Sold under the counter, forbidden, and long absent from the official narratives of the 9th art, adult comics have been around for nearly a century. Here is their journey, their publishers, their censors, and their key authors.
Sold under the counter, forbidden, and long absent from the official narratives of the 9th art, adult comics have been around for nearly a century. Here is their journey, their publishers, their censors, and their key authors.
Erotic comics are almost as old as comics themselves. They have existed for nearly a century, yet they still carry a dubious reputation. It must be said that the ground was mined from the start: for a long time, comics for young people were considered a sub-product aimed at less talented children. It is safe to say that it was easy to then target those aimed at adults.
Its history is thus also one of marginalization. Sold discreetly, banned upon its appearance in bookstores in the 1960s, it was even showcased before the press as a unhealthy curiosity by a Minister of the Interior in 1988 during an exhibition dedicated to horror. Even today, many works on the ninth art politely overlook it.
A curious paradox: who admits to having read the small formats of Elvifrance? They sold several tens of thousands of copies. Who acknowledges liking Pichard, Manara, Varenne, or Serpieri? These authors sell more albums than some well-known stars of the profession.
Before delving into the heart of the matter, a word about the prehistory of the genre. Between 1900 and 1930, French popular magazines such as Sans-Gêne, La Vie de Garnison, Le Régiment, Paris Plaisirs, Bagatelle, Le Rire, or La Vie Parisienne were already overflowing with one-page stories featuring naive and immodest girls facing mature and plump gentlemen. Artists like René Giffey, Le Rallic, or Jean Trubert worked there while also leading a respectable career in youth press.
In the United States, the pretty paper girl first arrives through illustration. Judge, published from 1881 to the early thirties, and Life, from 1883 to 1936, launch "Good Girl Art," a genre where Charles Dana Gibson, Harrison Fischer, James Montgomery Flagg, and especially Alberto Vargas excel. The same vein can be found in the high-circulation "pulps," such as Pep Stories, Spicy Stories, Film Fun, Movie Humor, or Gay Parisienne, under the pencil of Enoch Bolles or George Quintana. However, none of these artists dare to venture into actual comics.
It wasn't until the thirties that sensuality entered the panels. Realistic daily strips offer their heroes dream companions: Prince Valiant has Aleta, Flash Gordon has Dale Arden, Mandrake has Narda, and Tarzan discovers woman with Jane. However, eroticism remains within the limits allowed by family daily newspapers.
The real break comes from the economic depression. In the shock of the crash, America sees the emergence of "Eight-Pagers": small booklets of eight pages, printed on low-quality paper, containing frankly pornographic stories signed by obscure hacks. The principle is simple and ruthlessly effective: it features well-known comic book heroes, movie stars, or political figures in scandalous situations.
Distributed underground, these booklets become a hit and continue their run until the sixties. Publishers and printers constantly move to evade the police, yet manage to publish hundreds of titles. Europe will not discover these curious parodies until much later, with the flourishing of erotic comics. Today, they bring joy to collectors.
The Eight-Pagers inherited a second nickname, "Dirty Comics," referring to their pornographic and questionable taste. In Europe, and particularly in France where it is still believed that comics are reserved for children, American productions are seen as an offense to good morals. Add to this the annoyance of French cartoonists at this competition, and you understand the ferocity of post-war censorship.
The law of July 16, 1949, on publications intended for youth arises from this dual pressure, both Catholic and Communist. Its concrete effects are spectacular: skirts that are too short are lengthened, overly visible breasts are "shaved down," and weapons are banned. It is not uncommon to see a character threatening their enemy with their hand simply because their revolver has been erased compared to the original edition. In Belgium, to avoid French backlash, some publishers go so far as to outright prohibit their authors from featuring women in their stories.
