Manara Erotica Volume 1

Manara Erotica Volume 1 (1982-2012/ Collected 2012): written and illustrated by Milo Manara; translation by Kim Thompson; containing Click!, "Fatal Rendezvous," and "Piercing."

A few years back, Marvel drew criticism for having Italian writer-artist Milo Manara draw an, um, controversial cover for Spider-woman. Clearly Marvel thought this was a good idea. And they can't have been ignorant of the fact that Manara's biggest claim to fame has lain in erotic comics with a satiric bent for about 40 years and counting. 

Everyone got worked up. Nothing was solved. Interest in Spider-woman reached an all-time high, which was almost certainly Marvel's motivation for the whole thing.

Of course, that Spider-woman is kid's stuff compared to the sexual material in 'non-erotic' Manara works that include Indian Summer, much less explicitly erotic comics as are collected in this first of three Dark Horse volumes of translated Manara erotica. Or Manara porn, depending on how you feel about these sorts of things.

An honest review should probably read something like Kevin Nealon's SNL bit reviewing a porn movie -- "Not interested, not interested, interested, interested, very interested, VERY interested, not interested, and then I went to sleep."

Manara is certainly a master of a certain type of idealized female form. As these stories come from the 1980's, the women often even have pubic hair, which probably looks archaic to younger readers. What is that stuff? 

The women may be idealized; the men run the gamut from idealized to comic grotesques. The story of the main graphic novel here, Click!, is an occasionally quease-inducing masterpiece of... something. The basic plot involves implanting a computer chip in a prudish female celebrity's brain. 

The chip, controlled by a black box that moves through the possession of several people, causes the celebrity (also married to a much older, prudish, grotesque politician) to become a sex-crazed exhibitionist. OK!

Suffice to say, no one ever fixes the cable in these stories. Highly recommended.