Author: Robert Greenberger

Yesterday, Tim Pilcher, author of Erotic Comics, talked about the research into the second volume, coming out  here in March. Now we focus on the evolution. Speaking of sex, given the subject matter, we advise you that the art does the subject justice.

ComicMix: How different is erotica in America, Asia and Europe?

Tim Pilcher: Well, obviously Europe and Asia have had a more mature approach to comics for adult readers far longer than America or Britain, and consequently their erotica tends to be more prolific and explicit, and there is a greater acceptance of it, it’s no big deal there. I was in Spain and went in a shop to see the erotic monthly anthology, Kiss, racked alongside Asterix! Everybody there knows that the kids aren’t interested in Kiss and will pick up the Asterix instead. There’s a common sense which seems to have disappeared from US and UK cultures, where everybody is overly cautious and litigious. So there’s a more relaxed attitude to sex in general on the continent, particularly in France, Spain and Italy.

A small minority of Japanese Manga, I have to say, left me feeling uncomfortable as it was quite pernicious. But having said that, if it feeds a market that gets a release through reading the comics—rather than enacting their dubious fantasies — then all well and good. After all — unlike photography or video — there’s no models or actors being coerced or exploited. It’s simply an artist, a pen and their thoughts. And if you don’t agree with their thoughts, don’t buy or look at the Manga, it’s as simple as that.

CMix: Did any of that change through the years?

TP: I think, if anything, sadly the old maxim of “less is more” is well and truly dead when it comes to erotic comics. I would much rather artists were more sophisticated and subtle in their storytelling and less graphic with today’s trend of extreme genealogical close-ups. Having said that, there are some women who are doing great things with erotic sequential art, like Melinda Gebbie, Jess Fink, Lynn Paula Russell and Giovanna Casotto, who are creating very mature works. In fact the more I think about it, it’s more of the women’s work that I’m attracted to, and theirs tends to be a more cerebral approach.
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Browncoats are Firefly fans and some fans seem to go to extremes to show their appreciation for the Joss Whedon series which lasted a mere season on Fox.

One group of fans has named themselves the Firefly Ship Works and have devoted countless hours to studying the series in minute detail.  They’ve done schematics for the Firefly-class ship that the cast traveled aboard and now they have unveiled their map of the universe, including all the planets visited and mentioned on the series and the film Serenity.

According to their website, “our goal is to create reliable, flexible and affordable transport for you and yours, as you endeavor to reach vistas unseen and wilderness yet to be tamed. As such, we have put together this Cortex Wave Server (CWS) to keep you informed of our efforts to create the ‘Verse’s first and only screen-accurate Firefly Series 3, the Serenity Artisan Replica.”
 

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment announced a January 20 release date for City of Ember on DVD.

To save the human race, an underground city was built to last 200 years… now time is up and they must unlock the secret for their survival. For generations, the people of the City of Ember have thrived in an amazing underground world of flickering lights.  Built as a refuge for humanity and powered by a massive generator, the city’s time is almost up and now Ember is falling into darkness as the generator fails.  In a race against time, it’s up to two brave teenagers to unravel the mystery behind the city’s existence, maneuver around corrupt politicians and save the City of Ember. 

“Imaginative, heartfelt and exciting” (St. Paul Pioneer Press), City of Ember is based on the 2003 best-selling novel, The City of Ember, by Jeanne Duprau.

 The cast includes Tim Robbins (Best Supporting Actor, Mystic River), Golden Globe-winner Bill Murray (Best Actor, Lost in Translation) and Academy Award-nominee Saoirse Ronan (Best Supporting Actress, Atonement). 

Synopsis:

A heart-thumping, edge-of-your-seat adventure comes to light in this exhilarating family film based on the best-selling novel by Jeanne Duprau.  For centuries, the residents of the underground City of Ember have flourished in an amazing world of glittering lights and quiet contentment.  But when the City’s massive power generator begins to fail, the street lamps start to fade — along with the hopes and dreams of the townspeople.  Now it’s up to two courageous teenagers to follow a trail of clues left by the ancient Builders and find a way out of Ember before their world is plunged into darkness forever!

