by Tim Pilcher
Boivin translated Rancourt’s scripts as well as drawing them, and went on to write and draw a second series, Melody On Stage, for Eros Comix. This dealt with Melody’s first audition in a strip club, and the humiliation she went through just to take her clothes off in public.
Montreal’s Club Melody, which was open between 1990–1992, even cashed in on the comic’s popularity, and Rancourt went on to manage her own Hotel Melody in her native Abitibi, Northern Quebec, with its own strip bar.
Ironically, Rancourt and Boivin’s comics are hard to find in their home country, thanks to notoriously over-zealous vice squads and Canadian customs’ border censorship. The comic book stores have, for the most part, acquiesced silently, with only a few voices of dissent, such as Boivin, trying to make a difference.
Interior pages from Melody, where a character explains how they developed their fetish for being spanked.
The cover to Melody #8 drawn by Jacques Boivin and subtitled “The true story of a nude dancer.”
Less is more on this cover to Melody #6, which asks many questions of the reader.
SQP
Describing themselves as “your one-stop source for the very finest in friendly female eye-candy!” two self-professed Brooklyn fanboys — Sal Quartuccio and Bob Keenan — set up Sal Quartuccio Publishing (SQP) in 1973. Starting out with an appreciation for fantasy and comic art, they turned their passion into a substantial business with a global customer base.
They published limited-edition portfolios, magazines, and graphic novels, showcasing new artists from around the world, “All blessed with a talent for illustrating the female form in all its curvy delights!” Despite having been in the industry for 35 years, “We still get people at conventions looking at us like we just dropped off the mothership,” noted Quartuccio and Keenan, bemused.
While the majority of their output consists of pin-up books and collections of erotic imagery, paintings, and illustrations, SQP have produced numerous sexy sequential stories such as Enrique Villagran’s Teach Me! and Teach Me Too! which tell the “highly charged story of sexual chemistry” between three female teachers “set to explode in a climax of mutual delight!”
Blas Gallego’s Sex Throughout the Ages: The Middle Ages is reminiscent of the work of O Wicked Wanda artist, Ron Embleton. The caption reads, “What to do on those long, steamy Knights!”
A humorous strip, A Friend in need, from Blas Gallego’s The very Breast of Dolly collection, published by SQP in 2005. The character owes much to Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder’s Little Annie Fanny, both in looks and storytelling.
Dolly’s Creatures of the night, also by erotic fantasy artist Gallego.
RICH LARSON AND STEVE FASTNER
Another SQP graphic novel was Demon Baby: Hell on Heels by two of the publisher’s most popular and prolific creators, Steve Fastner and Rich Larson. The creative duo have worked with the publisher since the late-1970s, and were introduced to each other in the mid-1970s by comics fan and writer Larry Becker at a Minneapolis comic convention. Admirers of each other’s art, they teamed up to work on several paintings and sold their first published piece to SQP for the cover of the publisher’s sci-fi and fantasy comic anthology Hot Stuf’ #6, starting a relationship that would last more than 30 years.
“In the ‘80s,” recalled Fastner, “Sal hired us to do Marvel superhero portfolios.” But as Larson pointed out, “We’re pretty under-the-radar as far as comics fans are concerned. Later on, we started illustrating SQP fantasy female portfolios and art books, and still do.” The pair work by Larson coming up with an idea and creating a tight pencil drawing. Fastner scans the drawing into Photoshop, and prints out a clean, light copy on bond paper. He then paints over the copy with markers and airbrush acrylic paints.
Fastner’s artistic admiration extended towards classic fantasy and erotic artists like Richard Corben, Frank Frazetta, and Wally Wood, among others. Larson was inspired by “the more innocent pin-up art styles of the ‘50s and ‘60s. I spent a lot of my wayward youth rummaging around in the basements of used bookstores for old comics, and I’d invariably come across boxes of old men’s magazines, spicy pulps, and paperbacks with lurid covers,” the artist recalled. “All of this burned itself into my impressionable, not very large brain, and to this day, I can’t resist working it into our own art.”
