100%

by Paul Pope

All five issues of the groundbreaking sci-fi miniseries from writer/artist Paul Pope are collected is here one stunning package. This "graphic movie" tells three separate but interconnected stories in Pope's trademark dynamic style, shifting viewpoints and characters across the urban maze of 2038 Manhattan. Filled with wit, charm, sex and menace, 100% brings a surprisingly true-feeling future to gritty life. Suggested for Mature Readers.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Science Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics, Comix, Comic Book

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

PAUL POPE is an American cartoonist living and working in New York City. Pope has made a name for himself internationally as an artist and designer. He has been working primarily in comics since the early '90s, but has also done a number of projects with Italian fashion label Diesel Industries and, in the US, with DKNY. His media clients include LucasArts, Paramount Pictures, Cartoon Network, Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Conde-Naste, Kodansha (Japan), Sapporo (Japan), Marc Ecko, Dargaud Editions (France), EMI Canada, Warner Brothers, and The British Film Institute. His iconic Batman: Year 100, a science fiction take on the classic Batman origin tale, has won numerous awards, seen print in many languages, and appears frequently on many Top 10 Batman story lists. In 2010, Pope was recognized as a Master Artist by the American Council Of The Arts, and is currently sitting on the ACA advisory board. His 2010, short science fiction comic strip Strange Adventures (DC Comics)--an homage to the Flash Gordon serials of the '30s-- won the coveted National Cartoonist Society's Reuben Award for Best Comic Book of the year. He has won 5 Eisners to date.

Reviews

[Donovan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Post-modern yet inextricably rooted in the present for better or worse, 100% mascarades as not-too-distant-future sci-fi when really it’s love story. While the characters play on tropes, they just slightly succeed to be more than those. The grayscale artwork is vivid and hallucinatory but often function is sacrificed for form, making it unreadable. Fascinating but ultimately I’m left wanting more from story and artwork.

[Sam Quixote · Rating 2 out of 5]

Paul Pope’s 100% is made up of three love stories, interweaving with one another, against an ominous backdrop of a futuristic New York.

Daisy/Dollar Bill is a gastro dancer where she dances in clubs that project her insides as giant 3D holograms for punters to get off on with busboy John as her star-crossed lover. Strel and her estranged gastro-boxing husband Haitous slowly rekindle their relationship while Strel’s friend Kim falls for Eloy, a performance artist, whose work consists of collecting 100 kettles all tuned in C going off at once to create 100% harmony.

As peculiar as Pope’s vision of 2038 America is, love and tragedy are still one and the same.

I really liked Paul Pope’s previous book, Battling Boy, and, to a lesser extent, Batman: Year 100, so I went into 100% hoping for the best; but, while his artwork is still stunning, the stories were a bit of a let-down.

The book starts out with the death of a stripper in an alley dumpster, and you’d think this would be meaningful in some way - but it isn’t. It’s basically a MacGuffin. About halfway through the book it’s resolved without any of the characters having done anything and with a simple, throwaway sentence.

Then we get the three stories, of which I’d say only one was kind of interesting and well developed - the other two were barely more than an outline. Daisy and John’s story was by far the only interesting one. Young, star-crossed lovers, living paycheck to paycheck, working crap jobs, finding snippets of romance amidst the chaos and turmoil of their lives - it was cool, I suppose.

Strel and Haitous’ story was really underwritten with Strel’s character changing at a crucial moment for no reason besides the fact that there’d be no story if she turned away. And Kim and Eloy’s relationship is so underdeveloped and unremarkable that it’s almost a surprise when they pop up again in the book.

What’s worse though is how little I cared for any of the characters or their goals. Daisy and John were both vaguely written characters with vague motivations - they were just all about love so they had no story, they just met, fell for each other, and we spend the rest of the book watching them swoon at one another. Strel and Haitous’ story felt exactly like what it was: forced melodrama. And Eloy’s dream of getting paid a fortune to get 100 kettles all go off at the same time, in the same key? I’m supposed to care about this lame performance artist?! Give me a break!

It’s partly because I’m not a romance comics kinda guy but, despite the 240 page count, 100% is really, really light on story. Characters fall in love, smooch, break up, reunite, yadda yadda yadda. I’ve seen it before, you’ve seen it before, it’s all been done before. That it’s against this sci-fi backdrop makes it only slightly different.

I like how Pope didn’t bother explaining why things were the way they were - this messed-up sci-fi world is just the way it is, and it’s neither impressing itself upon the reader or the story too heavily; this futuristic world is given to us in a very light and matter-of-fact way.

