The cover immediately turned me on. Here was a young, exquisitely drawn woman who was so sexually aroused that I could feel her energy seep out from the page. She wore a tight low-cut black latex bodice that revealed her large and ripe breasts. She wore thigh high black silky stockings and was rubbing herself with her riding whip. Her eyes wore the expression of total and helpless ecstasy. Behind her were three panels - teasers of what was to come. The book was "Tranceptor," by Michael Manning, and it is a beautiful example of one of North America's best erotic comics.

When I was a child I fought with my sister over the Saturday Comics section. Comics were for kids, I thought. I had no idea that there actually was a market for sophisticated sex comics until I visited our local sex toy store, "Come As You Are." As it turns out, sex is one of the more important and recurrent themes in the work of North America's best cartoonists. (Even ol' Walt himself dabbled in the dirty at one point.) I became intrigued with both the history and the medium of erotic comix. It seemed to me that comics were particularly well suited for erotic fantasy because there's so much room for the imagination. The reader is an integral part of the creation of the story. "The spaces between the panels," says Peter Birkemoe, co-owner of The Beguiling, "what is left out - perhaps the abstract nature of the art allows the reader to imagine exactly how these characters look in the flesh, or exactly who's involved in the situation."

I wanted to know more and since erotic comix have a long history of being underground, I knew I was flying to San Francisco. My first interview was with Ron Turner, publisher of Last Gasp - one of North America's largest publishers of underground comix. A pioneer in the underground comix scene, Ron himself looked like a cartoon character created in the 1960's. He had such a long gray beard that Lisa (my camerawoman) and I didn't know where to mic him. But Ron was in no rush to be interviewed. He proceeded to invite us into his private museum - in the back of Last Gasp. Here was a room filled with American pop cultural artifacts ranging from Coney Island freak show signs to a vast collection of pin ball machines. After our tour and a very short game of pinball (because I suck), Ron sat down for his interview.

"I remember being very stoned at a New Year's party," he says, "and somebody gave me a Zap Comix. I read it and I was on the floor laughing. Here was my medium but it was keeping up with where I was at in my mental advances." Ron was hooked and in a relatively short time, he was publishing Zap Comix.

Spain Rodriguez, Ron's good friend, was one of the original Zap artists (along with underground cartoon giants like R. Crumb, S. Clay Wilson and Robert Williams). Lisa and I made the trek over to Spain's house. Given that Spain was a former rough and gritty biker from Buffalo, I really didn't know what to expect. But Spain was so sweet, kind and intelligent - I developed quite the crush on him. He had wavy gray hair and a rather mischievous sparkle in his eyes. To me, Spain was downright sexy.

We talked about the American schizophrenic attitudes towards sexuality. "A strip I did got busted," he says, "because it had a character giving head to a woman. Then later I redid it so he was punching her out and of course it wasn't busted." A general prohibition against sex has pretty much broken down, "and underground comix were a pioneer of all that stuff," he says. And without the underground cartoonists, Michael Manning would not have been free to explore the medium of erotic comics.

Meeting Michael Manning was indeed a pleasureable and interesting experience. He wore all black, his hair was black, his cat was black and white and his entire house seemed to be a visual mosaic of black and white images and textures. He was a walking reflection of his comic books. He spoke in a deep, soft voice and took every question I asked very seriously. Michael is truly a unique artist who likes to explore the outer reaches of gender, sexuality, and fantasy.

And this sexuality emanates from the pages despite the obvious hard work that goes into creating them. "A good erotic comic is something that turns you on," he says, "and that's a difficult thing to achieve across a wide range of people, but that's what I want to do; get all types of people interested in the fantasy I'm creating."

And as I stood reading "Tranceptor," at "Come as You Are," I had entered Michael's fantastical world and I felt the sexual energy throughout my whole body.

Michelle Melles
Segment Producer, SEXTV