Whats the Adult Comic Industry like? How do you get in?

chi9kya

Just been wondering what thats like.

RickM

A filthy portfolio, for starters.

Justin_TheBuck

My guess is it has a tentacles.

dubbat138

From talking to Robin Bougie, he has told me the adult comic market is in the crapper. He does a annual adults only comic called Sleazy Slice. That he self publishes. It seems most of the adults only comics that aren't hentai are self published now.

SolitaireRose

You probably would want to do a webcomic, as adult comic sales are terrible. Even the return of Black Kiss by Chaykin flopped big time...and I think it's because it's not that big of a deal any more. After the first Black Kiss, Fantagraphics started a whole line of books, trying to get big name artists to do Adult comics...and other than Bill Willingham, no one who was a name got involved.

Fantagraphics said that the line saved them during their troubles in the early 90's, but the whole trend is pretty much dead.

steve_bryant

Years ago, a guy approached me at a Wizard convention to draw an adult book for his company. Apparently, he liked how I drew women. I don't remember the company's name, but they were set up at the show and had a couple of provocatively-dressed booth babes.

I politely thanked him for his interest and passed on the job. It's one of those things where, as a divorced single-parent of a small child (my son was 5 or 6 at the time), it seemed like a recipe for disaster. Plus, my son frequently hangs out in the studio while I work, so that would have been awkward.

Heck, I'm still haunted by the inferior work I've done in the past—I can only imagine how it would feel to have something like that following me around! :-O

dubbat138

SolitaireRose said:

You probably would want to do a webcomic, as adult comic sales are terrible. Even the return of Black Kiss by Chaykin flopped big time...and I think it's because it's not that big of a deal any more. After the first Black Kiss, Fantagraphics started a whole line of books, trying to get big name artists to do Adult comics...and other than Bill Willingham, no one who was a name got involved.

Fantagraphics said that the line saved them during their troubles in the early 90's, but the whole trend is pretty much dead.

Didn't Don Simpson,of Megaton Man fame, do some Adult comics under a different name?

SolitaireRose

dubbat138 said:

SolitaireRose said:

You probably would want to do a webcomic, as adult comic sales are terrible. Even the return of Black Kiss by Chaykin flopped big time...and I think it's because it's not that big of a deal any more. After the first Black Kiss, Fantagraphics started a whole line of books, trying to get big name artists to do Adult comics...and other than Bill Willingham, no one who was a name got involved.

Fantagraphics said that the line saved them during their troubles in the early 90's, but the whole trend is pretty much dead.

Didn't Don Simpson,of Megaton Man fame, do some Adult comics under a different name?

I don't remember the name he used, but the comic was "Wendy Whitebread, Undercover Slut." It was creepy. Really creepy. Like, I can't look at his artwork any more creepy.

David_D

There was also a legendary comics artist that ended up in adult comics for awhile. I think a collection of that work came out in just the last few years. Was it Wally Wood? Cory will know.

LibraryBoy

Wood definitely did some bawdy stuff later in his career (Cannon, I think?).

DoctorDoom

So the answer isn't "with a bit of lube"?

nweathington

SolitaireRose said:

dubbat138 said:

SolitaireRose said:

You probably would want to do a webcomic, as adult comic sales are terrible. Even the return of Black Kiss by Chaykin flopped big time...and I think it's because it's not that big of a deal any more. After the first Black Kiss, Fantagraphics started a whole line of books, trying to get big name artists to do Adult comics...and other than Bill Willingham, no one who was a name got involved.

Fantagraphics said that the line saved them during their troubles in the early 90's, but the whole trend is pretty much dead.

Didn't Don Simpson,of Megaton Man fame, do some Adult comics under a different name?

I don't remember the name he used, but the comic was "Wendy Whitebread, Undercover Slut." It was creepy. Really creepy. Like, I can't look at his artwork any more creepy.

Anton Drek, and the name spoke volumes. The funny part was that everyone knew it was him.

LibraryBoy said:

Wood definitely did some bawdy stuff later in his career (Cannon, I think?).

Cannon, Sally Forth, The Pipsqueak Papers, not to mention some of the stuff he did in witzend. He did quite a bit of that in the ’60s and ’70s.

phansford

Clarification - Originally - Wally Wood's Sally Forth was published for the US Military. It was adult-themed, but not an adult comic per se. Sally always seem to lose her clothes...... but there are no sex acts depicted in the strip. That strip was collected in its entirety in The Compleat Sally Forth.

