AMA — When did you decide to become a ’gentleman pornographer‘?

Q.: At what point did you decide you wanted to become a gentleman pornographer? It always felt in the earlier days of Evil Inc that you kind of wanted to go there, but maybe that is more hindsight. 

A.: That's the Big Question, isn't it? When did I turn to a life of debauchery?

It would be easy to say "sex sells." And I'm sure some of my peers dismiss this thing of ours as exactly that kind of decision. It's certainly the response a few of my friends expected.

"So... you're doing this because you had to, right?"

Not exactly. I'm doing this because I want to. And because I can.

Want

You don't have to have a deep-catalog knowledge of pre-reboot Evil Inc to see what amounts to 9 years of foreplay. Sex, sexuality and romance have always been a big part of my writing. In the early days, when I was still trying to get the comic-strip version of Evil Inc into newspapers, I had to play these topics very close to the vest.

Good golly, even Greystone Inn was pretty horny...

By 2012, I had pretty much given up on self-syndicating my comic strip to newspapers, and I was starting to rethink my approach from the top down. After all, now that I wasn't worried about pearls-clutching newspaper editors, I could cut loose a little more.

I posted this comic, and the rest is history.

Let's face it: Sex is funny. And it should be fun. Despite the amount of shame our society places around it, we all seek it out. When we're not doing it, we're often thinking about it. Pretending otherwise is juvenile. When I gave myself permission to bring sex and sexuality into my writing fully, I think my comics took a huge leap forward.

Can

There's also this: I started doing this because I can. I mean... just look at those Greystone strips. People tend to dismiss NSFW comics, but the fact is, it's not an automatic win. No one was going to sign up for NSFW Greystone Inn content! My art skills had to improve drastically. (In truth, I'm still trying to get better.)

Furthermore, I've seen people whose art skills far eclipse mine absolutely tank at NSFW content. They either can't deliver the storytelling chops or they're just not good at the business aspects of this sort of thing.

It takes more than boobs to make this thing go. And I've been able to do that.

So my decision to become a gentleman pornographer was a combination of things. I always wanted to do it, but it was a while before I could do it.

Ask Me Anything

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