Monday | December 31st, 2007
Hi, sorry for lack of recent posts.
I just wanted to point out that Eurotica has Manara’s the Model on sale, which is a fun bit of Manara pin up goodness taking on the historical role of the model.
Also, I just ordered The Pin Up Art of Dan DeCarlo Vol. 2
From the man himself:
In my case, all my life I’ve been a slave to that butt. Yes, the motion of a big, round, human female butt while she’s walking has the same effect that the blossom has on the bee. To see is to desire! It’s primal! It’s an animal reflex!
The original text to go with the above illustration (it was an ad for his aptly named Big Ass Comics) said:
“Don’t Be A Stranger! Step on the gas!! Lecher self go! Get behind the BIG ASS”
I don’t think there’s anything really enigmatic about Crumb. He has written extensively about himself. There has been a well received documentary movie about his life. And as an extremely driven artist, he has an enormous volume of work and I would estimate that most of it is still in print.
Like most artists he is driven by the prospect of getting beautiful lovers.
Lots of Pictures After the Jump
Well no, I say that honor goes to Fritz the Cat.
But Omaha the Cat Dancer was an amazingly crafted underground comic, that had an extra rabid fan base in the 80’s. Wikipedia identifies it as an American furry comic book, which is kind of strange because I’m pretty sure it predates the term.
Anyway, teenage boys raised on a superhero diet will react the same way to Omaha the Cat Dancer as they would to a dead badger. They will look at it with a mixture of disgust and fascination and then probably kick it.
It’s sort of a cross between Falcon Crest and Emanuelle but the characters all have the heads and tails of various animals, mostly cats. Oh, and its written by a committed feminist. Which is one of the things that make it stand out from a normal dirty comic book.
I met Kate Worley the writer, and she was a smart, funny lady. The book was filled with action interspersed with the main relationship but with diversions into threesomes, gay sex. The story is basically a stripper named Omaha, is in love with a dude who is the son of a City Fathers. The town is cracking down on obscenity like strip clubs and porno theaters etc. but the wealthy elite have their own private bacchanal going on. This over the top plot is balanced and bracketed by Omaha’s private life on display.
It is as far as I can parse an overwhelmingly positive book, both of all varieties of very sexy encounters as well as a positive view of the sex industry and sex workers.
Omaha at work:
And Omaha At Play:
Apart from the graceful, sexy art this could be any old sexy comic book…
But, “Sweetie, you don’t have to” just doesn’t show up that much in male, adolescent fantasies. Omaha had many run ins with local authorities wherever they might live. It was near-constantly seized by foreign customs offices. A Toronto comic store was raided and Omaha characterized as depicting bestiality. And we are supposed to shake our heads sadly about the narrow-minded stupidity of the Mounties but I have some sympathy for them, after all Omaha sure isn’t Underdog.
Omaha the Cat Dancer is Highly Recommended by SexyComics.Info
Ah, butts, beautiful butts. For the most part, comic books have focused their attention on uh, boobs. Almost all heroines in comics are pneumatic (that means big boobs, Homer)
Of course there is Crumb
But he really is the exception rather than the rule…enter Serpieri. He’s a classicly trained Italian painter who turned to comics in the mid-70’s. He draws himself in as a regular character in his most famous comic series…
Druuna
Americans know Druuna from Heavy Metal, which was a great magazine and one of the most reliable ways for a preteen boy to see boobies, before the invention of internet porn. ..As you can see, Druuna has at least one thing she’s very proud of…and even white boy’s got to shout! Druuna’s got back.
Druuna lives in a post-apocalyptic, plague-ravaged Earth, and the Druuna books (albums if you like to sound European) revolve around her making her way in this grim, lawless future. Basically, she is continually the target of any number of ad hoc power structures that have arisen in the civil vacuum of this new ravaged world. As a result of her voluptuous figure, she is usually violated
enerally, however, grisly revenge is exacted either because the oppressor either is so distracted by Druuna’s robust beauty that he is easily subdued by others or Druuna manages to escape. Druuna reminds me of nothing less than…
Little Annie Fanny
The two are the same in that they are generally helpless naked women dropped in the middle of a power struggle, and they suffer for it. But, in what would seem bizarre anywhere but the comic strips — they do not change for the experience, everything ends at the status quo, and the plucky heroine is left to wait for her next exploitation.