But making the point that the way the world is with tastes becoming more and more extreme that one day people will want to see the insides of a stripper rather than what she looks like under her clothes? I’m not buying it, and as satire it’s not convincing either.

In the end, 100% is a weak collection of romance stories that happen to have a sci-fi flavour to them. Pope’s art is gorgeous, with a fluidity and pace to it that’s totally unique, blending eastern and western styles into something extraordinary. But I wouldn’t recommend it on the art alone when the narrative accompanying it is so lacking, underwritten and unengaging.

If you want to see Paul Pope on full throttle with both writing and art, check out Battling Boy.

[Ill D · Rating 4 out of 5]

100% swerves between the experimental and the artist (still) trying to find his style. With obvious resemblances to Heavy Liquid, from the predecessor we can see significant improvements that are continually built upon in the successor. This story is far more coherent and there is much (more) ado about the characters.

Harsh peltings of pencil-work fiercely paint a story that is engaging as it is dazzling. Harsh depictions of an equally uncaring city revel in a density that is as turgid as it is uncompromising. It is within this setting that multiple threads of love and the personal dreams/ambitions they entail play out. This urban theatre plays host to numerous denizens en media res.

Although not a manga fan, per se, I did really enjoy the explicit Japanese influences in the comic book. From stern illustrations of characters to really cool fight sequences the enormous contributions of Japanese culture/art on the world is there. In particular, the Boxer (Haituous) reminded me a lot of Jet from Cowboy Bebop. How cool!

However, as much as I did thoroughly revel in the Eastern influence(s), the thing I really like about Paul Pope's works (at least the ones of read) is that he serves as writer and illustrator. Without another cook (potentially spoiling the pot) I really feel like we get a much clearer vision of what the originator really wanted.

In either case flaws and all, I really enjoyed 100% and I am sure that you will too.

Two Thumbs up!

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay, so after this (and his cool-as-heeeell Adam Strange story in Wednesday Comics), I think I finally get Paul Pope. What's more, I want to make work like Paul Pope (me and everyone else ever.) Not that I want to make his books, or clones of his books (although I couldn't say I'd mind if that came out of my pen one day) -- simply that there's an energy, a fluidity to his work that's rare in comics. I feel like he drew this book faster than it took me to read it. It feels like it just...happened, like a breath. It desn't hurt that it oozes more sex and cool than a Ramones album, too. Could I have done without the tortured-stripper-with-a-past as the book's female protagonist? Hells to the yeah -- old hat there, Paul. But the rest of it is on-point -- it feels loose and passionate and breezy and believable. It feels like sci-fi with hardly any trappings of the genre; it feels like a full, real city with a minimum of background characters. It feels like it got written and drawn in one afternoon of listening to old records in your bedroom. It feels natural, and it feels real.

It's rejuvenating, and a pretty okay book all around, Mr. Pope. High five and shit, bro. Fuckin A.
--
I reread this this week. I think it made more sense this time around.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

To refer to Paul Pope as the rockstar of comic book artists is something of an understatement since he actually is a DJ and multimedia artist on the side, lives in NY, collaborates with fashion houses, and dates burlesque dancers. I’m not ashamed, even at my age, to admit I wish I was Paul Pope. His style is a wonderful combination of European and Japanese influences—equal parts manga, Moebius and punk brush splatter. Pope has managed to create a unique marriage of ligne claire refinement and manga energy and intensity in his work. In 100%, he has also managed another neat trick: disguising (enhancing really) a very contemporary and hip romance comic with the trappings of wholly believable science fiction. 100% is visually arresting, narratively engrossing and features detailed depictions of realistic yet quirky characters and their more-than relate-ably challenging love lives. 100% also contains a breathtakingly plausible futuristic spin on strip clubs—Cyberpunk to the bone.

[Mon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paul Pope....there really isn't that much to be said about this guy. He got nominated for Eisner, worked for big guys like DC and indies like Dark Horse, grew up in America, his landscapes are typically American and his characters reek of Tarantino. Pope's drawings, on the other hand, is unconventional for mainstream comics. There's a heavy, beastly quality to the inkling and the lines are so messy it's similar to lino prints. Most of the time it feels like I'm reading individual art panels rather than illustrations. The writing is mediocre but the art is definitely beyond mere narrative.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

This review was originally published on IdentityTheory.Com on July 1st, 2009

100% is a love story, after a fashion. Or, more accurately, three loosely connected love stories, all told without so much as a drop of sentimental syrup. Make no mistake, it’s still science fiction, but it’s a very near future–2038–in a still-very-recognizable New York City. The indie sensibility is more immediate than any far-fetched futurology, and while the setting is very present in the story, it never quite overtakes the characters–though it’s often breathing right down the backs of their necks.

