www.the-agencies.com FREE Pinup giveaway of The Agencies!

[oblesklk1]

Thank you for that.

Not a problem. If you have any other questions, ask away. It's what we're here for 🙂

 

[Serious_sam]

Beautiful. Simply beautiful.

 

[oblesklk1]

Beautiful. Simply beautiful.

Glad you enjoy them. Got a favorite so far?

 

[oblesklk1]

The Agencies #12
Issue released May 2008.

In this reimaged scene from The Agencies #12, Javier and Patricia show Agent Succubus being tied up and tickled in the wee hours of the night by Yin. Yin fashions two small circles of ice and drops them down slowly onto Agent Succubus a la The Pit and the Pendulum. When they reach their mark, they constantly tease and torment Succubus's tender skin as she's being tickled into hysteria.

Agent Succubus and her epic breasts are back!

In the last issue, Agent Succubus made a deal with Yin/Yang: let Agent Deadline free, and I will take her place. The twins accepted, and this issue is about the twins having a lot of fun with the agency's buxom blonde.

As with the prior issue, there's a lot of right and a lot of wrong with this issue. The wrong was the contorted faces Agent Succubus made in some of the scenes, I wasn't entirely happy with how that turned out. And I have to accept blame for that as the director. If a scene, pose, facial expression doesn't fit the script and mood, it needs revision. And I didn't push hard enough on this issue. Live and learn. The good news is that this was the last issue we released (four years ago!) where customers really complained about a major item like this and the mistakes of the past have not, and will not, been repeated.

Having said that, there is a lot of right about this issue. Sometimes Succubus's depictions are incredibly sexy and well done. And I really like the ice scene at the end, even though (as mentioned above) the look didn't always work. It really showed just how nuts Yin is and how much she wants to torture Succubus for the fun of it. Just pure sadism. She tortures Succubus in secret all night long so the agent will be worn out when her sister Yang takes over the torment the following day. The long hours do actually take a toll on Agent Succubus, which is tragically explored in the next issue.

 

[oblesklk1]

The Agencies #13
Issue released December 2009.

Yang is giving Agent Succubus an exam of her own. The two become unlikely lovers briefly in The Agencies #13 before becoming tragically separated at the end of the issue.

Of all the issues we've published over the years, I'm probably the most proud of this one. If I didn't have a shitload more stories to tell in this universe, I probably would've just ended the series right here. In my not so humble and obviously biased opinion, this is how you end a story arc (damn you, Bioware!!).

You have all of the following components:

Helpless agent who sacrificed herself to save a friend
Sadistic torturer (in Yin) that has proven to be a ruthless and vile kind of tickler
Boss protecting said helpless agent is out of town
Cruel torturer finds out twin sister falls for the agent in the same manner her own boss and father figure did

And natural cause and effect says this is going to be a recipe for disaster. And it is.

I hemmed and hawed for days trying to decide how to end this. My rational side was telling me how to end it, conflicted with an emotional attachment to the character and feelings for how fans were going to deal with the decision. I spoke with Dave at length about this issue and I feel like it was the right decision to make. The story ends how it's supposed to end, given the volatile components above.

Yin kills Agent Succubus.

It wasn't a decision made lightly. Tickling is fun, right? We poke, scratch, titillate, and people laugh. It's enjoyable. Tickling is some of the first communication made between parent and baby. It's the stuff of giggles and squeals as children. But this story isn't about children. It's about adults. And adults can sometimes laugh and frolic and giggle, there is plenty of room in life for that. But adults also, lie, cheat, steal, betray, go on for years feeling neglected, hurt, abused, and weak. And adults don't always handle these emotions very well. In fact, a very large percentage of humanity is fundamentally broken in some profound manner. And that's what this particular story arc illustrates and explores. This is the not the stuff of fun, it's the stuff of horror, of despair, of pain, of angst, ennui, and other states of being that don't really go well with tickle literature. At least, not naturally. So to produce something so...unnatural, did feel odd. I've never heard of another tickling comic series kill off a main character, so it's a rather bold move (feel free to replace bold with stupid if you like). In the end, I did receive a number of communications about the ending of this book, but nothing over the top. They were perfectly reasonable reactions to a character dying off.