This law has never disappeared, and a commission continues to give its opinion. It distinguishes three levels of prohibition: level 1 prohibits sales to minors, level 2 adds the prohibition of display in shop windows, and level 3 adds the prohibition of advertising, which amounts to killing a title. Barbarella in 1964, and then "Marie-Gabrielle en Orient" by Pichard at Glénat, suffered the consequences. The record goes to Elvifrance: 747 prohibition orders, including 36 of level 3, in twenty-two years of existence.
Across the Atlantic, the movement is parallel. Psychiatrist Fredric Wertham publishes Seduction of the Innocent, an indictment against violence and sex in comics. His fight leads to the establishment of the "Comics Code Authority" by Congress in October 1954, with the same consequences as in France: some publishers abandon comics, others comply with the code, and a few turn to more discreet distribution channels.
The French awakening dates back to 1962. V Magazine, a quarterly blending humor, photos, and erotic stories, publishes in episodes a certain Barbarella signed by Jean-Claude Forest. The prepublication goes almost unnoticed. It is the album, offered in 1964 by Éric Losfeld, that ignites the powder keg: it is quickly banned, the press seizes upon the heroine, and Barbarella becomes famous even as sales remain modest. She will be the first comic book character taken up by the Livre de Poche.
Losfeld repeats the feat with "Les Aventures de Jodelle" by Guy Peellaert and Pierre Bartier, the "Saga de Xam" by Nicolas Devil, and "Lone Sloane" by Philippe Druillet. He eventually abandons comics due to lack of success, but not without having paved the way. In 1969, Charlie Mensuel becomes the first magazine to openly brand itself as "for adults," experiencing its finest hours under the direction of Georges Wolinski. This is followed by L'Écho des Savanes, Fluide Glacial, Circus, and (À Suivre).
In the 1970s, sex boldly enters the panels. Pilote opens its pages to daring stories, Métal Hurlant and Charlie Mensuel break taboos, and even the very proper Spirou and Tintin admit sexy heroines, previously banned. The major supplier is Elvifrance: a subsidiary of the Italian publisher Edifumetto, it lines up about twenty monthly publications in 1978 and brings the best transalpine productions across the Alps, including Isabella, Vartan, Auranella, Messaline, and many others.
Meanwhile, some publishers play a more literary card. Dominique Leroy publishes Philippe Cavell, Georges Pichard, Gérard Leclaire, or G. Lévis. In 1979, Jean Carton, until then a publisher of erotic novels, launches the monthly Bédé Adult', which will remain on newsstands for decades and reveal dozens of illustrators.
The small format for adults, or pocket, was born in Italy and is undoubtedly the greatest event in the history of the genre. It all began in 1962 with Diabolik, a masked criminal created by sisters Angela and Luciana Giussani at the publisher Gino Sansoni. Violence takes precedence over eroticism, which is only suggested by pretty girls in provocative poses. Success arrived in 1964 when the publisher Corno launched, with screenwriter Luciano Secchi (alias Bunker) and artist Magnus, Kriminal, followed by Satanik, Demoniak, Sadik, Zakimort...
In 1966, Renzo Barbieri founded Editrice 66 and released the first major titles featuring heroines: Isabella, Angelica, Goldrake. Isabella, written by Giorgio Cavedon and illustrated by Sandro Angiolini, tells the story of Isabelle de Frissac, a teenager who witnesses her mother's rape and the looting of the family estate, becoming a vengeful duchess and then a secret agent for Cardinal Richelieu. Several hundred issues were published in Italy from 1966 to 1976, of which one hundred and three episodes were translated by Elvifrance between 1972 and 1981. The eye-catching covers by Alessandro Biffignandi contributed significantly to the success.
Over the years, audacity increased. After breasts came female genitals, then male ones, not to mention the bloody sequences in crime and fantasy series. Recurring heroines gave way to stories without fixed characters, often based on news events or horror: Attualita Nera began appearing in 1978 and would exceed one hundred issues, while horror titles (Oltretomba, Il Vampiro, Cimiteria) fed into France's Grands Classiques de l'Épouvante, Histoires Noires, or Terrificolor. The French publisher then announced print runs often exceeding 50,000 copies.
