This review is something I've been wanting to write for a long, long, long time.
Tickling In Space: Blake's Revenge Part 7 isn't just the quintessential issue in this series. It is, in my opinion, the most amazing tickling comic MTJ has ever released. Period. End of discussion.
This statement is something I can feel confident saying now. It's been nine months, and while I've been a big fan of what's been going on with a few different releases, be it Thompson Corporation, be it Foul Play, be it what have you, nothing has hit with the force and ferocity of this issue. And I'll go back through the catalogue and say that I can't remember a time where the build was so expertly crafted only to have a pay off that blew away all expectations. There's only one thing that comes to mind, and that's Yenny No Mercy, and that's only because of the mythical status it had until it reappeared.
But even that, which might be the high water mark of the past of MTJ, doesn't hit as heavy and as hard a note. No other comic released by this publisher is this bold. This uncompromising. And, to be honest, it's not just because of my own taste of eroticism and sexuality in my tickling art; I say this because it feels like the release of something so frenetic, so carefully guided to, that the intensity is justified. Everything in this series has built to this moment. Hell, everything in the Ponce era has been building to this, in some way.
With that in mind, it would probably be a good idea to have all the other releases prior to this one. Why? The payoff is amazing. But it's made more insane when you've seen where these characters were to start, to where they end up. Each individual crew member, whether it is Slither, Audrey, Booki, every release has their centerpiece moments, but by the time we get here, we've literally seen Dusty taken apart, stripped of everything, clothing, her dignity, to such a level that I don't think I've seen another character be so impossibly tickled. Plenty of scenarios, plenty of panels in the build up are kill shot worthy, perfectly drawn and expressed by Ponce, by Duarte's colors, by Rostokfx's letters which ooze the desperation, in and of themselves. This comic is the payoff. This is the flawless execution. Dusty is beyond ticklish oblivion. Beyond tickled hell. She's been built up and built up and built up, and the only thing left stopping her ultimate surrender, her ultimate submission to Blake, is the chastity coin that's stopped her from cumming.
But that's gone now.
The universe's most powerful aphrodisiac, Krandaloozian phermones, had long been pumping through her. Every bit of her, soles, hips, belly, underarms, breasts, her ultimate weakspot nipples, all have been attacked and pulled apart by the Ashen Ghost Blake, leaving her a ticklish vivisection. Dusty's taut, cut, helpless body is now at its most compromised, its most naked. Blake's already taken her apart. All that's left is to bury her in sweet absolution, in the messiest surrender ever showcased in tickling publication.
What's for a refresher course? Actually, I don't feel one is necessary here. This comic hits on every single plot line it spent the last six issues opening up, and even in a short amount of time, executes every bit of conclusion to a satisfactory manner. Whether it's the torture of crew members, whether it's the race against time the jettisoned crew members face as their one hope to get off their hellish rock and maybe save the day, whether it's Blake's exacting of her perfectly planned revenge over Dusty, it's all taken and tied together well. And, if anything, that's something that needs to be commended in this medium. A lot of people, a lot of writers, a lot of artists, they've thought themselves experts at this sort of craft, but they get bogged down or forget their medium. This story services everything. And for seven issues, and them not being super long? That's incredible. Especially since the content that fills each page makes each story feel so much larger than it actually comes out to.
BR7 starts from the very cover. I can't even begin to describe the cover. The power Blake has. The utterly helplessness of Dusty. The look in her eyes and her face. She's gone. Like, literally, tickled gone. Brains out of her nostrils, animalistic, fried, destroyed, and Blake is taking it all the further. In some ways? This is that death rattle. The feathers are assaulting her nipples, her most sensitive, dangerous spot. The Chastity Coin panties rest against her middle breast, covering her nipple, which is also telling us just how far this has gone . Right there, slamming into you, it's front and center.
What I did the other night was open up BR6 and go over the last few pages, with the coin taken off, leading to the action of BR7, and by the time I got to the cover, it was almost too damn much. I was wrecked. Spent. It's something I've done a few times, just to see if the magic was truly there. It was. It never ever seems to stop.
Page 1's last panel is unadulterated lust. That's gotten me at times, just because I remember the path to this. By this point, I'm like Dusty, so flustered and pent up after over a year in the build to this moment, that it's shameless. It's also the biggest shock to my eyes that I have seen. This was the “we're going there” moment. Her expression, I can't undersell that either. Having her nipples tickled and the agony etched in her face and the way her body is laid out and the steaming mess between her legs is apex level stuff.