Cursed Kiss first appeared in Fastner and Larson’s Little Black Book vol.2. “Lesbian sex, good; lesbian sex with a four-armed goddess-creature, spanktastic,” said the artists.
This pin-up, one Small Smack, was inspired by the 1960s Mars Attacks! trading cards. It was created in marker pen and airbrush in 2007.
Fastner & Larson’s 2006 book, Pocket Pal, featured this pin-up, Surprise Package. “We have to admit a certain fondness for diminutive dictators and miniscule madmen.”
Page 2 of the short strip, Alienated, typically illustrates Fastner and Larson’s ribald sense of humor.
CONTROVERSY: BARRY BLAIR
Barry Blair was born in Ottawa, Canada, and was adopted by a Taiwanese couple when he was 9. The new family moved to Taiwan and this became an important influence in his work, with the artist even adopting the pseudonym Bao Lin Hum for a while. “I did a lot of learning and looked at Chinese artwork and things,” he said. Blair was a self-taught creator, and by 1980, in his mid-teens, he began self-publishing his fantasy epic Elflord. Blair was heavily influenced by another fantasy comic, ElfQuest, by Richard and Wendy Pini, as well as by erotic comics pioneer Wally Wood.
Blair co-founded his own imprint, Aircel Comics, and produced numerous fantasy titles, but when the company fell into financial difficulties the creator sought the help of fellow publisher, Malibu. “… [The] reason I did this was because I wanted to keep my guys [at Aircel] employed. Part of the deal was they would continue doing their books. However, all of a sudden Malibu started saying: ‘Well, I think you ought to do these adult books…’” With massive debts to pay off Blair chose to draw erotic comics rather than declare bankruptcy. Series like Leather & Lace (1989), Climaxxx (1991) Sapphire and Vampyre’s Kiss (1990) sold very well and Blair soon found himself cornered by his own success. “My first concern was: ‘What’s this going to do to my career?’ I want to be known as the guy who does these adventure books, and very soon I got to be known as the guy who does the sex books… [however] I had a lot of fun doing the really goofy stories in Leather & Lace…” Leather & Lace and Sapphire were essentially X-rated versions of Elflord and Samurai, but Blair was allegedly becoming increasingly uncomfortable. Eventually he phoned Malibu and told them he couldn’t draw erotic titles anymore, “I was 70% of their income and they just panicked. They just lost their minds! They were gonna come and kill me or whatever. ‘You know you can’t stop!’ And I just said: ‘Forget it. I want to go back and do Samurai and Elflord.’ And they said: ‘Well, do them as SEX books!’ So I add: ‘Look. I’ll give you Aircel. You can have it. You’ve never paid for it or anything. But you can use it and put all your porno crap into it and just go nuts.’”
Blair has often been at the forefront of controversy regarding the sexual content of his comics, receiving criticism over the apparent under-age appearance of near-naked, sexually ambiguous, intertwined characters. His comics lost direction and became long black and white panoramas of pubescent boys being stripped, bound, and tortured.
In a 1995 interview with Podium, Blair denounced all his early ‘90s work and that of erotic comics in general. “I really hate the idea that the whole comic industry is turning into this weird sort of…it’s not even a smut factory. It’s not even that good. If they just published real vile pornography, at least they would have accomplished something…It’s just this weird sort of soft porn titillation stuff,” bemoaned Blair. “I guess the people doing it don’t really know where they’re going with it, you know? I mean you’ve got women with huge breasts sort of having these pseudo-lesbian relationships on this imaginary Paradise Island thing…”
Blair moved to Europe an
d worked there for several years, inspired by European illustrators such as Pierre Joubert. But the Canadian artist eventually returned to the sub-genre that made him infamous, erotic fantasy comics, with two new Sapphire albums for NBM in 2001-2002 and a three-part story in the publisher’s erotic anthology Sizzle. In 2005, Blair and his partner, Colin Chan (aka Colin Walbridge), created Nymphettes: The Erotic Elvish Art of Barry Blair and Colin Walbridge, for SQP, with pin-ups of various semi-clad female Elves.
A recent study of an erotic elf by Blair.
A pin-up by Blair and Colin Walbridge.