This should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the frighteningly hip Pope, who, in addition to his occasional forays into mainstream American comics, is the longest-tenured American manga author/artist in Japan and also has a clothing line with DKNY. He’s a nerd, to be sure, but he’s probably the coolest nerd on the planet. Like much of his other work, he uses his science sparingly, interested not just in the potential trends of technology but also culture, and the places in between where the two mingle. It unnerves us not because of its strangeness but because of its familiarity; the gentle depravity of Pope’s future might not take even 30 years, might have already come and gone if Warhol hadn’t died.

Those with sharp eyes may notice the American/United Nation currency bearing the image of Che Guevara on its hundreds, but you’d have to be asleep not to notice the x-ray strippers. After medical imaging devices become simple and affordable enough for commercial use by laymen, they’re put to work heightening the experiences of boxing matches and strip clubs, worn by the athletes and performers for real-time “gastro” display of their insides. From chapter six:

In the old days, a flash of ankle was enough. Then a calf, then a thigh. […] But it all got boring. All of it. The porn and the porn pills and the V-Jak…even fucking got boring. Then some charming gentleman asked himself, “What’s it look like inside a woman? What do her insides look like when she gets off? Bet that’d be a sight! Bet that’d get the blood pumping. Bet they’d pay to see that.”

Pope rolls in and out of this weirdness so casually, so seamlessly, having a fantastic ear not only for dialogue but the slang of the working-class future-fashionistas. “This club is set up like a place where I danced gastro in Montreal,” says Daisy, one of the six lead characters. Daisy is a gastro stripper at The Catshack, described here in a fictitious review: “The food is ‘robust’ and ‘decent,’ but it’s ‘to be seen and not seem’ that the clientele shows up. Don’t wear much. No cash accepted. 2 pc. I.D. req.”

On her first day of work, she encounters Medieval Literature-major-turned-busboy John, who like many 20-somethings is in the midst of an existential crisis. From this crisis we get the first phrasing of the graphic novel’s title: “I don’t wanna die. But if I gotta die, first I’m gonna live. I’m gonna peel life like fruit and use it up. I’m gonna light up and burn,” he says, as the illustration shows him lighting a match with one thumb. “I’ll burn and burn until I’m snuffed out. Then I’ll just fade away. But until then, I’m gonna live! I’m ready. I’m gonna do it! Come what may, one hundred percent.”

Filling out the cast is single-mom Strel, the dance manager and Jill-of-all-trades at the Catshack; Kim, Strel’s friend and a bartender at the same club; Strel’s ex Haitous, a gastro boxer at the end of his career; and Strel’s cousin “Kettlehead” Eloy, an artist and janitor, with a liking for Kim and a massive installation of Bunsen burners and tea kettles tuned to C major, “for one hundred percent sound.”

The common thread, more so than the tenuous links between the six characters (Pope originally wanted to do an anthology of short stories but was convinced by his editor to join them into a single larger work) is that each of them is dissatisfied, balancing on the wire between improving some shortcoming and making the best of what’s practical. Strel wants to start a coffee roasting business; Eloy is faced with compromising his artistic integrity for grant money; Daisy just wants to save up enough to move on to the next place; Kim wants a gun for protection; John wants to continue devolving from his academic roots, past busboy, to neoprimitive Antarctic explorer; and Haitous, while outwardly the most successful, is a miserable, pummeled piece of meat taking an emotional and physical toll that might not be worth the trouble.

There’s not a ton of plot here, but there doesn’t need to be; the tone and the common locations are enough to make the stories cohere. Towards the beginning, the chapters are longer, the transitions tangential as characters move and each interacts with the next until all are introduced. Once we’re familiar with them and the themes are more established, Pope cuts back and forth more rapidly between simultaneous, and often parallel, scenes. He moves effortlessly from a date at a sushi restaurant to another in a holographic private booth: “Sake, the wit-sharpener. The blood-pumper, the vision-tunneler. Kim and Eloy lose count of the tiny bottles before them…while, not far away, John and Daisy’s one bottle of Spanish red turns into two.” The inter-cutting accelerates right to the end, building suspense in what ought to otherwise be a straightforward story, and while not all the endings are happy ones, they are all utterly fitting.

Structurally, this may be Pope’s most well-rounded work. The plot(s) have definite beginnings, middles, and ends; the characters get equal face-time and are roughly as sympathetic, even the ones antagonizing each other. His dialogue is sharp, and only once does it wander off, when John and Daisy take turns sharing fairy-tales, each laying it on pretty thick during what should be a low-risk first date.

