Carnal Comics
by Jef Taylor
Into the already swollen-to-bursting market of porno comics is now injected Carnal Comics, from the people behind the very successful Guns ‘N’ Roses biography, and subsequent scores of comics based on the careers of music and sports celebrities. Carnal Comics are biographies of performers in the porn movie industry, backed up with fictional comics written by the highlighted stars themselves. Compelling idea perhaps, a money maker no doubt, but worth your money?
Porn enthusiasts are not known to be very discriminating consumers. This is a real shame, as it encourages the production of poor quality pornography. Most are content to read anything that has enough boobie pics to get lead in their pencils, but Lollipop readers expect more, I dare say.
Kelly O’Dell #1 chronicles the budding career of the relatively unknown 21 year old from her move to L.A. to, well, her present in LA, making porno movies. Therein occurs 7 or 8 disjointed sex scenes (yes, disjointed even for porn), competently drawn, covering the standard bases, but with not enough attention on any one situation to develop any interest. Fluffy writing, ostensibly by Miss O’Dell, rounds out an embarrassing read. Her fiction is a post-apocalypse tale of impotent hippies who magically re-achieve sexual abilities. Finally, the last three pages consist of a remarkably unclever photo-comic, which should serve to remind the one-fisted reader how better to spend his or her porn dollar.
If you really want to titillate yourself with drawings of naked people on newsprint, let me recommend some other titles. Xxxenophile, by Phil Foglio, is a collection of cookie-cutter porn staples laid across the sci-fi fantasy genre, and is better than that makes it sound. Less funny and more sexy is Ironwood by Bill Willingham, in a Dungeons and Dragons setting. For sex comics in contemporary settings, try Skinheads in Love by Bob Fingerman, and for the more jaded, un-PC reader, there’s always Wendy Whitebread, or Horny Biker Sluts (by Anton Drek and John Howard respectively). There’s no excuse for bad porn.
