AMA: More artistic aspirations?

Q.: I was reading up on the life of British writer Christopher Wood, best known for the screenplays for the James Bond movies "The Spy Who Loved Me" and "Moonraker."

Beyond that, he spent most of his career cranking out pulp erotica (Confessions of a Window Washer, The Stewardesses Down Under) and admitted in interviews that he'd had to abandon his serious literary aspirations because smut was so lucrative.

Do you ever have internal debates with yourself over doing adult comics vs. more artistic aspirations?

A.: These ARE my artistic aspirations.

This idea that erotica isn’t artistic is rooted in a puritanical view of morality that I reject. It’s an attitude that says adult content isn’t valid art — isn’t legitimate — and several thousands of years of human history tell us that we’ve always had a keen interest in smut. From lewd Greek vases to horny hieroglyphics, sex has always been a favorite storytelling subject. Even though history books credit Famous Funnies as the first comic book, we have copies of the Tijuana Bibles that pre-date it by about ten years!

I’ve discussed some of this before, so feel free to skip to the next paragraph. The sex act itself breaks down to some pretty simple, friction-based mechanics. You’ve got to stretch yourself as a writer to make that enjoyable. It’s as challenging as any other storytelling feat. That kicked my ass for a while. (Sometimes it still does.) Likewise, the art is exponentially more complicated than a garden-variety comic. It needs to convey physical dynamics and be visually expressive simultaneously. That kicked my ass for a while, too. (Sometimes it still does.)

Here’s the part I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned: You guys started paying closer attention to the SFW story when I added the NSFW plots.

As interested as my audience was in the bedroom stuff, they were increasingly interested in what brought the characters to the bedroom in the first place. It became pretty synergistic, with one side strengthening the other in a virtuous cycle.

Initially, the NSFW stories were loosely tied offshoots from the main story. Today, they’re an integral part of the overall plot.

Better audience

Here’s another reason I’m proud of doing NSFW comics. You guys are the best readers I’ve ever had — and I’ve had several different audiences over my twenty-something years in professional comics. Here’s what I mean. Take a look at this comic.

I posted that comic on Reddit, and I got dra-a-agged. I took a shame-on-you drubbing for the entire day. People lined up to tell me that I was a bad person because of how I drew the fortune teller. As someone raised Catholic, I felt that right in the gut.

Most people are lightning-fast to express their negative opinions on social media. They take a visceral glee in raking that person over the coals if they see something they hate. But if they see something they like — something they "value" — they… do nothing. Maybe they slow their scroll. Maybe they chuckle. If you’re very lucky, they’ll favorite/like/upvote the post. If you’re having a great day, they might take a moment to comment on the post — or share it.

But ask them to subscribe to see more of the content they approve of? You’ll be told to fuck right all the way off.

People willing — no, eager — to howl against content they find offensive are just as passionate about their unwillingness to subscribe to content they deem worthy.

Want proof? Take any of the snide comments I received on that Reddit post. Open the user’s profile and look at their comments on other posts. It’s one long litany of complaints. They live a life of anger, spite, and disapproval. Try to find one comment that says, “Hey, I think you’re doing a great job, and I just became a Patreon backer!” You’ll come up empty. Those comments don’t exist.

Chasing their approval is a waste of time. If you win, you lose.

Here’s the kicker: I picked up more followers that day than I did two weeks earlier when I posted an SFW comic that earned nearly 57,000 upvotes and landed on Reddit’s front page.

When I expanded my storytelling to include NSFW content, I found… you. An audience that has been ride-or-die since Day One.

You want to talk about artistic aspirations? Every artist dreams about accomplishing that. Few achieve it.

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Do you have a question for the AMA column? Message me through Patreon or email it to bradguigar@gmail.com.