The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1289: True Stories of Adult Film Stars - Alicia Rio, October 1994

Given the treatment by the administration of the United States of Mexican people in the country, this cover actually says quite a lot, even if it is 24 years old. Ms. Rio is very vocally-proud of her heritage, going so far as the base the second story in the comic on the old idea that the Mayan civilization was actually contacted by advanced alien civilizations. It's cool to see some of the beliefs and deities of that culture transformed into science fiction counterparts by someone who cherishes the heritage, rather than someone looking to mine it for ideas.

The first story is much like all of the other stories so far. The porn industry in the 80s, rather than a cesspool of drugs and disease as we are led to believe, is being shown as a place that women who didn't fit a particular mold could go to express themselves. I wonder if any of the featured stars have any other biographical material available. I'd love to compare the content of these stories with more in depth content. There's obviously things being left out of these stories.

I have to say, these are very entertaining comics. Today's second feature is really nicely done by Mike Wolfer, whose work I know from Warren Ellis's Strange Kiss series. Though the lead biographical stories are very similar, the quality of art is quite good throughout the comic. We're getting everything from the underground-inspired (Larry Nadolsky), the slicker, more mainstream (the aforementioned Wolfer), and then some art that I"m going to say is quite indicative of adult comics, though I'd have to think a bit before saying how that is. The cool thing about this art is that the artist, Fauve, is a woman, and is the artist most associated with the Carnal Comics line. She still does work under another name (Holly Golightly, I think), but you don't see much to do with this series on her site.

A pity, I think. The more I read, the more important I think these comics are. More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 718: Seadragon #5, September 1986

I'm going to be honest: I started reading this comic yesterday, put it down, and forgot to get back to it. Hence, the Lady Death in Lingerie appearance yesterday. It was one of my contingency comics that I keep handy just in case I don't have time to read a comic on a particular day. It does happen occasionally.

So what we have here is a kind of cool idea, though I have to wonder about the almost disco design aesthetic. A Navy diver gets sealed in an experimental wetsuit by an explosion of radioactive waste. You know, when you write it out like that, it sounds every bit as ridiculous as it actually is. But it's a superhero comic, so of course it's ridiculous. The only problem with this kind of premise is that you make it remarkably difficult to have the character interact with anyone. He can't have a secret identity, and he's bright green and has fins. I'm not saying it's impossible to have "normal" interactions, but it makes life much more difficult for a writer. That said, the series ends in the next issue, so maybe he manages to get out of the suit. Though I've just realized that there's a solicitation for issue 7 in the back of this comic.

Grant Morrison proposed, in Animal Man, a limbo dimension where all the forgotten characters go and basically do nothing. I feel like all of these indie superheroes from the 80s who just disappeared are sitting around, playing cards, wondering what would have happened to them had their stories continued, and possibly being glad they didn't, considering what happens to superheroes these days. I mean, if you're sitting in Limbo and you see Batman's life unfolding, I think you'd probably be glad that you were stuck somewhere where crazy shit like that doesn't happen.

Maybe that's the comic I need to write.

To be continued.