The end was brutal. Sales dwindled in the 1980s, publishers changed formats, added photos, but nothing worked. In 1992, Edifumetto abandoned comics and Elvifrance closed its doors: about twenty titles disappeared from kiosks within weeks, and no one sought to take their place.
If one name summarizes the transition from risqué comics to auteur comics, it is that of Georges Pichard. He first published in Le Rire, then illustrated "Ulysse" with his writer accomplice Jacques Lob, before creating the voluptuous Paulette in the pages of Charlie Mensuel. His immediately recognizable style imposes creatures with exaggerated forms, far removed from the sober standards of Franco-Belgian comics of the time.
The turning point occurs at Glénat. The young publisher from Grenoble allows him to create his first work as a complete author, meaning both script and drawing: "Marie-Gabrielle de Saint-Eutrope." Pichard also publishes with Dominique Leroy, in line with the editorial work initiated by Éric Losfeld.
This freedom comes at a cost. "Marie-Gabrielle en Orient" will be among the albums withdrawn from sale by administrative decision, proof that the censorship commission did not only target the cheap productions of kiosks. However, this did not prevent the work from enduring: Glénat and its subsidiary Drugstore have since reissued the great classics of their catalog, with Pichard at the forefront.
Above all, remember this: with him, erotic comics cease to be an anonymous production of rushed hacks. It becomes a territory where an artist asserts a writing style, a rhythm, a universe, just like his peers working for a broader audience.
Among the signatures that span decades, Erich von Gôtha holds a special place. He is notably responsible for "Janice," a series whose heroine's misfortunes have built its reputation, as well as "Twenty." His work falls within that vein where libertine storytelling, with its carefully crafted settings and highly scripted staging, takes precedence over the accumulation of scenes.
His albums are now featured in the catalog of Dynamite, the comic book department of La Musardine, directed by Christian Marmonnier. It is one of the few structures that has consistently maintained, with regularity and careful presentation, the publication of risqué works when most magazines of the genre were disappearing one after another.
This catalog deliberately mixes nationalities and generations: Italian Roberto Baldazzini ("Casa HowHard," "Beba"), the highly regarded Giovanna Casotto, Igor with "Room 121," Noé, and the Spanish Armas with his "Horny Housewives." Thus, Erich von Gôtha shares space with French, Italian, Spanish, and American creators.
The economic model is worth noting, as it explains the survival of the genre: this production has long relied on a dynamic mail-order sales department, thereby circumventing the hesitance of large retailers and certain booksellers.
America has nurtured the genre through a particular channel: bondage. As early as 1946, the magazine Bizarre created Sweet Gwendoline, a young woman subjected to the most refined tortures. In the early fifties, Irving Klaw's Nutrix launched a whole series of specialized magazines.
To circumvent censorship, the publisher imposed rules with surgical precision: only women appear throughout the pages, never fully naked, blood never flows, genitals remain invisible, and the abuses must not target intimate areas such as breasts or the lower abdomen. Around Eneg and Eric Stanton, a team of artists formed, joined by Jim, Mario, and Antonio Ruiz. Stanton would publish the adventures of Blunder Broad, the clumsy girl, until the mid-nineties, and would disappear in 1999.
From the nineties onwards, American production became more professional. The publisher Fantagraphics Books created the Eros Comix brand, which lined up an impressive number of magazines and albums mixing original creations, reprints of classics, and translations of European series. Playboy and especially Penthouse have their comic book versions, the latter directed by George Caragonne and translated throughout Europe. Veterans like Dan Barry, Gray Morrow, Richard Corben, or John Burns coexist with younger authors (Beachum, Johnson, Coker, Freeman, Texeira) for well-crafted stories with rather toned-down eroticism.
