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Smut Peddler #1 actually came out in
July, but since it's a small press anthology it'll probably be
doing the rounds at conventions for some time to come.
Besides which, they've only just sent me a review copy, and I
like people who send me review copies.
It's billed as "an anthology of erotic
comics", a remit which is interpreted rather widely in the
thirteen items included here. Genuinely erotic material
is very difficult indeed to produce (just look how awful most
erotica is...), and you'd have thought the anthology format
wouldn't really help with that. The longest story here
clocks in at six pages, which doesn't give a huge amount of
space to work with. Nonetheless, the strike rate is
surprisingly good.
I'm not going to go through everything in
the book - we'd be here all day. Let's stick to the
highlights. Carla Speed McNeil is certainly the best
known creator here, and her story "Grazie" is a nice little
piece which combines a well-rendered sex scene with a
genuinely funny dialogue. It's pretty much a template
for how do make this sort of thing work.
"The Cleanest Page in the Book" and "Not So
True Story (Swear To God)" are very
good indeed, although whether they actually qualify as erotic
may be a matter of debate. I'd incline to say that
they're really about eroticism, which isn't the same thing.
Maybe I'm splitting hairs. It doesn't greatly matter,
because they're funny; the creator's mortifying account of his
mother sending him a stripper for his birthday is a fantastic
little piece.
Layla Lawlor's "The Coyote's Wife" is a
well constructed five-pager, using sex as a metaphor for
liberation from society and return to nature. When I
tell you that it includes a woman/coyote sex scene, it'll
sound awfully grubby. It shouldn't. It's poetic,
and it makes its point very well.
There's also an enigmatic one pager by
Ursula Husted, "The Bus." I've stared at for ages and I
still can't work out what's meant to be erotic about it,
unless she's taking an extraordinarily wide definition of
"erotic." It's a sweet little silent vignette, with some
likeable sketchy artwork. I just don't for the life of
me get what's erotic about it. I have a horrible feeling
something is soaring over my head. Oddly, this doesn't
prevent me from liking it.
These things tend to be mixed bags, and
there are a few items here which don't work for me at all; a
curious superhero piece, an awkward-looking mind control
story, and a odd story about mythological creatures.
Nonetheless, the good definitely outweighs
the bad - I'd say seven or eight successes out of thirteen,
and that's a good strike rate for these things. And some
of the good here is very good.
Rating: B+
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