Our first cover featuring an illustration (instead of photography) and we were lucky enough to snag the creation of a modern comic legend Frank Miller: Nancy, the stripper who works exclusively at Kadie ’s in Miller ’s Sin City comic book series. A huge thank you to Mr. Miller for allowing us to use his material (the one poster I ’ve had above my desk for the past year-and-a-half is a Sin City: The Big Fat Kill poster), and thanks to illustrator, Arthur Adams, colorist Jim Johns, and a special thanks to Randy at Darkhorse Comics who put it all together for us.

You can read more about Nancy and Sin City in “Frank Miller– Comic’s Most Sinful Hero” on page 15 by a new contributor to Exotic, Phillip Ray Simon. Phillip will be doing a regular column on adult comics for the magazine starting next month.

I first learned about Lenny Bruce when I was 16 and read the unauthorized biography Ladies and Gentlemen, Lenny Bruce by Albert Goldman. I was plunged into a fascinating underworld of drugs, sex, strippers, crime and comedy unequaled until a couple years later when I read William S. Burrough ’s Naked Lunch. I never realized how much reading about Lenny Bruce affected my life until I found myself nine years later in huge argument with my best friend and partner over using the word “fuck” in our local mainstream magazine, Face Value. Personally, I won ’t buy a dictionary unless it has a definition for “fuck.” He was (legitimately) worried about advertisers pulling their ads. We nearly folded the magazine over it. Lenny Bruce, whether we all realize it or not, changed all our lives with his ardent pursuit of free speech and exposure of the Great American Hypocrisies. This is the first of a three part series on the infamous comedian ’s life by our esteemed editrix Theresa Reed.

Our pin-up salute continues this month with Randy Lee Prinslow’s tribute, "Queen of Curves,” to the most famous pin-up girl of all, Bettie Page.

For all the news in the northwest, be sure to check out the Erotic City columns on page 22 and 23, in the middle of the magazine.