This contemporary American school, with its highly stylized bodies and comic book colors, has eventually made its way to France: Kevin Taylor is among the recent recruits of the Dynamite catalog, alongside Italian and Spanish authors. The Italian monthly Blue has also contributed to circulating these signatures from one country to another.
We often forget that the most respectable houses have also dabbled in the risqué. In 1983, Philippe Bertrand created Linda in the pages of Pilote: a young woman who walks around naked in an ultra-modern apartment, subscribed to a very hardcore channel, surrounded by stunning girls and attractive men. The series continues in Charlie, and three albums are published by Dargaud, before returning to Humanoïdes Associés in 1992. Bertrand's geometric style and refined colors make him a unique case, presenting chic eroticism that is more suggestive than explicit.
At Glénat, Roger Brunel specializes in pastiche. As early as 1978, in the pages of Circus, he brings to life steamy adventures for the great characters of Franco-Belgian comics, those same ones that had captivated the childhood of readers. The formula takes an old American idea but with more charm than vulgarity, to the point that the parodied authors have remained his friends.
Brunel also wrote, from 1985 to 1988, the very steamy adventures of Thomas the Loner for an illustrator who signs as Ardem, a pseudonym for Alain Mounier. The latter exemplifies the double life of these creators: he published "Les Folles nuits de Cryptée" in 1987 in the Marquis collection at Glénat, while drawing "Tango" with Frank Giroud or "Dock 21" with Rodolphe at Dargaud. Many adult comic authors work under another name to avoid alienating morally concerned readers.
Another pillar of this period is Média 1000 and its Adult Comics collection, which launched "Erotic Confessions" in comic form in 1994. The principle is to illustrate the misdeeds recounted by female readers, without a fixed character, featuring explicit titles like "I Was the Toy of a Perverse Couple." Ardem, having become his own writer starting from the second volume, multiplies the settings and situations like a film director.
In 1982, Albin Michel publishers took over L'Écho des Savanes and unhesitatingly directed the magazine towards eroticism. It was here that the French readership discovered several Italian artists: Massimo Rotundo, Magnus, and especially Milo Manara. The latter literally opened the doors of adult comics to a new audience, one that would never have bought a pocket comic at a newsstand.
Manara, however, comes from that very school: like Leone Frollo, Magnus, or Sandro Angiolini, he was among the prominent names employed by the popular magazines of Renzo Barbieri. This illustrates how porous the boundary between newsstand production and bookstore albums was, more than one might think.
His most well-known titles, "The Click" and "The Scent of the Invisible," have become reissued classics, the latter in color, by Glénat and its subsidiary Drugstore. In the 1990s, while the sector contracted everywhere, Manara remained a reliable asset for his French publisher, the one who continued to sell when others fell off.
Alongside him, it is important to mention Guido Crepax, translated in France by Albin Michel, Futuropolis, and Le Square. His eroticism, often deemed hermetic, opened up to a wide audience thanks to his comic adaptations of "Story of O" and "Emmanuelle," the latter having been reissued since in Delcourt's Erotix collection.
Japan, the land of prints, could not remain on the sidelines. Fueled by the considerable success of manga, erotic titles are multiplying there under the impetus of publishers like Mujin and Fujimi Comics. The principle is one of total segmentation: each theme has its own magazine, with a clear preference for nymphets entangled with older men.
These magazines, which contain several hundred pages, are capable of all sorts of boldness, including torture and perversion. There was only one rule, long respected: the depiction of male genitals and pubic hair was prohibited until the late 1990s. Erotic mangas aimed at teenagers also circulate, and sexy covers are displayed in shop windows at newsstands without any problem, which says a lot about the gap in mentality compared to our Western modesty. Among the prolific artists in this production, we note Haruka Inui, U-Jin, Yoshimasa Watanabe, Hiroyuki Utatane, and Yutaka Tanaka.
