From the 1970s to the Present Day

  A hentai-inspired Wongoboy painting by British artist Jason Atomic.

  EROTIC COMICS

  A GRAPHIC HISTORY

  VOLUME 2

  FROM THE 1970s TO THE PRESENT DAY

  Tim pilcher

  Foreword By Alan Moore

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2008 by

  ILEX

  210 High Street

  Lewes

  East Sussex BN7 2NS

  www.ilex-press.com

  Copyright © 2008 The Ilex Press Limited

  This book was conceived by:

  ILEX

  Cambridge

  England

  Publisher: Alastair Campbell

  Creative Director: Peter Bridgewater

  Managing Editor: Chris Gatcum

  Senior Editor: Adam Juniper

  Art Director: Julie Weir

  Designer: Jonathan Raimes

  Any copy of this book issued by the publisher as a paperback is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including sthese words being imposed on a subsequent purchaser.

  British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978-1-907579-69-1

  ePub ISBN 978-1-908150-20-2

  Mobi ISBN 978-1-78157-148-4

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or used in any form, or by any means – graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or information storage-and-retrieval systems – without the prior permission of the publisher.

  Printed and bound in Thailand

  For more information on this title please visit:

  www.web-linked.com/erc2uk

  In memory of Steve Whitaker, Will Elder, and Dave Stevens.

  A Vaughn Bodé original reworked by his son Mark for SF Surfboards.

  CONTENTS

  Foreword by Alan Moore

  Introduction

  1. Porn in the USA

  Rise of the Comics Code

  Death of the Comics Code

  Dave Stevens and Bettie Page in Comics

  Frank Cho

  Erotic Worlds of Frank Thorne

  National Lampoon’s French Comics, the Type Men Like

  Heavy Metal

  Cherry Poptart

  Omaha the Cat Dancer

  Melody

  SQP

  Rich Larson and Steve Fastner

  Controversy: Barry Blair

  Controversy: Faust

  Black Kiss

  Eros and the FBI

  Alternative Comics, Alternative Sex?

  NBM

  Verotik: Death Metal and Dames

  The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund

  The Mainstream Moves In: Enigma and The Extremist

  The Mainstream Expands: American Virgin, Preacher, and The Pro

  2. Gay and Lesbian Comix

  Howard Cruse

  Gay Comix

  Tom of Finland

  Ralf König

  Patrick Fillion

  Eric Shanower, P. Craig Russell, Craig Hamilton, and Phil Jimenez

  Desert Peach & Donna Barr

  A.A.R.G.H., Clause 28 and all that

  Stangroom & Lowther: Meatmen and Buddies

  Roberta Gregory and Lesbian Cartoonists

  Alison Bechdel’s Dykes to Watch Out For

  3. European Erotique

  Milo Manara

  Vittorio Giardino

  Paolo E. Serpieri

  Francisco Solano López

  Ignacio Noé

  Giovanna Casotto

  Glamour International

  Spanish Scene: Seventies Comics

  Spanish Scene: El Vibora and Kiss

  Jordi Bernet’s Clara De Noche

  UK Underground Sex Comics: Graphixus and Antonio Ghura

  UK Underground Sex Comics: The Nasty Tales Trial

  UK Scene: Knockabout vs. Customs

  Hunt Emerson

  British Men’s Magazines: Men Only, Fiesta, and Firkin the Cat

  Lynn paula Russell

  Alan Moore, Melinda Gebbie, and Lost Girls

  4. Tits and Tentacles: The Japanese Experience

  Confused Censorship and Penal Codes

  Hentai

  Lolicon

  Shonen-ai

  Yaoi

  Tentacle Porn

  Futanari and Bakunyu

  The Dark Side of Desire

  5. Online Comics Eroticism

  Webcomics: Off Print and Online

  Gay Comics Online

  Sexylosers.com

  Jess Fink

  Adultwebcomics.com

  The Erotic Adventures of Space Babe

  Art Directory

  Bibliography

  Acknowledgments

  FOREWORD: DRAWINGS OF HARLOTS

  Pornography—from the Greek pórnë or harlot, plus graphos, to draw or to write—is an impulse as old as mankind. We encountered it during our cultural infancy, crouched in our caves with a Willendorf Venus for company, and it was there during our individual childhoods, scrawled in hurried ballpoint on lavatory walls or buried in poorly delivered and confusing dirty jokes at playtime. Even then, behind the bike sheds, we were made aware that even if we didn’t really understand them, these were narratives best not repeated to our parents. These were routines that could get us into trouble, although what variety of trouble wasn’t made entirely clear. Perhaps it boiled down to “What if your mother heard you tell that story? What if she found that dog-eared copy of The Carpetbaggers that always falls open at the lesbian scene? What if she came across the dirty picture that you did?” Essentially, “What if somebody like your mother, someone decent, knew that you had sexual thoughts and a developing sexual identity? What then?”

