Thread "Not-So-Frequently Asked Questions" in forum "Death P*rn Forum"

Posted at 7:05AM, May. 4, 2010

I've been doing comix and artwork for years even before I knew Drunkduck existed, and over that time I've been asked a lot of questions about my work. So, just to take up space, I figured this would be a good place to post some answers to a few of the inquiries I receive most often. If you'd like to ask something about Death P*rn, or anything else for that matter, feel free to do so here and I'll try to respond to it.

Probably the most frequently asked question I get is something along the lines of "hey, why don't you just drop all of the porn/violence and then the comic will be so much better?"

Posted at 7:05AM, May. 4, 2010

Whatâs with the sex? Couldnât you have just made this a regular comic, without all the porn? It would probably reach a wider audience if you made it mainstream.

Yes, I could cut out the sex scenes, or at least present them in a less graphic format, and I suppose it wouldnât kill the comic entirely. It would still be fairly unique, and funny, and entertaining. But it would also be a watered-down version of what it was intended to be. The comic right now is exactly what I wanted. Could I reach a wider audience by compromising my vision? Maybe. But why the hell would getting a bigger audience mean anything to me? The comic already has way more readers than I think it deserves, and I have no delusions of someday getting rich off of selling my ideas. So this is a comic I do mainly for me, and for weirdos like me, and watering it down to appease a bunch of prudes would serve no purpose. There are plenty of great comics out there which donât have loads of graphic sex in them which those people can enjoy. This oneâs different. And no, Iâm not saying that all comics should have graphic sex in them because otherwise youâre being a prude, or even that all of my comics are going to be Adult (theyâre not). All Iâm saying is that this particular comic is, because thatâs how I wanted it to be.

Whatâs with all the plot and characters and stuff? If youâre gonna do porn, why donât you get rid of the story and just do porn?

Pretty much the same answer as the first question. Because thatâs not what I was aiming to do. I donât see why I canât do both. To me, Death P*rn is first and foremost a story. It involves loads of sex and loads of violence, but ultimately itâs a story with a plot and characters and a beginning and an end. Just doing a bunch of random porn without a story to connect it and characters to care about would get boring for me real fast, and Iâm sure the readers would find nothing to connect with as well. To me, doing artwork thatâs just nothing but people having sex would be about as interesting as if I did a comic where itâs just random anonymous people fighting and killing each other with no plot or context to it.

Whatâs with all the violence?

I always scratch my head when people complain about the violence in Death P*rn, because the comic really isnât all that violent when you compare it to some of the other stuff out there. Even in the T+ genre here you can find mangas where people get their arms hacked off and blood spurts all over the place and that kind of thing. Death P*rn is a violent comic, donât get me wrong, but thereâs nothing exceptionally excessive about it in my opinion. I guess to a certain degree itâs the context of the violence that gets people, because most of the time in other peopleâs stories, thereâs some pretext of âgoodâ versus âevil,â and itâs usually the âgood guysâ killing hordes of âbad guysâ who weâre led to believe really deserve what theyâre getting. Personally Iâm not a big fan of that, when stories try to justify extreme violence on the grounds that the âbad guysâ are people who deserve it or are unlikable so we shouldnât empathize with them. Thatâs crap. The violence in my comics is usually chaotic and often indiscriminate in whom it claims. I just find that more interesting than using violence as a way of passing judgment on peopleâs worth or making moral statements. I can see where that can come off as sadism at times, but really itâs just me trying to embrace the absurd and capricious nature of violence, and maybe wallow in it a bit.

No, seriously. Thereâs some sick shit in your comics. Like, Iâd really be able to get into your stuff, but thereâs so much creepy serial killer crap in âem that I just canât stand reading it. Youâre some kind of perverted necrophile, arenât you?

There are some stomach-turning scenes in this and most if not all of my other comics. But no, Iâm not expressing some hidden desire to go out on a rampage and start killing people in all sorts of hideous ways. Thereâs nothing subconscious going on here; all of itâs very deliberately included to give the pages some sort of visceral effect, which is really what I go for when I write something, to give the reader a physical reaction to what they see on the page, be that laughter or arousal or revulsion or whatever. But in real life I wouldnât want to drill a hole in someoneâs head and have sex with it any more than Iâd want to have sex with a dolphin (like in that other notorious comic I did). Thereâs a big difference between showing bad behavior in a story and condoning it. If by making this comic, Iâm condoning rape and murder and torture, then by making Schindlerâs List, Steven Spielberg was condoning the Holocaust. Itâs just a comic. I made it for fun, and you should read it for fun. Donât take any of it too seriously.

Posted at 11:05AM, May. 8, 2010

Why is there so little sex and violence within your adult, mature themed comix titled "DeathPorn"?

The title itself is meant to underscore the extreme exploitations an artisan can dream up and craft upon a page. Every page should be loaded with gut wrenching visual imagery and the foul language that one can associate with such scenes.

Having an ongoing narrative story that any soap operatic, sentimental dweeb can relate to isn't bad. Violence and sex should have ramifications beyond just the act's outcome. There is always emotional context to being "fucked over".
But I'm the guy who wants to see details.
"How far did the gunbarrel stick up inside his butthole and the end result of its pulled trigger?", "Did she prefer "dry rough skinned fist" or "glass coke bottle"?"
Why can't we see internal cumshots??
Or precisely drafted flying brain matter chunks within the blood splatter?
Or my favorite… Angry dick bitin' n' bashin' chicks.

Hey, I live in an urban environ with urban realities. And I like to have a little fantasy entertainment now and then showing when things are really "shit hitting fan intense all the time",… -that someone's getting it far worst than me in life, or as I can ever conceive it. Why would I want the falseness of a "spandex superhero fantasy"? That's just too gay. What millionaire you know is dressing up in a bat costume at night? That shit just ain't "REAL".

My only negative comment of your comix is that you draw the cocks way too short and thin. It ain't reflecting my "bigger than big" size, …and therefore I cannot relate. The bitchez are fine. You just need to draw in more per panel.
In fact, I can use a "pair o' Carmen's" nibblin' all on my nutz now.

I feel as an artist you have to many "pansies" out there restricting your creative flow. You just aren't achieving your "sick fuck" potential. Can't believe anybody out there is bitchin' about the fantasy in your comix -that they wish had goin' on in their real life.

xx,
Fastmax

Posted at 8:05PM, May. 11, 2010

Heh, I admit it. I'm a pussy. Provocative title aside, my comic is mostly tame, the sex (explicit though it may be) is mostly vanilla fare, and the violence isn't anything you couldn't get away with on Spike TV. It's tame. What can I say! I don't mind wallowing in excessive violence and gratuitous sex every now and then, but I'm not trying to win any contests by out-grossing the next guy and cramming more genitals onto each page than other comix. I'm just trying to make a good, weird, adult comic that caters to my own tastes, and hopefully I can find a few other people out there who enjoy reading it as well. :)