Distribution in France was initially confidential (Samouraï, Albin Michel, Le Téméraire, Bédé X), and not always straightforward: the manga "Video Girl Aï" from Tonkam was banned from sale in 1996. Some European artists even went so far as to create fake mangas to flatter fans of juvenile heroines. Jean-Michel Berté, with Geisha Éditions, brought together Japanese series ("Ogenki Clinic"), French, and foreign titles in Yoko, Geisha, and then Paméla.
The genre has also diversified into the didactic and the intimate. "Step up love story" by Katsu Aki, launched in 1997 by Hakusensha, describes in detail the daily and sexual life of a young couple, with Makoto being a premature ejaculator and his wife Yura being rather reserved. Everything is explained clearly, sometimes in the form of charts, to the point that the publisher presents it more as a learning manual than as yet another erotic manga: over 16 million volumes sold in the archipelago. In an autobiographical register, the Frenchwoman Aurélia Aurita surprised readers with "Fraise et chocolat," an unabashed account of her love life with the artist Frédéric Boilet, published in Japan in 2005 and then in France the following year.
Some words keep coming up in this story, so it's good to have them in mind.
Eight-Pagers (or Dirty Comics): American booklets of eight pages, cheap paper, pornographic content, often parodies of famous characters, clandestinely distributed from the 1930s to the 1960s.Good Girl Art: American graphic movement from the late 19th and early 20th centuries focused on the drawn beautiful girl, illustration rather than comic strips.Pocket or fumetti per adulti: small Italian formats for adults, sold at newsstands, often featuring recurring heroes, the backbone of the genre from 1962 to 1992.Comics Code Authority: self-censorship code established by the U.S. Congress in October 1954, functionally equivalent to the French law of 1949.Levels of prohibition: in France, level 1 prohibits sales to minors, level 2 adds a ban on display, and level 3 prohibits advertising.
One last useful point: if erotic comics have long disappeared from supermarkets and train stations, it is not only due to commercial modesty. For several years now, the entire chain that publishes and sells a work is responsible for any censorship issues it may encounter, and sellers prefer not to risk their positions.
The beginning of the millennium feels like the end of a game. La Poudre aux Rêves, the French version of the Spanish magazine Kiss Comix, ceased publication in 2004, while Bédé Adult' and Bédé X threw in the towel the following year, leaving most stories unfinished. The Italian magazine Selen, a unique editorial venture launched in 1994 with young authors genuinely caring for their narratives (Luca Tarlazzi, Fernando Caretta, Giovanna Casotto), had already disappeared by 2003.
Then, starting in 2006, everything restarted, driven by a liberated generation often coming from the web. Arthur de Pins entered Fluide Glacial with his "Péchés mignons," drawn on the computer, collected in an album the same year: an immediate success. Delcourt translated "Lost Girls" by Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie at the end of 2007, published without any censorship issues, then released "First Times" in 2008, a collective work orchestrated by Sibylline, followed by Zep's "Happy Sex" in 2009, the first true bestseller of the genre in a long time.
The movement then expanded in all directions: Delcourt's Erotix collection reissued out-of-print classics (Crepax, Magnus, Frollo, Buzzelli, Lévis), Fluide Glacial launched the quarterly Fluide.G in 2010, Les Requins Marteaux returned to the spirit of pockets with their BDcul collection, Petit à Petit editions adapted texts from our literature into comics (raunchy tales, erotic poems), and female cartoonists' blogs became breeding grounds for albums.
What to remember from this tumultuous century is that erotic comics have never been a monolith: they range from hastily produced kiosk pamphlets to the most refined author albums, from parody to intimate storytelling, from American bondage to Japanese sexuality manuals. If you're interested in the subject, the best entry point remains the carefully curated reissues of classics, easier to find than the originals, and don't hesitate to ask at bookstores: the real barrier has never been the reader, but the fear of censors.
Author Audrey on 04 September 2023
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