Will Elder is I think the slightly superior artist. Serpieri is really good and I love everything that goes on around Druuna..
he has an excellent sense of page composition, I love the way the guy is looking through the portal and seeing the succeeding panel. But Druuna herself is a little too posed for me…
Most of it is a pinup similar to the above. Who can fault him? Who wouldn’t enjoy working with the model for the above? In fact, most artists wouldn’t even call it work!
Larry Welz is awesome. I had the good fortune of meeting him once, back when I was in “the biz” — it would be more correct to say that for a while my idiocy was present among some very talented cartoonists. I was the same cheap hustler then as I am now. Remind me to tell you about “Smarmy The Sexually Repressed Dinosaur” sometime…
Ah, but I digress - Larry Welz is awesome, when I met him and it wasn’t as some stupid penitent, he was remarkably down to earth. He comes across as more pretentious in print, but there’s nothing pretentious about Cherry Poptart!
tee hee, I seriously think every one of her little zingers are funny, what an old gay man i am
Anyway, Cherry, which started off kind of 70’s underground looking TrinaTron the Psychic Psexpot or some sort of shit, but eventually fully morphing into beautiful Dan DeCarlo like Good Girl Art.
Cherries adventures were the usual romp but they looked good and Welz worked on the punchlines.
Hah, I dont think I have my Cherry 3d Sex issue, which is too bad that is some cool stuff. It works, but its like jerking off to a viewmaster.
Anyway, cherry had a mom named Pepper, and I think you can imagine the hijinks that ensued…stealing each other’s delivery boys. Oops, whose positive test results are these?
Milo Manara is an Italian comic book artist. He is a real artist and has the all-too-common artistic obsession with the female form. The beauty of Manara is that he’s right on the boundary of everything. There is sadomasochism, but not enough to turn off someone who’s already opened a pornographic comic, there is degradation but it stays within the lines of satire, it is cheesy in anItalian filmmaker way, but that is also a very evocative way to present a story, you can feel wwarm mediterannean breezes as you read his work. Yes, yesw, jerk off to it, by all means, but this is european art that americans can connect with.
Amazon has a good selection of Milo Manara
I love this poster, seriously. Look how that sits on the borderline of bad taste. But, any illustrator will tell you that Milo has a beautiful line, and a talented eye.
The Click
Poster
Manara
26.75 in. x 38.625 in.
Buy at AllPosters.com
Framed Mounted
I don’t read much comics news anymore, but I guess my wife buys me a Comics Journal once in a while because I was aware that Guido Crepax had died. Crepax is one of the great Italian comics artists, with a srong bent toward erotics.
I like this one because you can very clearly see how Frank Miller was influenced by Crepax both in line and in composition.
Crepax’s work is perfect for the erotic comics fan because it can function both as one-handed reading, but its also part of the continuum of artistic development in comics. In truth, because of the appeal of naked people to budding artists, you can find the influence of artists like Crepax and Manara all over the world.
I don’t know where I’m going to end up with this “porn blog”. JESUS CHRIST! I DONT WANT ANY KIDS READING THIS BLOG. I’M SERIOUS! I am still trying to figure out this adult webmaster thang. I don’t know what fancy codes I need to put on my blog. Somebody please tell me!
So let’s reach back to the heart, people. Let’s head back to the early 90’s. The shirts were flannel, but the tastes were refined.
I’m talking about Eros Comics
Almost every thing about Eros Comix is charming. As I understand it, they were founded in an attempt to make some more money for what was at one time the perpetually flagging revenues of Fantagraphics Books — I’m sure that at this point, where they are doing the complete Peanuts, which is, for better or for worse, the King James Bible of comic art, that Fantagraphics is totally flush. But, when I was a boy (scratcing belly, drawing in breath for long exhortation), comix was cool, but it wasn’t a good way to make money. So Gary Groth (and I confess I don’t know who else was involved, for example how closely Kim Thompson was to the situation at the time) started an adult comics line to pay the bills. To their credit, they found pornography less embarassing than a line of cheap superhero comics.
Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t Maus, in fact, there’s even plenty of cheap superhero comics to be found within its catalog. But, there’s also…stuff like this
and this:
By, the way this is a badass site
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