You outdid yourself on this one. Amazing issue from beginnign to end. Loved teh sci fi torture device and her screaming through the entire thing. Awesome idea to keep her laughing through many issue, I can't wait for the next one!
Thanks, the team does come up with fantastic ways to make the heroines laugh. This force field contraption is just wonderful, as is the use of suctions and muscle stimulants. I feel like a kid on Christmas morning again reading some of these scripts
Alright, this is absolutely ludicrous.
If you've been writing since you were young, then you know that the merit of telling a story isn't necessarily hard science or anything like that, but that it is rooted in engaging readers with characters and the situations spun around them. Their trials, their tribulations. Their strengths and their flaws. Their wants and their needs.
Indeed. The point of my earlier rambling was I wanted to make sure the universe and story went beyond that, since many sci-fi fans will look for nuances and details in the world building that we've not quite done to date in our other comic lines. I had to make sure the time was right and the talent was there. That took a long time. We even had another art team take on Hunted #1 in the traditional, hand drawn, cel style. And it was good, I think it turned out really well. But due to my own stubbornness on how I wanted the series to look and feel (in a word: perfect), I scrapped the whole thing (burning over $1,000 in the process) and pulled the trigger once Yuri and Jon came along.
Far be it from me, but veiled little shots like this are wholly unnecessary, and seriously, they reflect poorly upon you. I know there is competition in the sphere, but on some level, I am sure there is overlap, and being forward in trying to cut that audience with little snarky pot shots does nobody any favors. And hell, maybe a lot of them don't know where you're directing this...but I do...and it's childish.
Well, that escalated quickly.
Here are some clarifying remarks. I don't know if they'll help, but I hope they do. Life is too short for bad blood from my poor communication.
I am not the most politically correct person in the room, nor have I ever been. I generally answer passion with passion, and it sometimes gets me in trouble. Also, I do have a chip on my shoulder, but it is not levied against anyone in the tickling community. It is important to emphasize that.
This wasn't a story I was going to go into, but I feel it's important to understand where my snark comes from. Back in 2003-2004, Agency Publishing was at a crossroads. Our first release, The Cyriaan Chronicles #1, was easily the worst publication we've ever produced, and quite possibly the biggest turd to infect the tickling community. I wanted to introduce story heavy elements into our work, but my initial release went way too far with it. Way too far. We were blasted, rightfully so, from all sides for that one. I went outside the tickling community to see how other fetish and/or general adult comic publishers handle content, to try to gain some perspective on whether it was feasible to strike this balance between content and story. I went outside the community primarily because I didn't want them to think I was using their experience and business acumen to compete against them. I came away rather discouraged from those discussions. When I told them I wanted a weaving storyline that would eventually be what The Agencies #7 started, I was told "You're thinking too hard on this." When I started talking about improving the quality of our artwork, I was told "If it's selling, why bother? This stuff makes money, readers rub one out, everyone's happy." When I was curious about broadening some of our comic lines to modern day, super hero, or sci fi settings, I was again told, in essence "You're thinking about this too hard. If you're doing comics about fucking, then it's fucking in space. If you're doing gay material, then it's anal in space...or anal in spandex. If you're doing rape fantasies, just throw in a tentacle monster or impossibly endowed violator. Whatever you're doing, just throw a different background and you're good."
I came away from those discussions much the way I did about tickling clips back in the early 90s. Before the internet had really expanded suppliers' access to customers, there were a lot of cash grabs on our fair fetish by people that didn't really share or appreciate customers' interests. I hated that, but loved all the local flavor pouring onto the airwaves in the forms of video clips. And speaking of local flavor, non-cash grabs, in the comic space Jim had started MTJPub and was doing great work collaborating with artists, producing the level of high quality artwork and stories I felt the community deserved. I wanted to bring my own comics to the table, but the advise I was getting from outside the tickling community, in the general adult world, really discouraged me. So the snarkiness you're reading from me is very real, but I can assure you it's not directed towards anyone within the tickling community. That would be an absurd claim, given the amount of quality material being produced here on a continual basis both for-profit and for free.
But I am living in the past. I have a demanding full-time job, and am raising a family. Those two things sap my time, and I am unable to give copious amounts of time to the community as I used to do in my twenties. I barely keep up with developments in our community, much less have enough knowledge or insight to make snarky comments on current events. That means the chip on my shoulder isn't from anything recent, when my attention is divided beyond anything I can manage, it was from a time long, long ago, in a presidency far, far away. So when you read what was probably my bitchiest quote:
"I knew the series couldn't just be something ridiculous like "feathers...but you know...in spaceships."
It was a direct reference to the advise I had received a decade ago on how to best market fetish books to readers. The premise of the advise was essentially that fetish readers don't care what you put into the books, just put some dragons in the back and then boom, fantasy tickling. Or slap a spaceship on it, and boom, sci fi tickling. It was a capitalist answer, but it was insulting to hear, as one of those readers who purchased several of B.A.C.'s self published works in the mid 90s and then became a consumer of MTJPub's various comics. In fact, it seriously pisses me off every time I think about it.
Another one of my possible snarky comment insinuates there aren't many fetish writers that can do all the blah blah blah things. I did mean that. I don't mean to insinuate Jon Essex is the only person on Earth that can do it. That would be a silly thing to put forth. There are many in this community that can excel at all the things I mentioned. But they're rare. Seriously, incredibly, stupidly rare. I was giving kudos to the one guy I really think deserves it, based on my years of working with him. Authors don't get a lot of props. But when you have an amazing one helming a project, it is a day and night difference in outcome. If you know of others that can do the same, by all means, use that passion and let them know!
Which is a segueway into my closing comment. I like people like you. You are passionate, and you shape things for the better in this place. Anyone reading this, please take the time to send a PM to your favorite artists, respond to their threads or comment on their social media accounts. You have no idea how close people are to quitting doing what you love to see them do, out of bouts of discouragement or depression they don't discuss publicly. Your IMs and messages of hope travels further than you can possibly imagine. So don't ever lose that passion.
Well said.
As an aside, I think Yurihausen's spectacular imagery and Jonathan's immersive and captivating writing have a marvelous symbiosis, and that shines through in this extraordinary issue of The Hunted. The hard work and passion from both of these creatives is plainly evident and is a top-shelf gift to our fetish genre. Well done.
~ C.A.B.
Also well said.
