Spy vs. Spy” for Mad Magazine, and that usually takes me about 3-4 days from beginning to end to do a complete strip. The first stage is writing it. And then assuming I get approval for the storyline, then I pencil it up. That usually takes a day. And then it takes a day to cut the stencils. And then a day-and-a-half to color it. I work from stencils -for that at least- I work from stencils that are done with spray paint. That’s how the entire book The System was done. That’s how a number of things were done. Have you seen Speechless?

Speechless is my most recent book collection. Its a retrospective. And in there there’s a breakdown of how my work is put together.

J. Cruelty: So how long have you been working on “Spy Vs. Spy”?

Peter Kuper: Since 1997.

J. Cruelty: On your website you talk about some of the problems you’ve had getting the magazine distributed. Has that gotten any better over the last 20 years? Or is it worse?

Peter Kuper: Well, its a lot better with the latest issue! We did an issue on September 11, and we went through our first print run of 3,500 copies so quickly that we had to go back to press and do another 4000. Because of the nature of the issue and the sort of material that was contained within, comic shops are selling a lot more. I’m told we sold a lot more through comic shops. But I think people got a lot more interested in political and social commentary around September 11’th. So it did increase our readership.

But distribution is always complicated. Stores don’t always find out about it. We don’t have an advertising budget. The editors end up promoting it. We’re all artists who would just as soon create art and do our work and when you put out a magazine it includes so many other facets. Sending out review copies, putting together a website, doing the mail order -all that kind of stuff. On and on. Its a lot of work! Its virtually a full time job that none of us are paid to do. If this was all we did we would probably master a lot more aspects of distribution... It relies on people who are doing are dedicated to doing it, and therefore do it whenever they can squeeze it in.

J. Cruelty: You still distribute it through Mordam?

Peter Kuper: Yep. And a handful of other distros. Last Gasp. Diamond distributes it to comic shops.

J. Cruelty: So what is INX?

Peter Kuper: Its a syndicated political illustration group. I’m co-Art Director. Its been around for 20 years. I’ve been a participant since 1984 and Art Director since 1987. And basically of newspapers subscribe and each week they get four images on topics of the day and they apply them to articles. It was developed with the idea that instead of waiting for companies to come and say “Hey! Here’s this topic,” you can do a piece and that way we can decide, and we’d sort of leap ahead and do our own thing. And the newspapers would work around it. And they would have instant access to the images of the week, and they could pick from them. It worked quite well.

At its high it probably had 35 papers. It was just recently dropped from United King Features. We’re now self-syndicating. We’re trying to make a go of building a website and self-promoting. One more thing that I can spend too much time on!

The problem with any of these things is I want them to be there, and they don’t just happen. Someone has to get them going. And these things end up falling in the lap of people who know how to do that. I know about different aspects of how to approach it. It just seems like such a good thing to keep going, and it would be a crime to back away from it. And its got some momentum, it just takes a bit of nurturing.

Interview 2002 by Erik Farseth

All images are copyright Peter Kuper.