The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1376: Spicy Tales #1, September 1988

As I've been investigating the pre-Code era of comics of late, I've dug through the collection to see what kinds of reprint material I actually have. And lo and behold, I found Spicy Tales. As the long-time reader is well aware, I have a fascination for adult comics, so, despite the fact that I have no idea where I got this comic, it's no surprise that I would have found pre-Code precursors to the more explicit adult material of today.

What's amusing is that the stories are every bit as contrived as the stories in contemporary adult comics - the action is well-rendered, but is really there to facilitate the removal of someone's clothes.

There is some pretty hardcore BDSM stuff later in the issue, in "Polly of the Plains - Lashed," and I have to say I quickly became a fan of Sally the Sleuth. Her adventures are amusing, though she has a real propensity for losing her clothing.

I will say, although the women are very often clad in their underwear, they don't tend to take any crap from the men around them. Yes, they get embarrassed, but that never seems to stop them from solving whatever mystery has robbed them of their outerwear anyway. I've a few issues of this series, and I hope I get to see a bit more of these amusing adventures.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 582: Ninja High School #37, March 1883

It's been a long while since I've picked up a comic to read for this project and had absolutely and completely no frickin' idea what was going on in it. It happens, but usually I can piece together something. Not so here. I have no clue what happened in this story.

Which brings up a couple of interesting notions.

First, there are most certainly long-form comics that are written more as graphic novels than serialized stories. I've explained this in many of my introductory comics lessons - if you're reading what's ostensibly a graphic novel, but it's actually a collection of issues in trade form, there's an excellent chance that the ends of each chapter, when read in conjunction with the following one, are going to smack of hyperbole. The medium is the message indeed. However, when this is the case, there's usually recap happening, either at the very beginning of each issue, or weaved in as exposition throughout. There's none of that in this story. Dunn is obviously interested in telling a longer, more complex story, but is bound by the 22-page format of the periodical comic book. And, honestly, I'm sure it makes sense in context, but out of context....nothing.

And that's the other interesting notion: the reading of a comic without comprehension of the story - for me, then, this reading was far more about the artwork than the story. I wasn't given enough information to make any sense of the story (which could be seen as the mark of bad storytelling, but I think it's more that serialized long-form thing I said above), so my attention was far more focused on the art. The art is very good, very expressive..very Manga. As far as I can tell, the premise of the series (not necessarily the story) is to pop in as many of the manga stock characters as possible and somehow weave a coherent story around them. I can only assume that it works, as the series is ongoing. But we have the sexy witch, we have the buxom demon woman (complete, at least in one panel, with a spiky vibrator), we have the powerful magic user who's also the estranged father of the issue's main character. Again, I'm sure it all makes sense in context. Outside of that, though, this was a dizzying array of ideas and images - not a bad way to begin the day.

Onward!