Princesses in castles, handsome princes courting them, witches, fairies… This is a setting that is familiar to us. But if the sulphurous reputation of the author has not yet reached you and if his singular graphics have not yet warned you, the very first words of the incantation which opens the album will do the trick:
“Abracadabra, goat’s leg, in front you will fail, behind you will succumb“
Naughty, irreverent and full of double meanings, these introductory pages set the tone for a satirical reinterpretation of the folkloric universe of the Grimm brothers, where sex and the passions of the flesh reign without taboo, to the delight of women…
- Fabulous. Ed Himself.
Born in Seville in 1944, Nazario Luque Vera compound with Tom of Finland and, in the register of caricature, Ralph King, the trio of the most famous European cult authors of gay comics. His boards have entered many museum collections, including the prestigious Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, which has notably acquired a large batch of his production from the 1970s.
Known for his sagas Anarcoma (published by the same house, selected in the 2018 Angoulême Heritage Selection) and Ali Baba and the 40 fagots (literally: Ali Baba and the 40 fags), the anthology presented today by Misma editions includes a considerable part of his first collaborations with the magazine The Viperwhere the aesthetic influence of Robert Crumb is felt, along with a plethora of short stories and illustrations made for various mediums, while keeping sex (explicit or not) as the main source of inspiration.
Indeed, in his stories, it is quite common to see women and men live their sexual passions (in all possible variants…), exploring bodies and feelings to their extreme limits. It combines religion, power, fear of loneliness, thirst for freedom,…
- Fabulous. Ed Himself.
It is the great diversity of technical and stylistic means that surprises on first reading. In the drawings of the early 1970s (published clandestinely in fanzines, just before the end of the dictatorship of Franco) the stories are built around huge gags and pranks. Then, during the second half of the 1980s, we see the appearance of large Indian ink plates which offer meticulously and elegantly stories taking place in futuristic palaces or ancient temples, alongside a vast production for fanzines printed with artisanal means.
In the first stories, we notice that the political object is self-expression through the enjoyment of bodies (echo of the liberation that accompanied the Move [1]). We thus discover a blind princess, who is looking for her lover by testing the virile members of all the suitors of the kingdom, or even a princess transformed into a pumpkin who cannot recover her human form without having a chastity belt put on her.
As we enter the 1980s, characteristic of the boom in adult comics taking place around the world, appear more sober tales in which lovers try to understand what binds them beyond their relationship sexuality, or even how it allows them to overcome the hold that society has on them.
- Fabulous. Ed Himself.
In this very rich anthology, Nazario introduces each story with a brief presentation contextualizing the creation and its conception, giving the reader a very complete picture of the artistic evolution and the influences that guided the artist’s choices during his career.
With the arrival of spring and the sun, we can only recommend this album for an informed public, looking for a few little stories to spice up their imagination (and their daily life).
- Fabulous. Ed Himself.
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