  And so we moderate our language and reserve our bawdiness for those of our own age and gender whom we know to be as secretly depraved as we. We take on a selective furtiveness and, with it, a whole plethora of ideas and assumptions: we assume that there exists a class of people, decent people who include our parents, clergymen, and teachers in their number, who have never entertained a lewd idea in their whole lives. We furthermore assume that we ourselves number among the indecent, debased minority that is prone to such notions, and that we’d be best advised to keep them to ourselves, not realizing that this is exactly the same thing that everybody else is doing. We therefore needlessly incorporate degrees of shame into our sexual makeup, both as individuals and societies, which we may find hard to shake off, even when we know better.

  The history of the church’s or state’s attempts to either stamp out or control erotic impulses in art is documented elsewhere and is probably best summarized by pointing out that such attempts have evidently not worked, or have worked only imperfectly: pornography is now more widespread and more prevalent than ever, and yet it is still most often both created and “enjoyed” in guilty anonymity. Effectively, we have been given an increased range of material to feel bad about, the worst of both worlds. Even so, it seems clear that the long war of attrition waged against pornography is no more winnable than is a war on terror, drugs, or any other such abstraction. The debate on whether there should be pornography or not is made irrelevant by the plain fact of its continuing existence. Legislation proving useless, this is no longer a legislative argument. We might be better off in moving the discussion onto ethical and aesthetic grounds, accepting that pornography exists and simply asking if it’s any good or not, either in
terms of execution or as seen from a socio-political perspective.

  It strikes me that the comic medium, with its long history of involvement with erotica, has a particular advantage over other media when it comes to a successful visual depiction of the sex act: like the carefully posed nudes in a Victorian tableaux vivant theatrical extravaganza, figures in a comic panel are not moving. All of the inelegant—and indeed sometimes comical—contortions of the act itself can be excised, can be imagined happening somewhere between the panels, leaving only the most perfectly constructed images and moments for consideration. This allows a necessary aesthetic distance for the author and the viewer both, enabling them either to tell or to enjoy a story without the distraction of the leading man’s unfortunate facial expressions or the guttural outbursts and the squelching meat percussion of the soundtrack. More importantly, since all the players are imaginary and are made from nothing except ink and paper, without need for models/actresses/whatever, then the viewer can be reassured that there is not some ugly and coercive backstory behind the leading lady’s eager-to-please smile. All that we are seeing truly naked and exposed in an erotic comic story is the sexual imagination of the authors, and that, ultimately, is the only thing that we can criticize or judge the work by. If a sexual idea is morbid or banal, if it is expressed poorly, let us say so without fear that we shall end up on the side of censorship, denial, or repression.

  Alice, Dorothy, and Wendy share an intimate moment in the fnal volume of Alan Moore & Melinda Gebbie’s Lost Girls trilogy.

  Melinda Gebbie’s back cover design to Lost Girls Volume 3.

  If erotica is to be taken seriously as a field, if it is to thrive and to develop, then it must become discriminating and show that it has some sort of standards; be something that we can still respect the morning after. Since all such aesthetic judgments are subjective, then by all means let us argue fiercely over where we set the bar, just as long as we all agree there is one, a dividing line that separates the works of genuine delight from those of no more value than the crumpled Kleenex that accompanied their genesis.

  Within this current, beautifully presented volume it is likely that the reader will, according to his or her individual tastes, find pieces from both categories. When it comes to deciding which is which, try to be merciful and to remember that creating a graceful or satisfying pornographic work is much more difficult than it appears, perhaps because there are few good examples of the genre thus far upon which to model such a work. Pornography is very much like adolescent poetry: there’s a great deal of it about because it is a very easy thing to do, and much of it is absolutely fucking dreadful because it is very hard to do it well. Please bear in mind that, being married to the exquisite Melinda Gebbie, I have let myself become a porn-snob with impractically high standards.

  With that said, the breadth of the material included should ensure that every reader is rewarded with some gem of lasting merit, if not several such. The sheer profusion of the works herein, expressed in different media and a variety of styles, suggest a thriving and, at root, a healthy field that’s teeming with vitality if you can see past all the worms and the manure. For my part, I was gratified to find intelligent and generously matured offerings from long-term favorites like Howard Cruse alongside new discoveries such as the liquid, elegantly stylized forms of Jess Fink. Artists like these provide the progressive impetus that, hopefully, will allow comic strip erotica to grow and prosper in the coming century, to rise above the slurping quagmire of the Anal Cheerleaders home DVD, or the more dubious reaches of the Intenet with their potential for predation or entrapment. What a tangled world wide web we weave.