My only other complaint with the writing is with the selective use of a narrator. Sometimes the narrator is omniscient, sometimes it’s a character’s thoughts and in these cases, it’s often not immediately obvious whose voice we are hearing. This is not to say that the narration is all out of place. In some instances it works extremely well, especially when we can identify whose thoughts they are and contrast it with what that character speaks aloud to himself or herself, occasionally with humorous results:

(narration): The tits, the ass. The pussy.
(John, aloud): Yeah.
(narration): Leather, fur, duct tape. Fuckshoes. All in full color, all in 3-D.
(John, aloud): Uh-huh. Virtually the real thing.
(kitchen staff): You say something, kid?

The places where the narration fails, though, fail because they violate the “show-don’t-tell” rule of writing. Because his artwork is so spectacular, his writing appears merely good. Pope is so talented in visual storytelling as an artist that sometimes his writing can’t quite keep up. When he overtly states themes in direct narration, I stared at the pages and thought how much better they’d be with no words at all. Clearly, he knows how to pull off a silent sequence better than nearly anybody. In one chapter, Kim and Strel go into a crowded club to buy a gun. Unable to hear over the music, they must negotiate by hand signals. This sequence goes on for nine pages without a single printed word, as Pope illustrates a range of emotional beats as the women disagree over which gun, the seller holds fast on a price, and ultimately an agreement is reached.

In fact, the only downside to the art is that it’s not in color. Lushly detailed with vibrant linework, the urban-nocturnal settings cry out for neons and pastels. Though the gray tones are supremely competent, the colored scenes on the dust jacket tease what could have been. While understandable for an artist so fluent in the manga medium where black and white is a necessity of that publishing market, even a dash of color here would have been enough to put this book over the top; Pope showed a tremendous range of versatility with just blue, black, and red in another near-future urban story, Heavy Liquid (DC Vertigo, 2008).

Like Heavy Liquid before it, 100% had long been hard to find, either as single issues or the previous paperback, until these re-releases complete with supplemental material. In this edition, Pope offers a brief new essay explaining the origin of this story, along with a few early design sketches. In addition, the index includes the faux-future advertisements, news copy, and classified that are among Pope’s best prose: “Airborne computer viruses are discovered to be spread by some forms of human contact, reports UNICED. See the full V-Jak Up On, including a full list of effective prophylactics and other preventatives.”

DC Vertigo offers these new editions as paperbacks as well, but the hardcover is worth the extra few bucks. The dust jacket has a secondary glossy image embossed in the margins, visible when held to the light at the correct angle, and a tertiary image image recessed underneath in the hard cover itself. This work is a more-than-modern small masterpiece by one of the sharpest one-man acts in comics today, and present here are all of the very best things to love about graphic storytelling.

[Bernie Gourley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite the gritty, futuristic-noir setting of this graphic novel, it’s essentially the intertwining of three love stories. The story opens on the corpse of a dancer found in an alleyway. I thought this was going to be part of the story’s inciting incident or foreshadow it, but -- in reality -- it just served to establish that we’re on the wrong side of the tracks. The same might be said of a scene involving the purchasing of a gun. [I’ll let the reader figure out whether it was a “Chekov’s gun.” i.e. Chekov famously said, “If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off.”] The fact that the story set in and around a strip club is apparently insufficient to convey how seedy this neighborhood is.

The love stories are between a dancer and a dishwasher, the club manager and a fighter, and the manager’s best friend and a sound artist. These love stories are nicely woven together, even if they are clichéd. The relationship with the prize fighter is probably the stalest. However, fear of commitment and standing up for one’s art are the well-worn heart of the other two stories. As I think about it, it’s not that those clichéd themes form the heart of the story (one will see the same themes replayed out in great works, past, present, and future,) but instead I think it’s the way we are pummeled over the head with them. It’s much like aforementioned set up of the seediness of the setting. By being so blatant, one can’t help but feel it’s a bit hackneyed.

That said, it’s a fine story, that might have benefited from a little bit of subtlety.

The artwork was well-done as far as I’m able to tell. I have no particular expertise in art, so my only criteria is whether I could follow what was happening, and I could.

The “100%” that is presumably meant to apply to the lengths the characters go to for what / who they love, unfortunately is exceeded in telling the story in a way that draws attention to itself too much for its own good. That said, if you’re looking for sweet stories of love in a seedy setting, this book has got you covered.

[Dakota Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I expected a grimy dystopia, maybe with some crime elements ala Sin City or Blade Runner. Instead, 100% provided a trio of unlikely love stories. They still take place in a bleak, sex-obsessed future, but it's not quite as grim as you might expect.