DVD Special Features:

The City of Ember DVD will be presented on a flipper disc in both full screen (1.33:1) and wide screen features (2.35:1 ratio) with English 5.1 Dolby Digital and Spanish and French Dolby Surround with English, French and Spanish subtitles.

Tim Pilcher has made a fine career for himself writing and editing in the pop culture world. His most recent project is the second volume in his heavily-illustrated survey of Erotic Comics, coming to the UK in January and America in March. We decided to find out how one covers the subject without getting arrested or losing interest in sex. Speaking of which, given the subject matter, we advise you that the art does the subject justice.

ComicMix: Hey Tim, nice to speak with you again. A  So tell me, what qualifies you to write about sex?

Tim Pilcher: Well I’m not a virgin! I can prove it, I’ve got kids!

CMix: Seriously, what prompted the two volume critical look at the subject?

TP: It was a series of disparate events over many years. I remember Melinda Gebbie showing me the original artwork for the first few pages of Lost Girls, when I worked in a comic shop (Comic Showcase in London), back around 1990, and being impressed. Then some friends bought me a copy of L’Enfer des Bulles by Jacques Sadoul, which basically highlighted “saucy moments” in regular and erotic comics. I also read Maurice Horn’s Sex in The Comics, which came out in 1985 and it suddenly dawned on me that no one had done a critical, comprehensive, English language, study on the history of erotic comics for over 20 years! I thought that was bizarre, particularly as Eros Comix, and the erotic comic explosion of the late 80s/early 90s happened just after Horn’s book came out, so there was a huge amount of material that hadn’t been explored, such as Howard Chaykin’s Black Kiss. I think the final part of the jigsaw was reading an article by Alan Moore in Arthur magazine about the history of pornography ("Bog Venus Versus Nazi Cock-Ring: Some Thoughts Concerning Pornography", Vol 1, No 25, November 2006) and that got me thinking about how sex had been portrayed in comics. So Alan and Melinda were the real catalyst for the whole project, and that made getting Alan to write the foreword for volume 2 a really significant honor for me.
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Book View Cafe is a new online publishing venture by a consortium of writers, many of whom are friends of ours here at ComicMix. According to their website, “Offerings range from novels to flash fiction and include both reprints and new work. Here on the Book View Cafe Blog, the authors talk about their work and offer ideas and opinions on the wider world of fiction.”

Visitors to the site, which went live this week, can sample long out-of-print works from the authors, read their blog posts, and soon buy premium content.

Authors include Sarah Zettel, Ursula K Le Guin, Vonda McIntyre, Irene Radford, Brenda Clough, Laura Ann Gilman, Susan Wright, and many others.

The subject matter is widely diverse across all lines of popular fiction. “Ideally,” the site states, “it would also provide you with a wider selection of fiction from some of your favorite authors than you’ve had before, and provide us a more direct link with our readers.  Of course, we also wanted to take advantage of the internet to get the word out about our books.”

As Gilman said on her blog, “The offerings on BookView Cafe will refresh on a regular basis, and range from novels to flash fiction and include both reprints and new work (and, yes, that includes new stories and novel out-takes from the Cosa Nostradamus books!).”
 

Doctor Who is about to turn 45, young for a Time Lord but old for a television character.  To celebrate, the BBC has opened up it s archive which has detailed information on the series from its early development through current production.

Among the fascinating artifacts is a 1962 report discussing whether the BBC should make a sci-fi drama, concept notes written in 1963 forming a summary of ideas for just such a program, and background notes by C E Webber and Sydney Newman in which they outline the format for the new series that had been christened Doctor Who.

The site welcomes fans and says:

“Explore the origins of a TV legend with this collection of documents and images. It’s now the number one family favorite, but Doctor Who had a difficult birth, emerging from the imagination of some of BBC Drama’s top minds.

Here, we tell the story of the creation of Doctor Who from the very beginning, starting with a report on the possibility of making science fiction for television and leading up to the moment a new drama series is announced in the pages of Radio Times.”