COPRA’s Michel Fiffe — a Cartoonist Who Loves the Craft

Michel Fiffe loves comics and his cult-fave COPRA shows it (as does his All-New Ultimates from Marvel). He’s not only a favorite in the hallowed halls of the 13th Dimension, he’s someone I’ve wanted to profile for a little while now.

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The new softcover collection of the first run of COPRA stories.

COPRA, if you’re among those not in the know, is something of an homage to John Ostrander’s Suicide Squad, but it’s much more than that. It’s also a salute to the craft of comics, with winks and nods to the likes of Kirby and Ditko. Wanna know more? Of course you do. So here’s a MIGHTY Q&A:

Dan Greenfield: What’s your Secret Origin?

Michel Fiffe: Born in Habana, raised in Miami, lives in Brooklyn.

For the uninitiated, explain COPRA.

Weirdo renegade mercenaries on revenge missions drawn with the thickest, crustiest brushes imaginable.

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Now, your love of Kirby, Ditko, Ostrander, Suicide Squad are all out front here. But who are some of your other influences and favorite creators?

Walt Simonson, Jaime Hernandez, Tony Salmons, Jorge Zaffino, Kyle Baker, Kevin Nowlan. These artists make me cry blood.

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Have you heard from Ostrander? I’m not even gonna ask about Ditko.

The extent of my relationship to Ostrander is that he’s accepted my friend request on Facebook. What more could a man want?

Your DIY spirit is pretty inspirational to a lot of creators and you have something of a cult following, it seems. Tell us about that.

People are gonna put out their books no matter what, and that’s the attitude they should have. I do what I do because I HAVE to. I’m not waiting on anyone’s green light. SomeĀ people have more patience than I do.

You’re also working on some mainstream projects. What’s the what there?

I write a superhero teen book called All-New Ultimates for Marvel. It’s the title where I try to cram in as many Mark Gruenwald characters as possible into the stories.

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Taking a huge step backward, what was the first comic you ever owned? Do you still have it?

I don’t own the one I actually had as a kid but I did retrieve a copy recently! It’s a Flash comic reprinted in Spain. It had a Gibbons Green Lantern back up, too. It blew. My. MIND.

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Holy crap, I need to track this down.

Holy crap, I need to track this down.

Writing yourself a huge creative blank check, pitch your ultimate project.

Spark a creator-owned line of monthly genre comics by my top favorite creators, highest page rates available. It would very much be like a cult and we’d have to live in Turks and Caicos.

Author: Dan Greenfield

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  1. Comics A.M. | Two GNs among inaugural Kirkus Prize finalists - Robot 6 @ Comic Book ResourcesRobot 6 @ Comic Book Resources - […] Creators | Michael Fiffe talks about Copra, which he describes succinctly as “Weirdo renegade mercenaries on revenge missions drawn…

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