Pornography
by
Comics have a long and complicated relationship with pornography. Comics have long been associated with the lowbrow and potentially harmful, a cultural space also inhabited by pornography; both have seen censorship, regulation, and book burnings on large scales (Hajdu 1999, 7). Of course, comics are a medium, while pornography—by which I mean art and storytelling intended to arouse sexual excitement—is a genre; it is their intersection, however, that is of particular interest to me, where the unique language of comics creates stories that both engage and expand erotic imaginations. The illustrative nature of comics makes the medium a powerful vehicle for erotica. While photographic pornography assumes the existence of actual people in front of the camera, illustrations do not; there is a voyeuristic element to the former lacking in the latter. The consumers of a video are immersed in the artistic experience created by the director, editor, and film crew, but more likely they feel engaged by the actors on the screen, while the readers of an erotic comic are turned on by the fantasies that are conjured entirely from the creativity and craft evident on the page. This immersive quality of an illustrative storytelling medium can be used to...
This essay may be found on page 165 of the printed volume.