FA+
Shop
Interesting observation re:"Night Animals"
15 years ago
General
Huh...anyone who knows me knows I've been agonizing for years over the fact that, in the current political climate, much of my previous lolicon artwork is now considered child pornography by most of the major countries of the world. In fact, I agonize over that SO much that it's a large contributor, if not the PRIMARY contributor, to my long-running art block, despite the assurances of many, including two professional therapists, that I am in fact NOT a child molester in waiting; one therapist even went so far as to point out to me after she perused some of my work that the primary theme of even my smuttiest stuff seemed to be the "empowerment of the girls' awakening sexuality, rather than the exploitation of it," even complimenting me on the fact that, even in the rare pic that DID involve an adult, the younger characters were ALWAYS, without fail, the ones in control of the situation. Hell, she even pointed out how Maisy, an unintentional expy of me right down to her own past sexual "abuse," even reversed many of the standard roles by taking advantage of the older characters' over-the-top porno exploits while fiercely guarding and shepherding the younger girls into their own sexualities.
...does that make Maisy a cross between Hugh Hefner, X-J9, and "The Catcher in The Rye" then? Weird.
At any rate, despite these reassurances of my own innocence, I'm still paralyzed with fear due to the downright DISTURBINGLY rapid reversal of the previous public opinions on the subject, especially in light of my own story exploring the themes my therapist had mentioned, at her encouragement, resulting in the Academy story I mentioned before that ended up dangerously close to a reader's manual on how to circumvent CP laws. For a then-newly divorced male trying to keep an active role in his son's life, this is NOT a good thing to be trying to build a future on, and the fact that I didn't realize this, followed by the sudden seeming explosion of indictments to others for merely possessing works that, superficially anyway, resembled the stuff I'd been writing and drawing about, is the crux of my fears. Bad enough I could get persecuted or even arrested for it, so could any of my fucking FANS.
Which brings me to "Night Animals," a newly released graphic novella by critically-beloved Belgian cartoonist Brecht Evans, sold by Top Shelf Productions ( http://www.topshelfcomix.com/catalo.....ht-animals/649 ). While hardly porno, if IS labeled as adult work in several places, primarily due to the second story in it, "Bad Friends," about a young girl's embarrassment over her first period and the resulting surreal "Where The Wild Things Are" trip she ends up on because of it. Hell, the cover even has her naked on it, in the midst of the partying monsters celebrating her "becoming a woman."
So, my question is...why is THIS okay with people?
I'm not saying it SHOULDN'T be okay...HELL, no. I'm just wondering WHY it is. Is it because the art is so unrealistic and cartoony? She's just as naked as any of the girls I drew, after all, and the theme IS regarding a young girl's awakening sexuality. So, what makes THIS a beloved story (Comics Alliance has it on this week's "Don't Ask, Just Buy It" list, even) instead of child pornography? If the artist posted pages from it in a deviantArt or FurAffinity account, would it be taken down for underage nudity, or does critical acclaim somehow validate work that would otherwise be condemned?
And, most importantly, if that IS the case...then why shouldn't my work be as well? Am I reading too much of a connection between my art and the loli-porn being increasingly banned worldwide, or is my stuff more like this comic and Alan Moore's similarly-themed if far more explicit (yet equally beloved and acclaimed) "Lost Girls," in subject matter if not quality (I'm not so brazen as to compare myself to one of the modern masters of comic literature...not yet, anyway...)? And, then, why or why not?
Am I being properly cautious, or am I damning myself needlessly? Please, give me your thoughts.
...does that make Maisy a cross between Hugh Hefner, X-J9, and "The Catcher in The Rye" then? Weird.
At any rate, despite these reassurances of my own innocence, I'm still paralyzed with fear due to the downright DISTURBINGLY rapid reversal of the previous public opinions on the subject, especially in light of my own story exploring the themes my therapist had mentioned, at her encouragement, resulting in the Academy story I mentioned before that ended up dangerously close to a reader's manual on how to circumvent CP laws. For a then-newly divorced male trying to keep an active role in his son's life, this is NOT a good thing to be trying to build a future on, and the fact that I didn't realize this, followed by the sudden seeming explosion of indictments to others for merely possessing works that, superficially anyway, resembled the stuff I'd been writing and drawing about, is the crux of my fears. Bad enough I could get persecuted or even arrested for it, so could any of my fucking FANS.
Which brings me to "Night Animals," a newly released graphic novella by critically-beloved Belgian cartoonist Brecht Evans, sold by Top Shelf Productions ( http://www.topshelfcomix.com/catalo.....ht-animals/649 ). While hardly porno, if IS labeled as adult work in several places, primarily due to the second story in it, "Bad Friends," about a young girl's embarrassment over her first period and the resulting surreal "Where The Wild Things Are" trip she ends up on because of it. Hell, the cover even has her naked on it, in the midst of the partying monsters celebrating her "becoming a woman."
So, my question is...why is THIS okay with people?
I'm not saying it SHOULDN'T be okay...HELL, no. I'm just wondering WHY it is. Is it because the art is so unrealistic and cartoony? She's just as naked as any of the girls I drew, after all, and the theme IS regarding a young girl's awakening sexuality. So, what makes THIS a beloved story (Comics Alliance has it on this week's "Don't Ask, Just Buy It" list, even) instead of child pornography? If the artist posted pages from it in a deviantArt or FurAffinity account, would it be taken down for underage nudity, or does critical acclaim somehow validate work that would otherwise be condemned?
And, most importantly, if that IS the case...then why shouldn't my work be as well? Am I reading too much of a connection between my art and the loli-porn being increasingly banned worldwide, or is my stuff more like this comic and Alan Moore's similarly-themed if far more explicit (yet equally beloved and acclaimed) "Lost Girls," in subject matter if not quality (I'm not so brazen as to compare myself to one of the modern masters of comic literature...not yet, anyway...)? And, then, why or why not?
