Mark Of the Dog and The Romantic Flower
by Silvio Cadelo
Catalan CommunicationsI love the comic medium most when it achieves something that can't exist in any other storytelling genre and can’t be expressed as either film or fiction. Silvio Cadelo is an erotic French cartoonist whose surreal work often defies description, using cartoons to create well-paced panel-to-panel action and unearthly sex. Catalan Communications has kept two of his larger works in print, Mark Of the Dog and The Romantic Flower.
Mark Of the Dog begins as a collection of letters from a group of French citizens in the near future. These folks are all obsessed with a creature named Mark-Of-the-Dog who comes from a race of dimension-hopping hermaphrodites. Inheriting a crime that his father committed, this odd humanoid waxes poetic while hunting down history on his pops and dodging cops. There’s hermaphrodite sex and nude chicks here and there, but this piece is mainly a graphic science-fiction mystery that should’ve been a lot longer
The Romantic Flower favors cartoon nudie-shots and vegetable sex over plot, but winds up showing how Cadelo can masterfully use color to enhance mood. This story is sort of Little Shop Of Horrors meets an oversexed E.T.. A young lady befriends an alien plant and feeds it with sexual energy. It makes love to her as a convenient, molded-to-your-needs plant dildo then grows (in a spiritual sex finale) into a smiling plant boy. More sex for your bucks, but less of a read. Both books are $13.95
Super Taboo and Superfist Ayumi
Eros Comics/FantagraphicsMelty Feeling
Venus Comics/Antarctic PressReprints of Japanese porn cartoons have been dominating the comic industry’s "adults only" segment for several years now. Super Taboo, the longest running mangerotica book currently being published in the states, is nearly finished. Now that Wolf Ogami’s main tale of brother/sister/mother incest and moral ambiguity is over, the latest Super Taboo delves into reprints of shorter incest-themed works. Two brother/sister reunions, both ending with an anal sex punchline, fill issue 12. After another issue of bookend pieces, expect an Eros graphic novel compiling this popular series.
Superfist Ayumi; the new kid on the Eros line, features a schoolgirl karate expert seducing and superfisting karate club members and fellow students. With child sex and surprisingly endearing humor, this title is typical of most Japanese porn comics. (Interesting footnote: As far as I can tell, all Eros Comics have the statement "all characters depicted are 18 years of age or older" at the beginning of their books.)
Japanese mangerotica's success has spurred smaller publishers into joining in on the reprinting gush, expanding the adult comics market and making it more competitive. Melty Feeling, Antarctica Press' first mangaerotic comic on the Venus Comics imprint, collects various short works by Komashi Mimiya.. Melty Feeling #1 features two stories of nymphomania.