Frogs, Swords and Drawing Boards: B. Pope’s Kermann Comics

At some point in your life, you have been a reader of comics. Maybe it was at the breakfast table in elementary school, reading the Sunday funnies while a parent read the paper. Maybe it was as a high schooler, reading Maus or Persepolis for an English class. Maybe it was yesterday, when you scrolled an artist’s Webtoon profile during your lunch break.

Like you and me, B. Pope (they/them) is a comics reader. Growing up, Pope read Spider-Man and shared the medium with their family, creating comics with their brothers and discussing them with their uncle. Pope was familiar with the language of comics, but it took an unexpected moment of inspiration for Pope to make the leap to being a comic creator.

“We had a customer whose last name was ‘Kerman’… in my head, it [became] ‘Kermit plus He-Man,’” recounts Pope. After kicking the idea around with some friends and doodling the titular hero in their erstwhile notebook, Pope went to a workshop hosted by Chris Hoffman and Andrew Malin, a pair of local creatives who lead the comics imprint Velleity Studios. With their guidance, Pope brought Kermann from sketch page to print.

“I didn’t consider myself to be a writer,” says Pope, though you wouldn’t know from their work. With two issues published and a third on the way, Kermann is Mad Max meets The Muppets. Using striking paneling inspired by the likes of Andrew MacLean’s Head Lopper, Pope brings to life a swampy, post-ice cap Earth. Kermann lives in a floating village that he guards from the likes of giant, hungry snakes, tribal toad people and rapacious human raiders. Pope’s crisp linework and expressive faces are underscored by effective coloring that shifts according to the tone of the story. Equal parts serious and silly, Kermann is a treat for the eyes.

I first saw Kermann at the SLC Punk Rock Flea Market a little over a year ago. I was instantly hooked by the cover of the first issue, which features Kermann leaping out of the water to slash at a massive alligator with his sword. I bought the comic, spending the rest of the evening at the flea market anticipating reading my purchase. At home, I quickly became ensconced in the work, unable to tear myself away from the sheer fun of it.

“[In] any kind of art that I do, I make what I would want to see if I was a customer,” Pope expresses. Pope’s love for the medium has not stopped with their own creation. Inspired by game jams, events where groups of people seek to create a fully-realized video game in 24 hours, Pope partnered with South Salt Lake’s Granite Library to put on a comics jam, where participants have about three hours to plot, storyboard, draw and ink (among other things) their own community-crafted comic. At the end of each workshop, the comic is copied, stapled and distributed back to its creators.

“It was another one of those kinds of things where, as a creator, I was making something that I would want as a consumer,” says Pope. “I really love art from people who aren’t formally trained. You just see something that’s so different than what you’re going to see anywhere else.”

Pope’s growth from comics reader to comics teacher is more than a story of learning to write narratives. In creating something they wanted to read, B. Pope unlocked the communal potential of comics, drawing on a familiar tradition to create comic readers, cultures and future creators.

In creating Kermann, Pope was also inspired by an idea from comics artist Michael Sweater: “Anything that you actually sit down and make is automatically better than an idea that you have that you don’t make because you’re too scared. It’s a step in the right direction.”

To follow Kermann’s continued adventures and become a part of Pope’s comics community, keep an eye out at local street fairs and follow them on Instagram at @bluffstreetbandit and @kermanncomics.

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