Post by codystarbuck on Apr 29, 2020 19:31:33 GMT -5
Obviously it'd be hypocritical for me to criticize Fantagraphics for publishing porn But still, little of the Eros line interested me at the time.
Birdland was from Love & Rockets Gilbert Hernandez and features a trio of women, two of whom work as strippers and another as a therapist. It has a bit of an Underground sensibility and reads like a randier version of Love & Rockets. Sex is rather explicit within it, though there are real characters, not just a body to carry sex organs. The humor that you would expect is also there; but, it is definitely not for everyone. If you are curious about Hernandez' other work, it is worth reading, providing you have no problems with explicit sex scenes.
I Want to Be Your Dog is from Ho Che Anderson, creator of the excellent King graphic novel, about Martin Luther King. This work, taking its title from The Stooges' punk favorite, and deals with the lives of a vast group of characters in the Toronto African-Canadian community, particularly the BDSM subculture. This is a true "adult" work in every sense and Anderson brings his scratchy, angular style to the work. Anderson's art invokes Sienkiewicz and McKean as well as their influence Ralph Steadman. This just doesn't deal with BDSM imagery for titillation but deals with people involved in the scene, for good and bad. It deals in relationships as much as power exchanges and is filled with "real" people.
Cannon collected Wood's hardboiled adventure strip, complete with nudity and sex, as it originally appeared. Sally Forth was Wood's lighter sex spoof, more along the lines of Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder's Little Anny Fanny.
Fantagraphics also collected Gray Morrow's Amora erotic fantasy comic, as well as reprinted Frank Thorne's Ghita and Lann...
The Kinky Hook was a bondage themed story by Stanton, which may or may not have had inking done by Steve Ditko. The pair shared a studio (something Ditko denied, at one point, until photos of them in the studio appeared). It looks very Ditko and Stanton did pick up a lot of Ditko's stylistic touches, especially while they worked in the same space.
Stanton described them working on each other's stuff, particularly with deadlines looming. One interview I saw, I believe he said he inked some webbing on Spider-man, but not much in the way of figures. I don't have access to the interviews any more; but, I could swear he said Ditko inked some of his (Stanton's) fetish material and Kinky Hook is the one that gets most cited as having Ditko's involvement. Some of Stanton's Stantoons comics are pretty loose; so, I could see where he might have done breakdowns and Ditko did finishes.
I liked Sally Forth, up to a point. Some episodes were decidedly better than others. At least one chapter had a pretty good Flash Gordon spoof.
Apple Comics, around the same time, launched their Forbidden Fruit imprint of adult titles. From what I saw of it, Eros had better material, in general.
I forgot to mention the Erotic Worlds of Frank Thorne that Eros published, before their Ghita and Lann albums. I picked up those, as it covered Ghita, Lann and Moonshine McJuggs. Thorne's art was great; but, I had always heard this stuff was pretty humorous; but, it was kind of mildly amusing, at times. Jack Cole's Playboy cartoons were way funnier and actually sexier, even though they were less explicit. Something said for leaving a bit for the imagination.