Publisher’s Weekly, long known as an indispensable book industry source for booksellers and librarians alike, dedicates a sizable amount of coverage to graphic novels and comic books. Maybe not for ultra-micro indie works, but one can’t complain about its overall dedication to all things graphic. Even when it’s pornographic.
As in its recent profile of Icarus Publishing, producers of what aficionados call “ero manga.” PW presents a sound overview of ero manga’s recent publishing history, its idiosyncrasies, and its current viability within the larger niche of manga before launching into an interview with Icarus publisher, Simon Jones.
I’ve long been an occasional reader of Eros Comix titles, as well as some of the tamer manga gender-benders like Futaba-kun Change, and I have a couple of Icarus titles as well. You get the real thing from Japan with Icarus, right down to the self-censorship to meet Japan’s strict censorship laws. Yet you can also see how an artist skirts the very edge of those laws to bring you as much explicit content as possible — showing a woman about to suck a cock, the tool poised at her mouth but not in it, or a woman posed on all fours, legs spread, her cunt censored from view but extra detail given to her asshole. I can’t help but appreciate these creative variations. And I can see that readers could develop a fetish for the very context of this depiction, preferring its little hints and occasional revelations over an all-explicit/all-the-time presentation.
Not all Icarus titles are censored, however. A preview of The Spirit of Capitalism from its blog is plenty explicit and clearly NWS. Sure looks yummy.
I have a couple of Icarus Publishing‘s BDSM titles — Slave Contract and Pet Humiliation — and I should warn you that Japanese BDSM is often plotted upon non-consensual sex, strongly distant from the American practice of consensual S/M. But it’s easy to see that the Japanese employ their own constructs in this materials In Slave Contract, the perps are often mobster pornographers, the girl a victim of her absent father’s debts, driven into the mobsters’ hands by a desire to restore family honor. An implied subtext within all this: that honorable women have to be driven to these acts by circumstances. I’m not thrilled with this approach — truth be told, I’m moderately squicked by it — but I understand its cultural backdrop and can accept it to some degree.
What I can’t fault, however, is Icarus Publishing’s speedy order fulfillment. When I’ve placed an order, it’s in the mail stream within hours and at my doorstep within a couple of days. Given that experience, I probably won’t wait long to buy The Spirit of Capitalism.
