[1]
The Virgin Project is a comics anthology in which real people (well, real people in the Seattle area, anyway — more on that in a minute) related their stories about losing their virginity to K. D. Boze and Stasia Kato, who then turned the stories into one-to-three-page comics.
First Time, from NBM, collects 10 stories written by Sibylline and drawn by European artists such as
Alfred and Capucine.
Both squarebound volumes are handsomely designed and packaged (
TVP's cover is especially inviting, showing a female in a frilly, panty-and-bra set, with moles and some (henna?) tattoos, keepin' it real American Apparel ad/Suicide Girl style) with slick paper and roomy dimensions (they're both roughly 11" X 8 1/2").
TVP, which is self-published, has a couple of color sections.
They both cover similar subject matter — sexual "first times," though while the nonfiction
TVP is concerned with the loss of virginity, and the fictional stories in
FT also cover topics such as ménage a trios and buying a vibrator — their approaches couldn't be more different. (As expected, both contain male and female nudity and graphic imagery.) Aesthetically, each succeeds exactly where the other fails; and both are absolutely provincial.
TVP, in more ways than one, is an artifact of the Seattle scene: it's earnest; determinedly sex-positive and queer-friendly; not quite as diverse as it would like to be (
TVP does include different ethnicities, ages, orientations and body types, although the cross-section of storytellers reflect the demographics of the area); starts off with an in-your-face gambit (the first story is about incest) before settling down to ponder the more prosaic (if you are queer, what act, exactly, represents your "loss of virginity"?); and
wildly inconsistent in terms of craft.
Upon reading the introductory material, it turns out that many of these strips, which were laid out and written by Boze and penciled and inked by Kato, were while-you-wait for the storytellers at venues such as the Seattle Erotic Arts Festival, which can account for some of the comics' very loose, barely sketched-in cartooniness and general Boardwalk-caricature feel. (At times, background characters are all ovals and triangles, as if Boze and Kato only made it to the second step of drawing them.)
Though
Kato's pen- and brush- work and ink washes become more accomplished toward the end of the book, it's difficult not to wish that Ellen Forney[2], who wrote the intro, was handling some of the art chores as well (Kato was one of her students), and that her words were not printed in a slightly bit-mappy font. Though Boze and Kato's art is often crude (I found some characters' all-black, pupil-less eyes soullessly creepy), it is, however, impeccably and inventively laid out (thankfully, it's not an endless series of talking heads), and well composed; the readers' eyes always know where to go. It's fairly wordy, but, given the process by which these cartoons came about, it could be worse.
At its best,
TVP is breezy, playful and matter-of-fact, as in the straightforward nine-panel one-pager "Toni." (Storytellers were asked to provide a fake name but give their real age and occupation, and then their appearance and any identifying details were removed to protect their (and their partners') privacy.) Despite their limitations, Boze and Kato know how to make the most out of what they've got, often making clever choices which help stave off the inherent repetitiveness a collection like this, such as having two stuffed deer heads on the wall offer color commentary. They're also able to give some of the graver stories, such as "Kaye," in which a woman's father seeks vengeance for her rape, emotional impact. (From some of the poses, I'm guessing that Phoebe Gloeckner's work may have been an influence.) However, in general, the tone and degree of cartooniness is such that the
TVP does not appear to be intended to be erotic in and of itself.
FT's cover literally lacks the frills of
TVP: its art is most certainly intended to be erotic,[3] and if you have any doubt there's a bare-chested lady in lush brushwork climaxing on the cover (drawn by Jérôme d'Aviau). The lack of concealment is indicative of the whole book: for someone somewhat familiar with Eurocomics, there are no surprises in it — it's all graceful line-work depicting attractive, shallow people doing not-especially-shocking things. (Each story is drawn by a different artist and is usually told from the point of view of a conventionally good-looking young woman. Many of the characters' "voices" sound suspiciously like the one in the author's afterward.")
The stories are overwritten (especially annoying when there are wordy passages about how great things are when they're unspoken) and overwrought (a love doll's inner monologue about how the man who purchased her is a callous, bad lover, etc.) The cartoonists who best succeed either draw the comic so that the words are not necessary (
Cyril Pedrosa, d'Aviau) or eschew them altogether (Dave McKean). In fact, McKean's formally sophisticated piece, "X-Rated," could easily stand on its own. However, in a one-panel close-up of a woman's eyes in "2+1," drawn by Vince, the caption reads "we've all chosen to look like the clichés we know," and this encapsulates
FT fairly well.
Both
TVP and
FT could have relied more on the artwork to carry the narrative(s). Frankly, between the central conceit and the chops of the creators, it's somewhat understandable why
TVP erred on the side of caution; but, with skilled artists, it's something of a puzzle as to why
FT is so talky — until you read the afterward, in which Sibylline cheerfully reveals "we wanted to show, but we also wanted to tell." (Both
TVP and
FT include a mission statement of sorts, but
TVP's is an intro rather than an afterward, which I think is the more effective tactic.)
That said, of the two books,
TVP better achieves what it set out to do, namely, to provide slice-of-life tales of and for locals (and it seems to have been embraced by the community; when I tried to pick it up at my comic shop, they said they were out, but had had other requests for it. They suggested that I try contacting Boze directly[4]), whereas
FT, which appears to have been a lark in which they had the opportunity to try out naughty comics, is something of a pretty (whether it's hot or not is up to the reader's discretion) mess.
Notes:
[1] Something about these two books reminded me of the musical number from Gypsy in which the other strippers advise the neophyte.
[2] who's published by my employer, Fantagraphics
[3] According to the author and the press materials, it's also intended to be woman-friendly and non-exploitative.
[4] Locally, I found it at Elliot Bay Bookstore and the Seattle Public Library, but it's available on Amazon. First Time is also for sale on Amazon.
The Virgin Project [©2008 K.D. Boze & Stasia Kato]
First Time [©2008 Guy Delcourt Productions, Sibylline-collectif, English translation ©2009 NBM] (translation by Joe Johnson)
Remote: art by Dave McKean
Waiting: art by Cyril Pedrosa
Tell: art by Alfred
Kristy Valenti currently works for The Comics Journal and Fantagraphics Books, Inc.
Uncharted Territory is © Kristy Valenti, 2008
[1]
Though Kato's pen- and brush- work and ink washes become more accomplished toward the end of the book, it's difficult not to wish that Ellen Forney[2], who wrote the intro, was handling some of the art chores as well (Kato was one of her students), and that her words were not printed in a slightly bit-mappy font. Though Boze and Kato's art is often crude (I found some characters' all-black, pupil-less eyes soullessly creepy), it is, however, impeccably and inventively laid out (thankfully, it's not an endless series of talking heads), and well composed; the readers' eyes always know where to go. It's fairly wordy, but, given the process by which these cartoons came about, it could be worse.
