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noizemagazine - Index

noizemagazine - noiZe Magazine Issue 59 February 2009 - Index

Drawn to
Erection
Erotic art has
a homo history
by D. Michael Taylor
it must be immensely satisfying to be able to bring your deepest fantasies
to life via erotic illustration. feeling lonely? not in the mood to go out and
score? Just sit at your desk and conjure up any vision of male perfection that
suits your individual needs. it’s hard work, of course, but worth the effort.
after all, it only takes one hand to draw something, right? But what drives
these artists? What are their secret identities?
The online boom for hero-worshipping
artists such as Joe Phillips or
noiZe contributor Iceman Blue has
made this particular breed of comic
artist wildly popular. Iceman Blue
has been making a living off of his
website since 2006, yet still thinks
of his current career as “a hobby
that's paying my bills.” But don’t
let his modesty fool you. His erotic
illustrations—especially his particular
brand of superheroes—have
become an online phenomenon,
and pay the bills quite nicely. He
also escapes the boundaries of the
everyday gay world, which is why
he translates well into the fantasies
of specialized Japanese male erotica,
or "yaoi."
Ask any contemporary gay erotic
artist where they got their start, and
many, if not most, will tell you that
it was the mainstream comic book
world. Turns out all of those barely-concealed
homo subplots in your favorite
comics were no accident! Joe Phillips
worked for DC Comics and “every comic
and comic book company out there” for
fifteen years. Iceman got his start as an
intern at a comic book company called
Top Cow Productions. Even Josman, an
artist who focuses almost exclusively on
edgy incestual relationships, wanted to
work for DC or Marvel as a child and
works in the familiar comic-strip style.
Many of your favorite gay comic book
artists may never have come out of the
closet artistically, so to speak, but they
were still out there: filling your young
mind with visions of muscle packed into
spandex and older rich gentlemen who
fought crime by your side. The Comics
Code Authority forbade any explicit
mention of homosexuality in the comics
they controlled until 1989, but that
just forced our dashing homo heroes to
16
Happy Am I! Healthy Am I! holy Am I!