The reason I like this issue so much is that it is very dense. In this issue, we have (yay for lists?) the following happen and resolve (massive spoiler alert):

Yang is supposed to torture Succubus, but is lulled by Succubus's charms and the two end up making love in the shower together. Yang is quite smitten with the blonde and wants to run off and hide Succubus from her sister Yin.

Yin finds Yang's private journal and learns about the affair. She aims to put an end to it and show her twin once and for all which one of them is the master.

Even after the intimate shower scene, Yang proceeds to torture Succubus in a very intimate and tortorous manner, as only she knows how. She proceeds to explain to Succubus how she chooses a feather based on how much she wants to punish a woman through her genitals. Yang wants Succubus to enjoy the torment as something she hopes the two will enjoy together for many years.

Yin interrupts the two having fun. Things go dark.

We find out Yin and Yang have had rivalries for years.

Yin murdered their father's killer before through tickle torture, hiding the grisly tickle-lust from her twin all these years.

This scene with their father's killer sets up tension as Succubus is now in the same position.

Succubus is nude and Yin enjoys mixing ice and tickling to create a truly unpleasant experience for Succubus.

Yang tries to ease Succubus's suffering by using her powers to give Succubus endless orgasms to drown out the pain. This was a central theme I talked with Dave about wanting to see come to life in this book. Namely I wanted a situation where two ticklers with very different styles (cruel and sensual) were trying to one-up each other with their victim. And the harder one pushed, the harder the other pushed, which sends the victim into hysteria. The harder the orgasms, the more she's ticklish, so she laughs which makes her orgasm more, and it loops endlessly until something terrible happens. I love this concept and I think the art team did an amazing job of depicting this.

Yin, fed up with Yang's interference, attacks her twin and encases her in a block of ice, forcing her to watch as she executes Succubus through tickling.

Agent Succubus is shown completely broken here by Yin, having suffered the worst tickle torture imaginable. She starts spouting off about Mister Nathan knowing about Starlight's power (foreshadowing) and Project Ruthless (major foreshadowing). Yin says nothing of this, not really caring about Agent Starlight and thinking Project Ruthless is just an urban legend).

Yang, distraught that her own sister would murder her lover, finally grows a pair (in a manner of speaking) and attacks Yin by surrounding her in a field of orgasmic fire, rending Yin helpless.

Yang frees Succubus, only to hold the agent's lifeless body in her arms.

It's a lot to pack into one issue. The art studio did an incredible job here, and I can't thank them enough to executing flawlessly on this script. The issue set a new mark of darkness for the series, ended a long story arc, provided a great, unpredictable climax, and really set the stage for the next evolution of the series. Two major revelations at Agent Succubus's breaking (mentioned above) really foreshadow where the series is going next.

 

[oblesklk1]

The Agencies #15
Issue released November 2011.

This pinup shows Cat looking on in horror as her schoolfriend Julie is tickled topless by both Karma and her vicious interrogator Lucy. The two tickle torture Julie's sensitive breasts until the young blonde breaks.

Well, this is the last post strolling down memory lane. Now that we've covered the earlier issues, we can now release The Agencies #16 very soon.

The timing of production of these issues is quite odd. The Agencies #14 was completed, so we moved onto #15. But I wasn't happy with how #14 turned out, so got a different studio to do the work. As it turns out, I had Javier re-do #14 after #15 was already completed (confused yet?). Instead of having Javier do #15 over, I just had him do #16 so we could get down the road. Even though the artwork is vastly different in #15, I do like how it turned out. It's a mature look at our comic universe and its character.

In this issue, Tiffany escapes the clutches of Karma and her crime organization, but her best friends Cat and Julie are taken instead. Oops! So here we show Tiffany on the run, while Karma and her sister 'The Tickler' are hot on her trail. We also learn that Shroud has been reprimanded for letting Tiffany go, and strives to do whatever she can to earn Karma's trust (just a tiny bit of foreshadowing here).

There is also a scene in here in which Agent Deadline and her captive Yin arrives at Agency headquarters at the same time Yang arrives, carrying the slain body of Agent Succubus. Yang is about ready to attack her twin in broad daylight; Mister Nathan appears, commanding both sisters to stay their attacks, and commands both be taken into custody. The agency has many questions to ask on why Agent Succubus is now dead.