100%

Author: Paul Pope

100% takes place in the future, but it's really just a collection of love stories that coexist with one another. They are stories that could have been told in any time: a boy falls in love with the girl who can't stand to be tied down, a girl falls in love with an artist struggling to get by, and a man struggles to give his woman the life he feels she deserves. The futuristic trappings are just Pope's natural environment--where he feels most comfortable.

Pope has a distinctive art style that conveys a feeling of raw energy--this is his greatest strength. Even when his characters are simply sitting around talking, there is an energy in their faces and in their pose that many artists fail to convey. In any comic, the art, the narrative style, and the story are going to be of varying importance. For Pope, the emphasis is on art and narrative. It is how Pope tells the story that is most important, not what story is being told. Pope has variously told a sci-fi epic, a heist story, and a slice of life tale, but none of these stories are all that unique. It is Pope's attention to motion and emotion that make his stories powerful.

Despite the strength in Pope's art in general, 100% is not perfect, as it shares the same flaws as the majority of his work. Pope often goes overboard with detail and overall kinetic energy to the point of obscuring story flow. This is most obvious in the scenes set in a cityscape--the detail of the city overwhelms the eye and makes the action hard to decipher. This particular flaw is just demonstrative of a larger problem in Pope's work. Pope has difficulty balancing whites and blacks. In his early THB work the black detail often overwhelmed the composition. In 100% the gray coloring of backgrounds serves to muddy the action. If you compare the areas of 100% where backgrounds are shaded with the panels sans gray tone, you can make out a clear difference. In fact, the gray tone issues indicate a positive move in Pope's art: he's begun to understand the importance of balance. It's merely unfortunate that in this work, what I can only assume is computer shading overwhelms the balance.

Still, Pope's strengths outweigh his weaknesses. Here, art overcomes art. At heart, this collection of love stories involves little in the way of action (dancing provides what little there is). However, Pope's panel composition and line work makes even the most basic and pedestrian scene seem as active as an over the top Hollywood action flick. Pope's art imbues the story with an energy that is rarely seen and is well worth marveling at.

Status: Bookshelf