The book opens with a dead woman in an alleyway, but that plot point is quickly shuffled aside. Instead, we focus on the lives of two young women and a young man working in a gastro parlor (gastro = strip club, except you can see a woman's insides). Through a series of unlikely encounters and surprise returns, they find love (unrequited and otherwise). 100% trundles along with an omnipresent sense of menace, as if something is going to go tragically wrong eventually as our heroes' lives collide. But that never really comes to pass.

I was okay with that. 100% is basically a slice of life comic, just in a slightly off-kilter future world. The characters are all interesting and Paul Pope keeps the story moving at a rapid clip. It's Pope's scratchy, stretchy artwork that gives the story its juice (and that sense of menace). I recall reading all of Pope's stuff 8+ years ago and being bewildered, but intrigued by it then - maybe it's time to re-visit his works.

[Chloe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Impressively different from Paul Pope's other works. The artwork is dangerously similar--however, in my opinion, this is the opposite of a complaint. Very intriguing storylines about humans, philosophy and psychology. I greatly enjoyed this book, although I couldn't be trusted to give Paul Pope anything less than 5 stars.
My only complaint is that it isn't in color, because Pope uses color like no one else... But I suppose it works for this book!

[Derek Royal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps not as solid (or heavy) as Heavy Liquid, but in some ways it is more ambitious. It interweaves various stories together in a thematic way. This is made all the more impressive by the fact that, according to Pope, this book's genesis was primarily a series of shorter pieces that he had planned on publishing separately, but then DC asked him to string them together into a larger narrative. The theme of going for life or your ideas, 100%, runs throughout.

[Juan Fuentes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incluso en un futuro cercano donde el caos y la suciedad reinan el amor encuentra como abrirse paso. HIstorias que se conectan, desde el artista con sus teteras hasta el boxeador en decadencia, de la bailarina de Gastro a quien sueña con abrir una empresa de café tostado.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reason why I love alternative non super hero comics because of reads like this, incredibly engrossing and feels very personal. This one has three stories interlining with each other, without filter, you get all the darkness of violence and sex, and Paul Pope captures it so well in his unique art too.

[Mee Too · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this, the black and white artwork, the ink looks like its dripping off the pages. Not to mention, it was a pretty good story, kinda like pulp fiction meets romantic comedy show. Bizzare combo but i think it works well here. Id say a 3.8

[Bryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve never read anything quite like it. Gritty, sexy, grotesque, and overwhelming. It’s like Jack Kirby spliced with Philip K. Dick.

[Shishuraj · Rating 2 out of 5]

In the hypercapitalistic near future, american dollars will have Che Guevara’s face on them. Thank you big brain Paul Pope

[Rob McMonigal · Rating 2 out of 5]

Had to get this through ILL, glad I didn't just buy it. Paul Pope did a very good Batman elseworlds story called Batman Year 100 so I figured I'd see what else he'd done.

This story, set in the future for no discernible reason, features a cast of characters who aren't happy with their lives. One is an academic turned drifter, one fears for her safety in a world without guns, another runs a strip club but dreams of pouring her life savings into a coffee shop. They're joined by a cutting edge artist, an aging fighter, and a mysterious stripper in trying to find their way in the world.

Had this been just about them, I think I would have liked it better. But because this is a "sci fi" future world, we get extreme strippers and "thredding" instead of phone calls, amongst other not-important-to-the-story upgrades due to the timeline of the story. They're more distracting than helpful and as a result, the story itself suffers. Pope just doesn't break his characters out of their simple shells--love happens, then doesn't, the fighter tries to make good with one last bout, etc. I've seen it before, and Pope has, too. The problem is that the not-really-important-to-the-story upgrades don't interact with the stock characters enough to make this one work for me.

In the end, everything goes exactly as you expect it to as soon as the characters hit the screen, the whole "live life 100%" never gets the play you'd think it would by being the series title, and people rave about it because the art is cool and indie and a hologram room is "inventive"--well, no, no it's not. I think I may skip reading any more graphic novels that have blurbs from "Entertainment Weekly" as it's clearly a bad sign.

This one is solidly mediocre, in that you don't think it's terrible, but if you're an avid reader like me, you look at it and think of what could have been, especially since Pope's artwork is really good. Should you choose to read it, you won't feel like you wasted your time, but it's like eating at a mid-range chain restaurant--nothing wrong with the meal, but somehow you feel like you got a little less than you paid for. (Library, 03/08)

Trebby's Take: I wasn't a big fan, but others might like it better. Not for those looking for innovation.