  By way of a conclusion, I’m reminded of an incident that happened to me yesterday while I was seated in a branch of Cafe Nero (why not Cafe Heliogabalus, I often wonder, or Cafe Caligula?). A girl I knew from the nearby establishment where I purchase industrial quantities of a shampoo that promises me traffic-stopping shine and volume came into the coffee shop accompanied by her mother, where she told me she’d just purchased a signed copy of Lost Girls, the pornographic marathon my wife and I have only recently completed. The young lady’s mother was also effusive in her praises, being most impressed by all the splendid flourishes of the book’s presentation and design. Though brief, our conversation was a pleasant, civilized example of transgenerational public discourse upon the subject of pornography that would have been unlikely to occur even five years ago. My point is that you should absorb the contents of this book, and do so shamelessly. Some of it may remind you of the toilet scribbles and unfathomable smutty playground anecdotes that were where all of us came in, but some of it is of more dazzling quality and provenance than anything which you’re likely to chance upon mysteriously hidden in the bushes of your local park. You should quite clearly feel free to respond as you see fit, whether it be by laughing, retching with disgust, or simply steaming privately with your forbidden longings. And however you react, please don’t worry about your mother. If I know her, she’ll be getting her own copy.

  Alan Moore Northampton, UK

  Portrait of Alan Moore by Frazer Irving.

  INTRODUCTION

  Just like their fine-art forbearers, ever since the earliest erotic, or pornographic if you prefer, comics were published they have had to combat constant criticism and censorship. If there is a central theme to the history of erotic comics, it is the perennial struggle between freedom of expression and governmental censorship. Sexual politics is, after all, potent stuff. It forces the reader to question his or her own moral code, to reflect on society, and to question current civilization’s mores and social graces, all things governments would rather their populations didn’t do.

  Dr. Fredric Wertham’s US comic book purges of 1954, the rise and fall of the comic code, and the explosion of underground comix in the Sixties and Seventies saw erotic comics go through a rollercoaster of good and bad luck. The Sixties’ new “permissive society” unleashed a Pandora’s box of erotic self-expression in sequential art that has roamed free ever since.

  Seemingly, nearly every comic artist and cartoonist has turned their hand to drawing erotica at some point in their careers, whether through choice or through financial necessity. Carl Barks, Alex Raymond, and even Jack Kirby turned their hand to the odd salacious scribble, although the latter’s two-page Galaxy Green strip looks positively prudish in comparison with today’s comics.

  The Eighties, especially, saw an explosion of explicit sequential art in America, thanks in large part to the rise of independent publishers known as the great “black and white explosion.” Taking the lead from the counterculture cartoonists, comic stores set out to prove that “comics weren’t just for kids.” Unfortunately, this invariably involved constant battles with US authorities over censorship, as the federal government failed to realize that the medium had grown and evolved beyond adolescent power-fantasies dressed in brightly colored, skintight, fetishistic outfits.

  Erotic comics have always been an important voice for free expression, liberation, and to “cock a snoot” at the establishment. Consequently, they were a key component in the nascent lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered communities, and in the battle for gay rights. Titles like Gay Comix and Howard Cruse’s strips helped spread a message of tolerance and understanding in a medium that had the most accessibility and direct impact.

  But censorship was always around the corner, and when the British Conservative government—under Margaret Thatcher—brought in Clause 28 in 1988, which prevented the “promotion of homosexuality,” comic book writer Alan Moore rallied creators to produce the politically motivated A.A.R.G.H (Artists Against Rampant Governmental Homophobia). It took fifteen years for the act to be repealed.

  In 2008 the British government, in a just effort to crack down on pedophiles, proposed outlawing anyone from drawing and creating images of child sex abuse (regardless of context), effectively controlling what people can and cannot create from their imaginations. The viewer is equal
ly as guilty as the artist. This “sledgehammer to crack a walnut” approach is a constant hallmark of poor sexual legislation brought in by various governments over the past one hundred years, legislation that is so wide-reaching it ultimately proves to be unenforceable.

  In Japan the seemingly unfettered rise of sexually disturbing manga is coming under increasing international scrutiny, with its apparent pedophilic overtones rightly coming under heavy criticism. The origins of these hentai comics and the issues now facing Japanese erotic manga are discussed within, and perhaps serve as a warning sign against completely unregulated comics publishing.

  But ultimately, the future of erotic comics is online. Marvel and DC have both launched online comics (for a charge), following the erotic comics before them. Traditional erotic comics publishers have found the increasing Internet demand has eaten into sales of their very graphic novels. Yet the web still suffers from quantity over quality. Included within are some of the better artists and strips that are pushing the medium forward into alternative digital platforms, such as mobile phones.

  A word of caution: This book is not for the fainthearted and contains some extremely graphic material, which may shock the less enlightened. How explicit erotic comics have become since the Sixties says a lot. Whereas the Tijuana Bibles are shocking in their frankness, both time and the crudity of the drawings render them somewhat impotent. By contrast, the recent collected albums of erotic sequential art from Europe could almost be acquainted with gynecology textbooks. There’s a concern that the old maxim of “less is more” has been thrown out of the window, as implicit has been almost entirely overrun by explicit. This is hardcore.

  Italian artist Giovanna Casotto uses a limited palette in this pencil study, complementing the single use of red with subtle shades of gray, creating a sensuous and stylish illustration.