A page from Barry Blair’s Climaxxx #1. Blair plays with traditional superhero conventions when a scientist persuades Kiki that his “super serum” will turn her into a super heroine, in an erotic echo of Captain America’s origin.
The cover to Climaxxx #1 published by Aircel in 1991.
CONTROVERSY: FAUST
Another series that managed to polarize comic book readers and critics was writer David Quinn’s and artist Tim Vigil’s Faust. The series was a loose interpretation of the Dr. Faustus legend, set in contemporary New York. John Jaspers is a mental patient who becomes the lover of his female psychiatrist, Jade de Camp. After disappearing from the asylum, Jaspers sells his soul to the devil, disguised as a criminal mastermind known as M (aka Mephistopheles). Jaspers is, in true comic book style, transformed into a costumed, near-invulnerable vigilante, armed with deadly metal claws, looking like a cross between Batman and Wolverine. Jaspers becomes too unstable to control and the costumed maniac starts preying upon the underworld that M partly controls. “… there is a supernatural basis to the idea of demons and the devil and [Faust] and the comic. So it’s not totally, totally natural,” explained co-creator and artist Tim Vigil.
Panels from Faust’s 1998 sequel, pencilled by Tim Vigil and “embellished” by Johnny B. Stylistically, Faust appealed to hard rock and metal fans, with its depiction of extreme sex and tattooed characters.
The series contained strong graphic violence and explicit sexual situations, often combined in over-the-top excessiveness previously only seen in the underground comics of S. Clay Wilson. Apart from the excessive sex and Quinn’s intelligent writing, it was Vigil’s heavily detailed, and anatomically precise artwork that made the series stand out. The first series: Faust: Love of the Damned was published in 1989, but suffered from erratic publishing schedules. However this didn’t prevent cult director Brian Yuzna from disastrously adapting it for the big screen in 2001. The second series, Faust: Book of M, was nominated for the 1999 Bram Stoker Award for Best Illustrated Narrative.
The series was almost certainly an inspiration for Todd McFarlane’s slightly more kid-friendly phenomena, Spawn, with similar themes of a tortured, costumed vigilante whose soul is tied to Hell.
Quinn went on to write Dr Strange for Marvel Comics and Vigil, having been an originator of the genre, carried on drawing dark horror/sex comics, working at Glenn Danzig’s Verotik Publishing on Dark Horror of Morella, as well as working toward the final ending for Faust.
The variant covers to Faust 777: The Wrath #3 and #1, published by Avatar Press, and Faust #11 of the original series. The Wrath #0 had no less than eight variant covers.
Explicit language and graphic imagery caused outrage for many retailers when Faust first appeared. This page is from #11 of the original Love of the Damned series.
A page from the original 1989 Faust series by Tim Vigil.
BLACK KISS
Howard Chaykin is no stranger to controversy and erotica, having made his breakthrough in comics in late 1970s, drawing Cody Starbuck, Ironwolf, Star Wars, and Dominic Fortune. His star continued its ascent when he wrote and drew his political adult sci-fi series American Flagg in 1983. Flagg featured pre- and post-coital scenes but was always tastefully done.
But when Chaykin released Black Kiss — through the now-defunct Canadian publisher, Vortex, in 1988 — all hell broke loose. Black Kiss was a hardboiled erotic story set in the sleazy world of ‘80s L.A. which owed a nod, in tone at least, to the novels of James Ellroy.
The 12-issue miniseries told the story of Cass Pollack, a deadbeat jazz musician and ex-heroin addict who is on the run from the police and the Mafia after the latter kill his family. Dagmar Laine, a prostitute and lover to 1950s movie star Beverly Grove, are both searching for a reel of film taken from the Vatican’s collection of pornography. Laine and Grove hire Pollack to steal the reel in return for them providing him with an alibi to square things with the police.
Chaykin’s story was typically full of convoluted plot twists and turns, and none more surprising than when one of the central protagonists, Dagmar, turns out to be a preoperative transsexual vampire.