[Dmitry Yakovenko · Rating 4 out of 5]

Действие комикса происходит в Нью-Йорке будущего, однако, в данном случае это абсолютно не важно, ведь это история о людях, а не о будущем. Тут упор именно на на людей, а не на фантастические приспособления удивительного мира будущего. Вы даже не заметите что действие происходит в будущем, разве что пару раз вас ткнут лицом в этот факт, но через страницу этот факт уже вылетает из головы, да и опять же, это не имеет абсолютно никакого значения.

100% - это сборник новелл, если три короткие истории можно назвать сборником новелл. В центре сюжета шесть самых обыкновенных людей, и их жизненные истории. Самые обычные люди с самыми обычными проблемами, желаниями и мечтами. Вот и все что представляет из себя этот комикс – короткие жизненные истории, в которых вроде и нет ничего особенного, невероятно оригинального, но в то же время, моментами они умудряются цеплять за живое.

Плюс тут очень стильный и красивый рисунок, что делает этот комикс прекрасным кандидатом на прочтение перед сном. Три неплохие жизненные истории про самых обыкновенных людей, вот и все что дает этот комикс. Не самый выдающийся том, что я читал, но все равно очень неплохое занятие на вечер.

[Mariah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know a lot of people were disappointed by the story in 100%, but I think that is because there was no grandeur, no meta-narrative, no world claiming story that affected things on a large scale and had some larger meaning. Paul pope instead chooses to narrate the things that generally tend to complicate our lives, the smaller things that occur in our more intimate relationships with other people and work places etc. and don't concern the rest of the global population. In this, I feel he was extremely successful. I have fallen irreversibly in love with this story and it's smaller vignettes. Do yourself a favour - if you can get your hands on a hard cover, it's well worth it. Just take it for what it is, an intimate look at life, and not a good versus bad parable about the whole world.

Also, the art the art the art! Beautiful! The pages that had no text were so expressive, and pope captures so much movement and emotion with his ink lines... Definitely a master.

Will definitely be reading again, and highly recommending to friends!

[Juliana · Rating 5 out of 5]

A comic you can make into a movie. It's really not that hard to see what comics are movie material and what ones should be left alone. One of my favorites. Although I kinda jock Pope so....call me bias?

[Michael Liggett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Touching story of searching for personal connections in a world where objectification has reached a whole new level. Paul Pope is one of my top 5 favorite artists so the story could have sucked and I'd be fine with it! But it didn't so this is a great book!

[John Pistelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Synthesizing romance comics with the sexy global dystopias popular since the early 1980s, this 2005 graphic novel was aptly described by one Goodreads reviewer as "a cyberpunk Love, Actually." 100% charts three love stories through a future New York City.

The action centers on a strip club where the women dance "gastro"—that is, they not only take off their clothes, but display to the throng a digital projection of their throbbing innards as well. A nomadic sex worker named Daisy gets a job there and ends up in a fraught and doomed relationship with the club's dishwasher, John, a slumming former grad student in medieval literature. (John supplies the book's title early on when in his inner monologue he vows to accept experience "come what may, one hundred percent.") Meanwhile, Strel, who also works in the club, has to deal with the absence and then the sudden return of her estranged husband, a boxer who "fights gastro" in the masculinist counterpoint to the spectacle the strip club offers. Strel has in the course of things introduced her artist cousin, Eloy, to her friend Kim, and the two begin to fall in love; they particularly bond over Eloy's quixotic quest to get funding for his conceptual art project, about which more below. 100% began as a set of linked short stories; it is more episodic than heavily plotted, though Pope creates tension and emotion by rapidly cross-cutting between the three plots.

Thematically, 100% celebrates the mysterious core of the individual—the thing that is loved in a love relationship—against all present and future attempts to know fully, much less to coerce, the self. The narrative shows both gastro stripping and gastro fighting to be cruel and inhumane, a mechanical substitution of technological exposure for genuine personal relations, one so brutalizing it leads to the grotesque violence of the fights and even murder:

We want to touch…we just can't figure out how to do it. We lost the words for it. Then we forgot the question.

The novel begins, perhaps somewhat gratuitously, with the body of a murdered young woman, her upthrust bare leg resting on boxes labelled "whitemeat chick" and "breasts and thighs" in what Pope must have intended as a feminist protest against objectification rather than a somewhat tasteless, heavy-handed gesture (albeit one, admittedly, borrowed from feminist art). Pope invokes the threat of murderous violence but it never comes to pass in the novel, because all of our main characters are struggling for love and art—struggles that, when pursued as such, make unnecessary and absurd any use of physical force. Daisy falls in love with John when he refuses to read the diary she left behind at the club, despite his temptation to do so; rather than seeking to expose her insides, to inspect ocularly her corpus, inside and out, he gets to know her through conversation and, eventually, lovemaking.

