A guy I know refuses to believe that nude/hentai/et al comics were popular pre-internet, so I’m trying to come up with a list of famous adult comic titles from the 80s and early 90s. Thing is, we didn’t get many of them in the Philippines, so I only know a handful by reputation. But if I know of these, I’m sure there must be many more titles I’d never heard of.
So far I have:[ul]
[li] Cherry Poptart (this one actually made it to the Philippines. A kid I knew in grade school had one and let me see it once.)[/li][li] Omaha Cat Dancer (which I’m sure helped spurn the whole furry movement)[/li][li] Milo Manara’s Graphic Novels (admittedly much more ‘erotica’ than ‘nudie’)[/li][/ul]
And that’s it. Barely anything, I know. What else was there?
Fantagraphics’ Eros line dates back to the 80s, I think. Gilbert Hernandez did a crazy-ass one called Birdland that used characters spun off from Love & Rockets.
Richard Corben, Crumb, a bunch of the stuff in Metal Hurlant and later in Heavy Metal (but with speech bubbles strategically placed), Harvey Kurtzman’s Little Annie Fanny (1962-1988) and of course there’s a whole bunch of Europeans like Manara, Guido Crepax and Serpeiri where you veer off from nudie comics to erotica/porn.
(But then, so does most hentai)
That’s what I remebered off the top of my head. I sold my collection and don’t work in the comic store anymore and just this weekend I discarded my copy of the book Sex in the Comics.
Wendy Whitebread: Undercover Slut, by ‘Anton Drek’.
Yeah, I was gonna say, these go wayyy farther back than that. In fact it’s not comics, and my work web filter won’t let me find the proof I’m sure, but I’ve definitely seen dirty Japanese drawings sans text, including tentacle rape, that IIRC were from the 1800s or so.
The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife. Warning: contains exactly what extarbags just described. Octopus on naked lady action. NSFW.
I remember that. It was pretty funny stuff. Phil Foglio is great.
Rimbo
13
I actually got started on Foglio because of Girl Genius, because in one of my earlier “Webcomic” threads someone said, “Rimbo, you need to read something good, like Girl Genius.” Then I found out about and borrowed a copy of Xxxenophile later. And I have to agree.
The best thing about Foglio’s work is that he has an incredibly healthy attitude towards sex. And it isn’t just because of what he doesn’t put in there (rape, bestiality with non-sentient animals, pedophilia, etc.), but it’s mostly because of the sheer joy and fun his characters are having when they’re fucking and playing with themselves.
He is the anti-Heinlein.
I had actually considered Heavy Metal, but eventually took it off the list because their stuff was more along the lines of “Adult storylines that sometimes involve nudity” rather than “nudity/sex for the purpose of titillation.” Ditto for Crumb’s stuff.
I didn’t realize there was a book called Sex in the Comics, though. Thanks for mentioning it. That should probably serve perfectly for showing him how far back the comic genre stretches.
Total agreement. I had kept the Xxxenophile stuff out of it because I thought it was more recent (I didn’t discover it until '99 or '00), but I was a huge fan. I loved that it had a nice, light-hearted approach to things. The sex is definitely pretty ribald, but the humor and art style and casualness of it all helps offset things and keep it generally light and fun.
For future reference: there’s probably a book called “Sex In…” for everything.
I really liked Megaton Man, but this was too over the top for me.
Rimbo
18
According to Wikipedia they were published between 1988-2000, so (if accurate) it covers the pre-WWW, pre-September-that-never-ended era and beyond.
Thanks a lot! Now that book, as well as the five or so other ‘customers who bought this item also bought’ recommendations that I ‘had’ to click on, are now stuck in my Amazon ‘recently viewed item’ history, displayed prominently on the bottom of the page for all passers by to see, and will undoubtedly haunt me with ‘based on your viewing history, Amazon recommends’ followed by a list of pornography.
wahoo
20
i think some titles definitely crossed the line into titillation. Crying Freeman for example.
