Holy Shabbot, Historical Gay Comics

GloBL mangaka Yayoi Neko is busy at work on her Sherlock Holmes doujinshi. Yes, that’s right—Holmes, Watson, and early-20th century sexiness. It looks as if the doujinshi is based on an episode of the popular 90’s British television show, The Master Blackmailer –which was adapted from the classic Sherlock Holmes book ‘The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton’ about a slick blackmail artist who tries to put the screws on Holmes. Since this is Yayoi Neko, it’ll be a ‘yaoi’ version of the story…I don’t see the harm in that, do you?

CLASS COMICS LICENSES ANGELFACE. I have no words.

One of the things I’ve always loved about Keita Saiki as an illustrator is the ability to depict erotic stories using the style of art that in itself appears—antique. There are a many artists out that pull this off, one of my favorites is French artist Benoit Prévot. His series Angelface is set in the 1920’s, and was originally published in France.

As much as I love French gay comics, I did begin to avoid the scene some time ago, after making inquiries with some publishers. I contacted about five, and heard back from three. Two of them were rather abrasive; and the third was a delightful man who explained to me why I might be having so much trouble: there’s a feeling that “women just do not belong in gay-sex-comics”. I’ve never got this impression from the French artists I’ve spoken to [I’ve only spoken to about three—more than once, so maybe my field-study needs a bulk up ^_-] but I did get a cold shoulder from the French publishers before they even looked at my work. My name did the talking for me. [Yes, I submit as Tina Anderson.]

That aside, I still went out of my way to check out gay-ero comics from France…I spent years picture reading Japanese smut, so why not continue with the European equivalent?

Pic taken from the artists bilingual Blog.

This is the third [?] French series to be licensed and translated by Class Comics, and the fact that it’s historical on top of being quite lovely—just makes it more edible. I’m won’t go into details about the plot, instead I’ll link to the brilliant mini-site set up by the publisher, that details the characters and their story. The artwork is divine…you know that stage of style that happened between Belle Epoch and the Age of Progress? Angelface captures this transition from the time our characters are introduced in Europe, to their continuing drama in the ‘New World’. I can’t wait to get my hands on this in English—so I can finally know exactly what’s going on, and being said. Slated for release this summer, you’ll definitely see a review here at GGY when I get my hands on a copy!

As you can tell from this post, I’m excited. I don’t think I’ve been this excited about a gay comic since…[ahahahaha!]

~ by gynocrat on May 18, 2008.