I love porn.

C’mon! Who out there doesn’t love porn? Naked guys of varying heights, sizes, girths and hirsute-ness knocking each other’s junk around after an improbable meeting and some ham-handed flirting (“How much for the pizza, man?” “Ah, it’s free, dude.” licks lips salaciously “Well, let me at least give you a tip.” grabs crotch aggressively BOWN-chika-BOWN-BOWN) acting out situations that don’t happen too often in real life (well, for me anyways. The last time the Mr. Gatti’s guy grabbed his crotch at my door he had a urinary tract infection. I didn’t eat the pizza, let alone the pizza guy.), but make for great masturbatory fantasies.

I also love comics.

Duh.

So, if there’s any chance to combine the two, I’m there (“Two great tastes that taste great together!”). Mainstream comics offer us an occasional butt-shot of Wolverine (though Cannonball skinny-dipping back in New Mutants #21 always worked out much better for me. Oh! And I’m gonna have to apologize here and now to all the women out there. I’m not deliberately excluding you but what I know about T’n’P wouldn’t cover a bikini line) which can’t really be considered porn; and gay porn’s forays into superherodom are equally as slim – BatDude and Throbbin’ (a BatCave made of trashbags!) and SuperTwink (“Faster than a twirling dildo”, indeed!) are about all I’ve come across. Uh… no pun intended.

In any case, even if we never see Northstar play cachez la baguette with Iceman (or Colossus, or Freedom Ring – as Joe Palmer has suggested), there are comics out there where man-on-man action happens panel-to-panel. This week, I’d like to take a look at Marginalized Publications/All Thumbs Press’ comic book Hard to Swallow, which was published back in Spring of this year (yes, I’m a little behind the times) with stories by Justin Hall, Dave Davenport (who signed my copy at Comic-Con – woo hoo!) and Bil Sherman; and lettered by Jason MacNamara. Issue #1 (I’m laboring under the assumption this means there will be an issue #2. Soon.) sells for $6.99 at the Hard to Swallow website. The prestige-format book has six (or sex in German – just thought I’d throw that out there) vignettes that range from cute to pretty damn hot. If you’re looking for subtle or sly, look elsewhere. The cover boasts a nearly naked pirate tied to a giant phallus with a banana sticking out of his jock strap while a giant ape hand reaches for him. Judging from his toothy smile and googling eyes, had this guy been cast instead of Faye Wray, King Kong would have gone in a whole different direction.

Subtext? Not a hint.

Irony? No way.

Foreshadowing? Uh uh.

Metonymy? What’s that?

This is a porn comic book and is damn proud of being so.

Contrary to the cover explicative, there is no hot ape on pirate action between the covers but there is some hot cabin boy on pirate action in the first story, “Tales of the Hard Roger.” The titular pirate ship headed (so to speak) by the one-hooked, one-eyed Captain Speare, picks up an amnesiac castaway who upon regaining consciousness finds the cabin boy Tom orally glommed onto his nether regions. What follows is a story of rough trade and why it’s not a good idea to catch the (one good) eye of a pirate captain. Now, even though pirates aren’t per se my thing (though I do harbor this Navy-based fantasy which takes place in a gang shower) and the perspective in the art is slightly off, “Tales of the Hard Roger” has some appeal on a rough rough rough level. B

“Feral,” the second vignette, is... okay, I’m really embarrassed to admit this, but of all six stories, this one is the hottest. And what embarrasses me isn’t the content (I love porn, remember?), it’s the sex with a werewolf. I’m embarrassed to admit that sex with a werewolf may replace my Navy fantasy. Come on! He’s hairy; he grunts; he’s uncut; he has an eight-foot money shot. God help me if he’s Latino, too. There’s also a skinny, tatted, prince albert-ed skaterboi (so what if he’s dead?), if you’re into that sort of thing. A+

The next entry is “Kind Bud Nugs,” which follows the progress of a bouquet of flowers across several encounters between strangers. Who knew that a flower plus a blowjob could be used as payment for a tattoo? I’ll have to remember this when I want to get the next part of my Tree of Life done. This cute, wordless cartoon takes place in a land where bearish men walk around naked with impunity and can do full splits. Probably Turkey... A

“The Spirit of Folsom Street” and “Birthday F*ck” are both true stories and read that way. They have all the sex you could ask for in them (armpits, massages with happy endings, cigar daddies and a whip figure highly in the plots), but there’s a certain amount of restraint (e.g., holding back – nothing to do with restraints or the whip mentioned above) in trying to keep them true. Fun stories (and Lord knows I would like to have been there) but not as creative as the other offerings. B

Hard to Swallow wraps up with “Gigantic,” a clever tale of betrayal and reconciliation between monsters (a monstrously large atomic lizard and an equally massive ape with a taste for mankind). This story made me laugh out loud when I read it because I kept thinking of the god-awful Japanese movie King Kong vs. Godzilla. As horrible as it is in these days of CGI to see a man in a rubber monster suit (to be fair though, some movies use too much CGI – sorry, Bryan Singer, babe, but Superman Returns was like an over-salted meal), one must wonder what the Japanese would think of this take on their perennially favorite monster, Godzilla, and his consorting (and spooning!) with the American icon King Kong? Well, at least they can’t complain that Godzilla was the bottom. No, no, they couldn’t say that. A

Hard to Swallow is a tribute to the penis. The gay penis. The turgid, distended gay penis thrusting forward, spilling over with.. uh. Yeah. Sorry. This is still a family site, right? Anyway, it’s all about the sex, right? Porn is (obviously) about the sex, but I think comics (even the mainstream ones) are about the sex. Joe Quesada can say what he wants about homosexuality and how it’s restricted to a MAX label, but one need only look at the cover of Ms. Marvel #1 to know that sex was on the artist’s mind. And it’s not like that’s the only example out there. The guys at Hard to Swallow just aren’t interested in being coy about the sex. Good for them!

All in all, I recommend that everyone buy a copy or two – one to keep and one to ruin.

Editor's note: Buy this comic here or ask for it at your local comics shop.

Sean McGrath is a resident of Austin, Texas, and an out-of-work teacher. Donations to his mortgage fund can be made via PayPal to stseanoftheknife@austin.rr.com.

All characters and images © 2006 Marginalized Publications. Review © 2006 Sean McGrath.

Prism Comics promotes the works of the LGBT community in comics. It does not implicitly endorse any other material or products associated with those works. Any opinions expressed are those of the author(s).