Challenging Taboos
Vampirella Archives - Volumes 1-3
Taken straight from the scoop newsletter:
Vampirella, a character celebrating her 45th
anniversary this year, has a storied publishing history that begins
with her creation by horror fandom icon Forrest J. Ackerman and designer
Trina Robbin and has continued to the present. Vampi was developed to
be a host character for Warren Publishing, akin to their Uncle Creepy
and Cousin Eerie for Creepy and Eerie, respectively, or like EC’s
Crypt-Keeper, Vault-Keeper, and Old Witch before them.
The cover for Vampirella #1 was by Frank Frazetta, and it
had more of the spirit of the character most readers would recognize
than any of the stories in the first seven issues. It wasn’t until
Archie Goodwin arrived as writer with Vampirella #8 that the character really began to grow.
But it would be a significant mistake to write off those first seven
issues, and thank goodness that Dynamite Entertainment has made them so
accessible with their New York Times best selling Vampirella Archives – Volume 1.
In addition to Ackerman and Frazetta, the book features the work of
Don Glut, Tom Sutton, Neal Adams, Ernie Colon, Billy Graham, Alan Weiss,
and Jeff Jones, among others. The stories fit right in with Creepy and Eerie of the period. Even better: the beautiful Vampirella Archives volumes will fit right next to Dark Horse’s excellent Creepy Archives and Eerie Archives editions.
In Vampirella Archives – Volume 2, Archie Goodwin arrives. Remembered as the founding editor of Epic Illustrated and Marvel’s Epic line, a longtime group editor at DC Comics, and for his great stints on the Secret Agent Corrigan and Star Wars newspaper strips, Goodwin’s work on Vampirella Vampirella #8, kicks off the second volume in the series.
Goodwin would most likely have succeeded anyway, but the series found
its voice and style with artists such as Jose Gonzales (for many, the
definitive Vampi artist), Ken Barr, Wally Wood, Jerry Grandenetti, Barry
(Windsor-) Smith, Berni Wrightson, Ralph Reese, Dave Cockrum, Frank
Brunner, Sanho Kim, Bill Dubay, Mike Ploog, Sam Glanzman and Estaban
Maroto, among others. The lead stories featuring Vampirella began to
find their direction and the secondary stories demonstrated the twists,
turns and artistry for which Creepy and Eerie were known.
Supporting players Adam Van Helsing and Pendragon the magician are more firmly established in Vampirella Archives – Volume 3, which kicks off with Vampirella
#15, an issue that started off with a Richard Corben frontispiece and
didn’t stop. It includes work by Goodwin and Gonzales, Doug Moench and
Gonzales, Don McGregor and Luis Garcia, and more.
The rest of the volume, anchored by the exquisite matchings of
Goodwin and Gonzales, is equally diverse and consistently worthy of the
reader’s attention.
Nick Barrucci, Joe Rybandt and the rest of the team at Dynamite
Entertainment deserve our thanks for producing these great volumes and
the ones that have followed in the series. We’re truly living in a
Golden Age of archival collections, but it would have been easy just to
concentrate on the Vampirella lead features. If they had, we would be
missing out on some truly great stories.
Giovanna Casotto - Playful and Carefree
She's the first femal erotic Italian illustrator, she's not only an illustrator, but she draws herself in all the "Selen-covers" in the most explicit erotic scenes , she's also an actrice who acts in those stories. Because of her fantastic realistic drawings( of herself and her best friends), the artwork of Miss. Giovanna Casotto is one of the most beautiful you will find in that catagory. The quality of her autoportaits are so beautiful and fantastic realistic that everyone who likes the comic art must see or have this.
Giovanna Casotto got hooked on erotic comics in 1994, after meeting feet-fetish artist Franco Saudelli. With Saudelli she learns to draw and they start collaborating on several stories they write together, Franco pencils and Giovanna inks and models for.
After a short stint on adventure comics for L'Intrepido, Italian publisher Trentini signs her up for his new publication Selen.
Her artwork in Selen leads to major sales in Italy, reprints all over Europe and publication of her stories in the United States in the Bitch In Heat series (Eros Comix). She also becomes a requested guest in many Italian TV shows, and her appearances at comic-cons in Italy and abroad draw huge crowds.
Giovanna Casotto got hooked on erotic comics in 1994, after meeting feet-fetish artist Franco Saudelli. With Saudelli she learns to draw and they start collaborating on several stories they write together, Franco pencils and Giovanna inks and models for.
After a short stint on adventure comics for L'Intrepido, Italian publisher Trentini signs her up for his new publication Selen.
Her artwork in Selen leads to major sales in Italy, reprints all over Europe and publication of her stories in the United States in the Bitch In Heat series (Eros Comix). She also becomes a requested guest in many Italian TV shows, and her appearances at comic-cons in Italy and abroad draw huge crowds.
Based on a True Story
Yeah Right.
Anyone knows this artist? Or is his name Friday?
Comments available by clicking on Title of this post
Anyone knows this artist? Or is his name Friday?
Comments available by clicking on Title of this post
Eros Graphic Albums 5 and 6 - Ironwood - Bill Willingham
Bill Willingham when asked by Eros Comix: "I thought, “what the hell!” Had often wondered whether I could
do an adult comic and have an interesting story as well that held
together. The answer I found was: probably not.
I tried! Ironwood was 11 issues and some people liked the story, and there are aspects of the story I like, but the formula — the implied contract — that you owe the average reader one arousal, or potential arousal, per issue overshadowed everything else. “This is a nice story, but get some dirty stuff in there, for God’s sake!” — Guess I’m a boring guy, 'cause was running out of ideas on how to get people off. I didn’t just want to do the same thing over and over again, because that would just be…creepy. Thinking it was a failed experiment with a few things that I’m still fond of within it. Yes, that was certainly an interesting time in my career."
I tried! Ironwood was 11 issues and some people liked the story, and there are aspects of the story I like, but the formula — the implied contract — that you owe the average reader one arousal, or potential arousal, per issue overshadowed everything else. “This is a nice story, but get some dirty stuff in there, for God’s sake!” — Guess I’m a boring guy, 'cause was running out of ideas on how to get people off. I didn’t just want to do the same thing over and over again, because that would just be…creepy. Thinking it was a failed experiment with a few things that I’m still fond of within it. Yes, that was certainly an interesting time in my career."
In the dark forest
of Ironwood, somewhere between the Goblin Kingdoms and the Human Lands,
the villainous Sulimon Canto has hired Fantasia Faust, a killer who uses
sex as a weapon, to steal something called the Lazarus Knife from
errant ship captain Pandora Breedlswight. But the beautiful Pandora has
some allies in the form of adventurer Dave Dragavon, the hero for hire: brave, powerful and above all ... horny, and the polite but
deadly demon Hugo Wormfire. Sword and sorcery exploits mix with
tantalizing and bizarre sexploits, but the overall effect is that of a
fairly coherent narrative, and not just an excuse to show drawings of
naked people (or, in this case, naked monsters and centaurs, too).
The protagonist of the 11 issue series seems to have been the source of
inspiration for one of Willingham's later more successful creations,
Jack Horner (star of Jack of Fables).
He has done two Ironwood short stories which were not sexually graphic. Both
stories were published in issues of Mythography. One was a
three-page comics story and the other was a short text story with a
couple of illustrations.
Bill Willingham Website
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