But Page 2? No. Top right panel. Dusty's helpless. The perspective is extraordinary. She can't move. The tears are flowing. Her nipples are harder than I have ever seen them before. And Blake is hitting her arches, my favorite spot of the foot. I love perspective shots in videos and art from here, because every time you look, you can focus on whatever you are feeling. Tickling? The eroticism? The helplessness? My God, it's all there. But what makes it all the worse? What has me biting my knuckles right now as it lingers just over to the edge of my screen? Her pussy is smoldering. She's an epic mess. Just gobs and gobs of Dusty's hot, ticklish cum, right there. But it's different than the page above. This is worse. Not from the perspective. Her entire body is one large scale conduit, and right here, with those fingers stroking her arches, her pussy is clinching, despite itself, in concert with it all, with the most intense, most delicious, most debilitating orgasm I've ever seen in a tickling comic. If I could pick a panel that perfectly encapsulates my love of tickling and sex, this would be what I pick, amongst everything I've ever seen.
Until we get to the panel just below it. Audrey is having her little button tickle teased and played with by Vida, and it's raw and it's ferocious. But I almost always skip past it...because the Dusty panel right next to it...right there...is what floors me. Her muscles are so taught and toned. The look of ticklish agony and ecstasy on her face, and the way her body expresses it, and the power of her orgasm, and the pool underneath her ass, and those stomach muscles, and her screaming “nooohoo mooohooore!!!” No. No. It's never enough. You don't understand, man. This panel, as I look at it right now, I want that. I want her. More than I want to live life, I want her. Like that. Forever. I want the epic of Gilgamesh of that panel, stretched a thousand times, for thousands of pages. I want to savor every flavor of her agony, her bliss, her surrender, her struggle, her release, her perfect ticklishness, her perfect ticklish body, this, right here, she was made for this, and I want her to struggle in these moments forever, to be locked in this one forever, and I want to make it worse, I want to bring her perfection the most ardent, perfect tickle, because it is what she and I deserve. That twist of her body. My God.
I don't think I have ever seen three more perfectly sequenced panels of tickling art in my entire life.
And that's just that aspect to this release.
In the time since the initial release, I've looked at this comic countless times, for different reasons. There's always something interesting to pull from it. Something incredibly sexy and racy that makes your heart skip beats and your knees weak. This is an entire comic of built up to kill shots that encapsulate perfect ticklish torture and eroticism. There are no prisoners here. It's messy and I love it. The characters, Poe, Audrey, Booki, Ponce draws their plights so well, and Jesus, I just can't stand it. That's another reason why I feel justified in making the claim about this comic. For what is here, for the value, nothing hits this hard. Nothing I've seen, anyways.
It goes without saying that Ponce feels at home drawing these characters, or that the color palette used by Duarte is as vibrant and as versatile as always, or that Rostokfx's lettering is amongst the best in the medium, or that Bandito's universe and story comes all together to such a magnificent whole that I think anyone who is a fan of art or stories or media in tickling should look at this and take notes from the build and execution and the use of space. This team has been doing this for such a long time and is such a class team that I am not surprised in just how well everything comes together, or how the product becomes crisper and crisper, even when I didn't think it was possible. This is the epitome of professional work here.
But that also said, I think it's the dynamics put into place here that make this a true stand out. Blake is ravenous, she's dripping with sex appeal, and she's a craftswoman when it comes to her vengeance. For seven issues, with this being the ultimate, we've seen her work, and it is something to behold. I don't think anyone in the MTJ universe carries with them the sort of power this woman does at the end of a feather. Not the Gomez Twins. No one. No one is this unrepentant and sinister. She has no bounds, but also, she is someone so fueled and consumed by her desire to conquer Dusty, that it translates off the page. She's the twisted smile at the end of our deepest, darkest fantasies involving tickling. She's such a different breed. And that execution has been flawless. She's taken someone powerful, someone strong, like Dusty, and not only made her utterly weak and helpless, but she's turned her entire body into the most sensitive sexual extension, from her head to her toes, possible. Every spot tickled might as well be her clit with how keyed up and decimated she is.
With that in mind, her very nature has driven me crazy in another way.
What happens when she's on the other end?
Thankfully, now, I'm not having to wait too long to find out. That also being said? The wait I did have? That was a whole new brand of torture.
Seriously. If you love erotic tickling, this is your comic. If you love the climax to an unbelievably sexy story that is utterly uncompromising, this is your comic. If you're looking for the one comic you will get the most use out of on a desert island, well, I don't know why you'd have access to a way to view it, but, this is your comic!
Seriously; this release is amazing. My outright favorite. And I imagine it might end up being one of yours as well!