Allowing others their inner life, the space to cultivate their selves, is the essence of the ethic portrayed here. Whatever you think of Pope's politics as a guide to policy—he is, or anyway was, a libertarian—this is its valuable and utopian ethical core. To recur to a theme running perhaps too insistently through my recent reviews, it may even be a more reliable ethic than the contemporary literati's equally insistent appeals to empathy, which tend to imply everybody's right to everybody else's affectional innards through the medium of feeling—a right easily twisted by the powerful into imperial dominion over others, including the right to bombard or poison them, in the name of alleviating whatever real or imputed suffering the empath presumes to share with them.

As for art, it is the graphic novel's subtext, while love is its text. Eloy needs to apply to a funding council made up of dire hipsters to finance his rather improbable art project: he proposes to set off 100 tea kettles, all whistling in the same key ("for one hundred percent sound"), to create a multisensory event of unity, a symphony. But the council demands, as a condition of funding, that he set off the kettles in different keys to create discord and disharmony: "A symphony! That's not how the world is!" Pope here satirizes an art world that has so bureaucratized subversion that the only true subversion left is the bold and independent re-creation of beautiful forms—Pope's aesthetic is less cyberpunk than a punk classicism.

Signaling awareness of tradition—there is an elaborate retelling of Tristan and Isolde in the middle of the book—as well as a fervid technological and futurological imagination, Pope nevertheless insists through his freehand style of gestural brushwork and his fluid storytelling, along with lyrical monologues and poetically compressed duets, on the right to art as a personal, handmade, and idealizing expression of the present moment. His polemic against an exhausted but dominant avant-garde establishment would amount to little if he could not provide a counterexample with his own work—and he does it beautifully.

The future in 100% is ostensibly dystopian—Pope implies that genetic advancements have gotten out of control, that war and militarization are omnipresent, and that an oppressive global government is in control (the libertarian artist pointedly shows U.N. currency, issued by "le banque du monde," with Che Guevara's face on it, while another subplot implicitly decries gun control as an abridgment even of the individual's moral right to choose not to bear arms). As in much cyberpunk, the seeming dystopia is largely left off-stage so that the spotlight can fall on the vibrant anarchic bohemia growing in its niches: this, and perhaps its genre, is a belated modernist urban pastoral.

Like many modernists, Pope pits his own version of order against the chaos of a society run by and for those who care more for money and power than for love and glory. The modernists also tended to lift their vision beyond the nation and the ethnos, to see the possibility of new forms, new beauty, and new love in a cosmopolis on the horizon. 100% ends when one character wishes to flee New York; he hurls a dart at a map, promising to move wherever it lands. It lands where he is standing: wherever you are right now is the beachhead of the new world. In the author bio at the end of this book, Pope's goal is described as the creation of "world comics, 21st century comics, stories in the comics medium which can reach and speak to people everywhere." Take out the specified century and the word "comics," and you find an old dream—one that has never yet been realized.

[Reyel2107 · Rating 5 out of 5]

imperfect future !!!!!!!

[Cody Wilson]

100% by Paul Pope is a genuinely unique work. In the tradition of DC’s Vertigo imprint, Pope appears to have had nearly free rein on the project. And given this opportunity, few other artists would opt to tell a slice-of-life story casually set in a not-too-distant future. Defying the sci-fi genre’s tendency to fixate on plot with thin characterizations, 100% is fundamentally character-driven.

Pope lingers in quiet moments, capturing his characters’ intimate desires and vulnerabilities. He’s less concerned with setting up what comes next than with dwelling in the present moment, which may explain why his stories, by his own admission, have struggled to arrive at satisfying, neatly resolved conclusions. 100% is most resonant in specific emotional sequences, such as an art installation where a cluster of tea kettles, all whistling the same note, slowly builds to a dramatic crescendo. Admittedly, some of the connective tissue between these sequences can feel underdeveloped or pretentious. At times, the sincerity veers into oversentimentality in a way that recalls indie films of the recent past. This earnestness may well be part of the charm.

The successes of 100% mostly hinge on Pope’s unique approach to visual storytelling. His organic brushwork is thick and messy but still retains a certain internal logic. In retrospect, his inking style clearly influenced a later generation of indie artists from Daniel Warren Johnson to Emma Rios. Unconventional panel layouts are a major part of Pope’s appeal as well. He frequently depicts subjects from unconventional angles that are effective even if they invite a moment of puzzled admiration. If the comic medium has auteurs, Pope is surely among them.

