Welcome to Nightcap, a soon to be regularly scheduled feature here at WWAC where we cover the sexy side of comics. The NSFW comics, even. Meant to be a roundup of what’s going on, this feature hopes to cover Limerence, Iron Circus, Filthy Figments, Slipshine, and other erotica publishers, as well as providing ad hoc coverage of whatever our reviewers think is steamy right now. So let’s get to the smut!
Open Earth
Sarah Mirk, Eva Cabrera, Claudia Aguirre
Limerence Press
Open Earth is the heart- and loin-warming story of a young woman who lives on a space station orbiting Earth. Her parents and a team of other Latinx scientists and engineers fled deteriorating conditions on Earth to live permanently in space. Along with the other members of her generation, the first generation to have never lived on Earth, she lives a polyamorous lifestyle, interweaving quite a bit of sex with her daily routine of maintaining the hydroponic farm. Things get complicated when she realizes she wants something different from a friendly sexual relationship from one of her partners. The book explores some very deep issues of the emigrant experience, focusing on the internal patterns of the diasporic culture in the total absence of a “host” culture, since this group emigrated to an isolated space station of their own creation, rather than a populated nation of any kind. It also deals with intergenerational conflict and shifting sexual culture in a more general sense. It does all this via very cute art of a diverse cast of characters, including sex scenes that roughly split the difference between “hot” and “cute.” It uses a fair bit of Spanish, and it does so in a way that enhanced the story even despite my minimal knowledge of the language. The only flaw that stood out to me was the lack of wlw characters. For all the diversity among the cast and their relationships, none of the female characters ever express attraction toward one another, which seemed odd by comparison. It’s a very intriguing book.
– Annie
Oglaf
Trudy Cooper and Doug Bayne
oglaf.com
Updates weekly
You’ve probably read some Oglaf, if you’ve been on the internet for a minute or two. It’s a collection of almost newspaper-style comic strips involving unlikely sexual situations in a vaguely Conan-esque fantasy setting. Magic is often involved, as in the one about dickmoon lycanthropy. Gods and strange creatures are another mainstay, and many of the strips feature the worshippers of Sithrak, who is either a god of immortal warriors or a gibbering maniac who hates all life. For all of its jokes and sex, Oglaf is ultimately a very literary comic, dealing (facetiously) with narrative and theatrical concepts and personalities. I rarely find it especially sexy, really, and I think that’s intentional to some degree; it’s a comic about the ridiculousness of sex (and the human condition.) One of the less prominent features of the comic is that it presents people of a wide variety of skin colors, body types, and genders getting down with an equally random assortment of partners. It’s not always an incisive dismantling of racism, sexism, homophobia, etc., but its shotgun approach creates a good bit of representation.
– Annie
Dirty Deeds
Megan Rose Gedris
Filthy Figments
Megan Rose Gedris is known for her fun, flirty erotica, and among other places, she’s a regular contributor to the for-pay erotica website, Filthy Figments. One of my personal favorites hosted on the site is “Dirty Deeds.” Jenny, a burglar in a catsuit, sneaks into a very nice house one night. She’s alarmed when the owner of the house, Talulah, catches her, but when police come a-knocking, she’s not the only one who’s sweating — the owner of the house has an indoor pot farm. So Jenny pretends she and Talulah were roleplaying “sexy burglar.” The cops leave, the two smoke some weed, and things escalate from there.
Gedris’ comic is lighthearted and self-aware, almost winking at the reader to invite us into the joke. It’s nice to see the establishment (and respecting) of boundaries and consent even in a short one-shot comic, and it’s especially nice to see kinky sex that’s fun and realistic – Talulah laments at one point that she should have handcuffed Jenny after taking the catsuit off her – and doesn’t take itself too seriously. Gedris’ use of color and space is fantastic; her layouts unique and interesting without sacrificing readability. There’s an instance of non-consensual voyeurism, which seems intended to be a joke but it’s unnecessary and detracts a tiny bit from otherwise great sexy comic.
– M
Alfie
InCase
buttsmithy.com
Updated Wednesday-Saturday
The titular character, Alfie, is a busty havlin (a small, pointy eared NOT halfling) in a small village who yearns for something more. The comic chronicles how she discovers her own destiny, and all the sex she has along the way. It’s a sweeping adventure comic while also being extremely sexy, and it switches focus every so often, presumably to provide different story beats and even more varied types of sex. Alfie is currently focused on Alfie’s mother, who is also figuring out her own needs and wants, sexual and otherwise, but the stories seem destined to intersect soon enough (though not in an incestuous way, I don’t think).
Alfie starts out as a little naive but ready to branch out — she hooks up with a human (gasp!), and even another woman as she starts to explore her own fantasies and desires. The first arc is about Alfie’s clandestine relationship with a human who’s in her town as part of a guard for an aristocratic elf. The elf decides to commission some custom leather pieces from Alfie’s mother — which leads to their own trysts. And when the time comes for the caravan to leave, Alfie has a choice: head out and see the world with her lover, or stay and try to fit in with the rest of her community.
While this is definitely a comic for those who like plot in their porn, the porn is as explicit as possible. Folks looking for some up-close-and-personal looks at folds, genitals, and potential bits of magical creature will have their needs met here. InCase’s art is lovely, his characters attractive and very distinct in shape, and the color is rich. Everything, not just the porn, is beautifully rendered. InCase also manages to draw a lot of porn of full-sized men fucking the much shorter havlins without infantilizing the smaller women — the size difference is there but the women are full, lusty, adult participants. Plus, once the story gets going, we meet new and sexy species that get to join the fun (though there is a little bit of ‘the magic folks made me do it’ in that plotline that might not be for everyone). Generally, Alfie is good sexy fun with a hefty dose of self-reflection and a long arc of a storyline I’m curious to see resolved.
– K
Ooh, I love this. Will definitely check out Dirty Deeds.