According to Wikipedia, late in his life Wood did do two pornographic Sally Forth stories published in an underground comic.

nweathington

phansford said:

Clarification - Originally - Wally Wood's Sally Forth was published for the US Military. It was adult-themed, but not an adult comic per se. Sally always seem to lose her clothes...... but there are no sex acts depicted in the strip. That strip was collected in its entirety in The Compleat Sally Forth.

According to Wikipedia, late in his life Wood did do two pornographic Sally Forth stories published in an underground comic.

That’s correct. The original Sally Forth was presented in a comic strip format, usually six or seven panels in two tiers. She was nearly always fully nude, though, as you stated, there was no sex per se. Either way, you can't sell it to minors.

rebis

steve_bryant said:

Years ago, a guy approached me at a Wizard convention to draw an adult book for his company. Apparently, he liked how I drew women. I don't remember the company's name, but they were set up at the show and had a couple of provocatively-dressed booth babes.

I politely thanked him for his interest and passed on the job. It's one of those things where, as a divorced single-parent of a small child (my son was 5 or 6 at the time), it seemed like a recipe for disaster. Plus, my son frequently hangs out in the studio while I work, so that would have been awkward.

Heck, I'm still haunted by the inferior work I've done in the past—I can only imagine how it would feel to have something like that following me around! :-O

I remember Adam Hughes being asked about his work in Penthouse Comix. This was a few years ago and, at the time he was a bit embarrassed by it. Seems like he's successfully left it behind him.

nweathington

rebis said:

steve_bryant said:

Years ago, a guy approached me at a Wizard convention to draw an adult book for his company. Apparently, he liked how I drew women. I don't remember the company's name, but they were set up at the show and had a couple of provocatively-dressed booth babes.

I politely thanked him for his interest and passed on the job. It's one of those things where, as a divorced single-parent of a small child (my son was 5 or 6 at the time), it seemed like a recipe for disaster. Plus, my son frequently hangs out in the studio while I work, so that would have been awkward.

Heck, I'm still haunted by the inferior work I've done in the past—I can only imagine how it would feel to have something like that following me around! :-O

I remember Adam Hughes being asked about his work in Penthouse Comix. This was a few years ago and, at the time he was a bit embarrassed by it. Seems like he's successfully left it behind him.

I think most of the guys who did work for Penthouse were a bit embarrassed by it. But then they were making well above their normal page rate. It was a gravy train while it lasted.

dubbat138

Didn't Dan Decarlo do some work for Penthouse Comix?

nweathington

Yeah, it was an adult Josie and the Pussycats-type of strip. Not very good, especially since he didn’t draw all of it. He refused to draw sex scenes, so another artist was brought in to imitate his style for those panels.

His best adult material were the gag strips he did for the Humorama digests back in the ’50s when he was just getting into the business. He rarely drew nudity even then; that work was mostly scantily clad women with innuendo-filled jokes—some of them actually funny. And the artwork was gorgeous.

John_Steed

Milo Manara, Guido Crepax, Paolo Eleuteri Serpieri, etc...etc...

We Europeans keep on celebrating "adult comics" 3:-O

kfreeman

And we thank you for it.

Mr_Cosmic

I don't know if Doug Sneyd qualifies but I really like what he did in Playboy.

Torchsong

I know Phil Foglio did a series called XXXenophile a while back. To my knowledge he doesn't back away from discussing it or denying his work on it. And of course there's always Balent's Tarot series - still in production.

But don't take my word for it - I read Yuri. :)

nweathington

Torchsong said:

I know Phil Foglio did a series called XXXenophile a while back. To my knowledge he doesn't back away from discussing it or denying his work on it. And of course there's always Balent's Tarot series - still in production.

But don't take my word for it - I read Yuri. :)

XXXenophile was actually well written, well drawn, and quite funny. As was Bill Willingham’s Ironwood. Most American adult comics are none of those things and aren't worth the paper they're printed on.

dubbat138

nweathington said:

Torchsong said:

I know Phil Foglio did a series called XXXenophile a while back. To my knowledge he doesn't back away from discussing it or denying his work on it. And of course there's always Balent's Tarot series - still in production.

But don't take my word for it - I read Yuri. :)

XXXenophile was actually well written, well drawn, and quite funny. As was Bill Willingham’s Ironwood. Most American adult comics are none of those things and aren't worth the paper they're printed on.

You mean more copies of "True pornstar biographies" aren't worth big bucks now? ;)

Torchsong

It's really interesting...okay, at least to me it is...how many popular mainstream artists did adult fare at some point. Chaykin was no surprise, but one of my favorite artists - Kiyohiko Azuma (who did Azumanga Daioh and Yotsuba@!) apparently was first published doing ecchi/hentai work. Helluva jump there, Azuma-san! :)