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Black Kiss II #1 (of 6) Review

By Dan Horn
August 2, 2012 - 14:17

The original Vortex comic series Black Kiss by Howard Chaykin was remarkably controversial when it was released in 1988 because of its explicit explorations of deviant eroticism and other morally repugnant themes. Twenty-four years later, there's been somewhat of a smut inflation. The novelty of penises penetrating vaginas and pervasive violence has surely been worn thin in an age where we are inundated by both fictional and non-fictional bloodshed and pornography is accessible at any time and can even be summoned nigh-instantaneously from your smart phone right into the palm of your off hand. So, while Chaykin's late sequel, Black Kiss II from Image Comics, strives to be just as visually jarring as its predecessor (and it is by far the most sexually explicit book I can recall Image publishing), times have certainly changed, whether the book confounds UK Customs or not.

So, then it's not Chaykin's images of a transsexual hydra-headed phallus metaphorically, but brutally, raping theater-goers or of a succubus anally raping a virgin man as the Titanic capsizes that make this book so amorally striking, but Chaykin's malevolent narrative. This book is certainly demented and sexually graphic, but it's the writer/artist's brilliantly devilish and deplorably deranged voice that will make your stomach turn and your bile creep into your craw. It's a challenging read, spiritually.

Black Kiss II #1 is a collection of two vignettes, and one of the starring characters will be instantly recognized by fans of the original series (which makes me wonder if you have to be familiar with Black Kiss to fully enjoy Black Kiss II #1), but this issue doesn't seem to reside within the confines of linear narrative like its predecessor. Black Kiss II appears to be more concerned with eliciting symbolic and subtextual evils as they pertain to American culture.

Chaykin's eloquent command of the English language and its scatological counterparts reinforces his unnerving attempts to draw these deep-seeded demons out of the reader's subconscious, and while the book is at times grotesquely illustrative of the subject matter on which Chaykin focuses, the writer's narrative retains a finessed subtlety. Chaykin also accomplishes this without demeaning or objectifying any one outgroup singularly, and perhaps it's that unrelentingly level valuation of humanity in these stories that constitutes their gut-wrenching psychological impact.

Anyway, I was thinking we should all get together and have an intervention for our friend Howard. I think he's not quite right in the head.

Rating: 9 /10

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12