I may not feel compelled to read the whole of 100% again, but I’ll surely revisit some of my favorite sequences. This book is a must-read for fans of Vertigo in its prime.

[b · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The girl with the weave-in white braids… / Yeah I did know her. / … I remember I tried on her gold trainers one time. / we wore the same size shoe.”

Remarkable book. Something in me aches for the same world but 20 times as long. I think he could do it.

The opening maguffin of the murdered girl in the club is really only sort of a maguffin, an elastic wind-up to contrast the behaviour of the three men in relationships herein to the one who killed his own girlfriend (and to the hypothetical father in Daisy’s tale, which may or may not be rooted in her own experience).

Decent men. Bar’s so low you gotta trench it in these days. But men who would do anything for the people they love. Who don’t trespass. So unreal.

The art is exact and jagged and I’ve never seen anyone turn it out quite like this this consistently. I feel lost in a palpable black night of snow storm in so many of the outdoor panels; pinball shunted off all those curious shaped faces.

Venturing a little way into the future. Just a dab into “cyberpunk,” but so so so so sweet and sincerely quotidian. And there are literal winners losers and there is love lost, but there aren’t winners and losers and some great quest at stake, there isn’t some heist to pull off or some shootout waiting to happen.

Everyone is simply learning to live life among others.

So deftly executed. Absolute master text. Huge recommendations to anyone. Love it more than I can say.

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

I gotta admit, when I was reading this I could feel all of the feels at once. You have a genuine love for these characters because they all seem to go through some sort of depression. They're always looking for some kind of breakthrough or high. With the futuristic technology of one dancer that's a given. But what about when things get real? It's all to easy to push things away and live in the fantasy until you're shaken out of it. But what about getting sucked into another fantasy? How long can people keep doing this kind of thing until they get sick of it? Does the things that hurt people in the past deserve to stay in the past? Or do they help push actions? Because at the end of the day, the only thing that really matters is whether people open themselves up to the right people and if they have the patience to bear with them.

[Estibaliz · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75

'100%' is said to be voted among Time Magazine's 100 most influential science fiction graphic novels of the decade, and therefore, I have to say I was expecting something very different, more close to a crime/adventure/whodunit scifi story that the love intimate final product that we actually get.

Of course, Pope is good on what he does, and all the characters here sure leave a mark on the reader. The three love stories intertwine in a subtle manner, and are profoundly human and raw, and always relatable, regardless of the advanced setting.

In fact, the sci-fi aspect of the plot since to be mostly anecdotic, though instrumental to the essence of some of the characters, and just part of the background, which is one of the reasons this graphic novel didn't have a bigger impact on me as a reader.

A matter of expectations...

[Bill Coffin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not since William Gibson’s Neuromancer have I read such an engrossing, visceral, and bleak tale of near-future hyperculture. Here, we have three pairs of people each pursuing love and ambition in their own ways set in a world that is profoundly grimy, transgressive, and inhumane. Intimacy has been so commoditized that it seems like human relationships themselves don’t quite work any longer. And in such a setting, the interesting thing is that there is no main antagonist here. The setting is the antagonist. And we wonder, can people find love in a world like this? Can they pursue their dreams? Is there really anything worth living outside yourself for? 100% is a story very much on its own wavelength, and even if you don’t love it, it will stick with you well after hitting the final page.

[Theediscerning · Rating 2 out of 5]

An episodic look at the lives of people connected to the same strip club, in a near-future world where the latest porn is to have sensors that show you people's insides, because everything else has been seen and done before. That and a unified American police force using flying cars will cause it to be labelled sci-fi, but there's no genre for this really. It just shows people with their own ideas of success – art, boxing, surviving a shift at the club – and an overall lack of human companionship. As a result it's not exactly the most pleasurable read – and the artwork is a lot more messy than my usual taste. Two and a half stars, perhaps.

[StrictlySequential · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got it awhile back because I'll read anything Paul Pope but it floundered because of the cover which offends me. The box on it, that is. Since when are cover breasts necessary to cover when they are rampant on the inside? It's a mature book- so have a mature cover you clownshoes!

ANYWAY, It's a very good story with interesting science fiction. The zest of youth with young love/lust headlining.

But for some reason the art bothered me. Don't get me wrong ->I love his art<- but it's so aggressively cluttered in this treatment. The pages look messy- even for his loose style. There's too much to look at that isn't clear enough which detracts from the comparative clarity of the rest.