T Campbell's Blog

I've been looking for an appropriate time to share some sections of the upcoming A History of Webcomics. Hard's departure seems as good an occasion as any. This section is excerpted from Chapter 5, "Category Search."

Many Americans still viewed comic books as children’s entertainment. To retailers, that perception could be deadly. The most marginal offenses could bring charges of obscenity or child pornography.

Webcomics had fewer censors; Congress' attempts to regulate Web content had generally failed in the courts. Like journal comics, sex comics lacked some of their printed counterparts' rebellious side, because they had less against which to rebel. But as webcomics shifted from individual hobby to community, porn carried a hidden price.

Once cartoonists joined collectives, their collective standards usually left erotic comics out in the cold. Despite the apparent popularity of Sexy Losers, Keenspot declined to include it when its members protested. Fancy Froglin did make it onto Modern Tales, but largely due to the status of its cartoonist, James Kochalka, and the strange, childlike nature of the main character, which defied preconceptions about the genre. A quick survey of other collectives—- The Nice, Teh Gewd Guys, PV Comics, Dumbrella, Comics Sherpa, Dayfree Press, the Modern Tales spinoffs—- turned up no erotic comics at all.

As larger, more "respectable" businesses set up shop online, their standards mattered too. In mid-2003, Paypal stopped processing any transactions with "adult content." Paypal played a central role in five of webcomics' six major revenue streams. Its loss stung.

Weeks away from graduating college, Josh Lesnick sized up this situation, saw a need, and filled it. He began Slipshine, a subscription site that proudly called itself "porn" but—- against preconceptions—- maintained certain production values. Lesnick’s discussion of the difficulties showed his priorities:

This is a genre of comics where people... uh... pay a lot of close attention to the human figure, so any glaring flaws in that area will look twice as glaring to the readers... While stylistic art can be done, and is something I actually encourage, the human figures still have to be drawn in an appealing way... It can be hard to keep the actual story moving when the sex comes in. This can make the story writing process a little frustrating, as it can essentially turn 15-page stories into 5-page stories with the obligatory sex taking up the rest.

Lesnick’s efforts aside, so long as an American influence dominated, erotic comics would probably remain ignored, marginalized, "outlaw." Sometimes, of course, that outlaw status was a bit of a turn-on.