Go, Read: Noel Murray On Erotic Comics

I liked this Noel Murray thinkpiece on erotic comics. Murray makes a fine, hand-smacking-forehead observation about the difference between the covers for the old Omaha The Cat Dancer trades and the new ones, and he provides an intriguingly kind reading of Omaha generally. On other points I'm slightly less convinced. For instance, I'm not certain that I totally agree with his quick and cynical appraisal of Eros Comics' progression as a publisher. That was a weird line of books, and since little sustained attention was paid it when it was ongoing concern it's difficult to parse the nuances that existed there. I'm also disappointed that while he brings up the rise of nudity on pay cable shows and the expectation that people brought to sex-focused material once upon a time, that this isn't explored more directly instead of the old violence/sex double-standard trope being trotted out. You can't tell me that there aren't people watching True Blood with the same sort of expectation for nudity he describes in post-underground comics readers of the '70s and '80s. I also think there's something to be said about the work of cartoonists like Chester Brown and Gilbert Hernandez, who confront sex in their work in different ways than Alan Moore does, not to mention the way some of this material is engaged by manga and in webcomics. At any rate, it's nice to have someone taking seriously these kind of broad developments and intersections with popular culture, even though I shudder more than usual at the thought of reading the comments section.
 
posted 5:00 am PST | Permalink
 

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