Black Kiss quickly became one of the most controversial US comics of the late 1980s thanks to Chaykin’s unflinching portrayal of explicit sex and violence previously unseen in “mainstream” comics at that period. To help retailers prevent possible litigation in comic shops (which were generally perceived as kiddie stores) Vortex shipped copies of Black Kiss in pre-sealed plastic bags. This meant that casual browsers could not open the comic and see the internal content.
Describing Black Kiss, fellow comics scribe Matt Fraction wrote, “In terms of sex, this is Chaykin rejecting the ‘mature comics’ movement of the ‘80s by exploiting all of the totemic sex fetishes the comics world had loved him for to date: big asses and hiked-up skirts; garters and blow jobs…The final irony of Black Kiss is that Chaykin holds his subject matter, medium, and (one presumes) his audience in such contempt that he won’t even let them enjoy the fucking in this, his dirty little fuck book…”
Howard Chaykin’s exquisitely designed and sophisticated cover to his complete collection, Thick Black Kiss.
Black Kiss’s central protagonists, Cass Pollack, Dagmar Laine, and Beverly Grove engage in a ménage a tois.
“I think Black Kiss is one of the funniest things I’ve ever done, a darkly funny comedy,” recalled Chaykin in a Newsarama interview almost 20 years after the first issue came out. “I did it at a turning point in my life. I turned the point and now I’m done.” Chaykin has been pitching for the comic to be adapted into a movie: “There’s no reason that film couldn’t be made. I don’t think it would be a PG-13, but it could be done anywhere from a hard R to an X… And there have been a number of situations where it was almost there. We’ve had a number of almosts, in the first place with a semi-well-known Canadian actress, another time with a very well-known American director. Hollywood is filled with almosts. I’m still hoping someday to get it happening. That’s one of the reasons that I like that it remains in print.”
Vortex collected the series into volumes called Big Black Kiss in 1989. The series has been collected into paperback format several times as Thick Black Kiss, the most recent being in 2000 with an edition released by Eros Comix.
Black Kiss paved the way for other creators to brave the genre. “I’m really tired of reading sex stuff by guys who have never had a date,” bemoaned Chaykin unfairly a few years later, referring to the glut of erotic comics that followed Black Kiss’ success. “I mean, it was bad enough reading mad scientists by guys who had never gotten out of high school, but now that we’re writing sex it’s even worse!”
Black Kiss was, and remains, an important erotic comic as it was one of the first to cross over from the murky subgenre into the mainstream thanks to its high profile creator. It broke taboos and new ground and forced the US comic book industry to reassess what the Europeans had discovered 20 years earlier — namely that comics could deal with sexual issues for an adult readership, and that a mature public would buy them.
Chaykin’s series featured just about every single conceivable sex scenario, with incredibly verbose participants.
Pollack infiltrates the secret sex cult in Black Kiss. Chaykin’s page layout and design skills—which he’d honed previously on American Flagg—are exhibited here in the way he integrates the banner headline text and panel construction.
The cover to Black Kiss #9 (in 1988).
EROS AND THE FBI
Thanks to the rise of the do-it-yourself ethos of the underground comix movement of the 1960s, and the repressive nature of the Comics Code Authority, many new creators, distributors, and retailers started to circumnavigate the old systems of getting comics to an eager public. As specialist comic shops started to flourish in America, so did independent publishers and fanzines. One such company, Fantagraphics Books, Inc. (aka FBI), was founded earlier than most, in 1976, by Gary Groth and Mike Catron, and was directly inspired by the underground comix and work by Robert Crumb, S. Clay Wilson, and the like. The following year, Kim Thompson joined the company and became a co-owner with Groth. Initially formed to publish the critical trade magazine The Comics Journal, the company branched out into publishing comics in 1982 with Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez’s Love & Rockets. They went on to publish and support many ground-breaking creators such as Peter Bagge, Dan Clowes, Joe Sacco, Chris Ware, and Jessica Abel. Fantagraphics soon established a reputation for publishing innovative titles that traditional comics companies (such as Marvel and DC) either didn’t know existed or wouldn’t touch, including serious, dramatic, historical, journalistic, political, and unsurprisingly, sexual themes. As The Village Voice noted, “It’d be difficult to find more challenging and entertaining rabble-rousers amid the panorama of popular culture.”