Am I being properly cautious, or am I damning myself needlessly? Please, give me your thoughts.
In that vein, I haven't lost any sleep over it, and IMO neither should you. You're an expert artist and people love your work, and I doubt The Man is going to jump on one guy just for drawing a naked robot preteen, especially when, as you mentioned, Moore and Evans are being celebrated for their work.
as for your own writing....
well, let me put it this way, you're right to be cautious but you're probably veering too far into paranoia.
But even the fantasy depiction of crimes leans into some ethical issues for artists. When is it ok to even semi-glamorize nihilism or villainy? Or, indeed, sex between adults and minors? Even traditional stories, such as the latest Batman film, seem best remembered by kids for how cool the villain was rather than for any deeper message about justice or terrorism. To this day, the film Wall Street is best remembered for its charismatic villain, who actual stock brokers claim as an inspiration.
Still, motives matter. However people may have responded to those movies, the writers' intentions were still pure (sort of, though they didn't mind sensationalizing and then collecting the profits). Your own motives don't seem to have much to do with abusing kids. But that still leaves the tricky question of why sexualized under aged characters are so important to your work that feeling limited in their depiction would cause an overall art block. There are a lot of things to draw without needing to do under aged characters in sexual situations. So why is it important? Sure, one could say the same about depictions of furry characters in general, but such characters open up a lot of creativity in design, and story ideas outside of porn, and are often sexualized just because adult authors want to depict adult characters, flaws, quirks, sexualities and all.
So what do under aged characters do for you that makes them so important as, super hero, furry, or vampires, or whatever, character types are for others? I think that is the question to ask.
However, I apparently fell into the same mindset as most sexually-abused children in that my mind started linking anything involving interpersonal relationships to sex; she called the condition "hypersexualization"...it's apparently one of the ways that you can recognize those who have been sexually molested as young children, in that it not only affects overt stuff but subtle relationships as well. EVERYTHING becomes about sex, not just the things that are actually about sex. It's the reason why a disturbing number of molestation victims go on to become child molesters themselves. Fortunately, according to her, I had an out that kinda...derailed that: superheroes.
Since I'd been pretty much tossed to the wolves as it were by my dad once he found out I'd been molested, I had to find alternate role models, and I fixated on comic books and cartoons, especially two characters in particular, Rom the Spaceknight and Optimus Prime (although you cannot underestimate the effect of Spider-man on my life, either). Both of them had near-unbreakable moral codes that refused to bend to others, but both of them, despite being sealed in sexless metal shells, still loved and were loved by others, Rom with his operatic love of Brandy Clark and Optimus with those who served under him, human and robot alike. Most importantly, both were PROTECTORS...they'd gone through horrors and were determined to ensure no one else would go through them, too. So that's how I coped, but emulating them, sealing away my physical desires and devoting myself to, in ideal if not actual deed, protecting other kids.
However (I REALLY overuse that fucking word, sorry), as I became a husband and a father, I needed to find some other way of working through my feelings since I was no longer "sealed away" anymore, which was not-as-coincidentally-as-I-thought when I'd first got into creating porn. I mean, think about who my first and main characters are: the Mazingirls, Zoe and Maisy respectively. Remember that whole "sealed in metal shells" thing? Not so much a concern with these two. Basically, I needed an outlet to try and explore what the fuck (literally) had happened to me, and so I started creating a cast of characters to do just that, and the horrible realization that, by doing so, I'd seemingly embraced the very thing I'd, in my head, been fighting against my entire adult life is what triggered the meltdown I've been struggling against...the simultaneous collapse of my marriage after the near-ballistic arc of my career and social life straight into the astroturf just reinforced that "freakout" to so-far unbreakable levels.
Again, this is stuff I worked out in therapy. Feel free to dismiss it as horseshit; my ex sure did.
So I agree with you. It makes little sense at all.
Just a thought
Frankly, the doctor had the benefit of flipping through my actual sketchbooks and seeing all the unfinished pics of the girls that don't get scanned and posted, especially after the resounding "...whut..?" I got after the "Judy Blume scene" I drew with Zuki, Maisy, and Min-Chan. Like you said, though, you're coming at this as a casual observer, like pretty much everyone who only knows me online. I could profess my innocence all I want and only I'd know whether I'm sincere or not...and casual observers would much rather see Maisy "repeatedly hitting her own Enter key" than in the throes of existential angst over whether she CAN be anything more to herself and her friends than some pervert scientist's robot cum dumpster. I've still tried to sneak bits of it in, of course, but I apparently have failed at that, too.
Honestly, as I said, I pay more attention than I feel a lot of other people do. Mainly because I respect your creativity and your ability to tell a story- and the fact that I know there's more to you than the porn. I still remember the story of yours I read- and wanted to see more of! :P
Its just something you have to do for yourself- when it comes to creative stories, in the end (speaking from the POV of a writer who's done a LOT of different things from really smutty smutt to a story about a modern family and the death of a loved one) you have to do the story stuff for yourself. Don't write for "them" write for you. All the best writers wrote their stories because they needed to be written, not because they wrote exactly what the public wanted. Ironically writing like that IS for the public. People can sense when you really put your heart into something and it always adds a little something that's missing with someone who's just writing to write.
As you know- nothing anyone is going to say online will help you move forward with what you want to do. You have to decide to do it for yourself.
I just hope what I said helps a little bit. Mainly I just wanted to say you aren't FAILING at anything as far as we're concerned here on your FA page- we just keep hoping you'll try something more. And that's from hearing about the things YOU want to get done, not because you're failing at anything WE WANT. Remember- we're all here watching you because we liked what we ALREADY saw.