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Before I begin this review, I should issue a caveat: I don’t understand, from a purely intellectual standpoint, the appeal of softcore (erotic) pictures; that is to say, singular pictures – as opposed to comics – in which the picture is just there, with no further exposition. Oh, I get it on a purely visceral level; I like looking at sexy women as much as any guy, after all. But from a more rational standpoint, it seems frustrating. Yeah, the lady in the pic looks arousing in her skimpy get-up, positioned to seem like she’s just about to expose her naughty bits…but they’re still not visible. Moreover, they’ll never be visible – you can stare at the picture for as long as you want, but she’ll never move. The whole thing is one big tease with no payoff. It’s arousal based on an implied promise which is never fulfilled. It was with that in mind that I cautiously approached the last XXXenophile book, aptly titled “Quick & Dirty.”
A short “ashcan edition” (I looked that up. It means a short comic published for legal reasons, which was not originally intended for distribution), this brief XXXenophile collection brings together a brief (six page) comic and about a dozen single-page drawings. Bearing in mind the definition of what an “ashcan” comic is, the cynic in me can’t help but wonder if the latter drawings were produced purely to make enough padding so that the comic could be published.
But let’s go over the specifics. The book is all black and white, and is twenty-six pages long. Two of these are the ubiquitous “brown paper covers” at the very beginning and end of the book, though those still seem odd on a PDF publication. There are two pages of ads right before the end, though calling them “ads” is a bit disingenuous, as they’re mostly just hawking the website for XXXenophile, and each page still has erotic drawings on them. Similarly, the first four pages of the comic consist of the real cover, an image of a sexy witch and a notice that that’s available on various things at their shop, a bonus image of a scantily clad chick from the back (in fact, it’s Natch, from XXXenophile Volume 6), and then an introduction to the short comic (and also has an unrelated naughty pic).
The introduction lays out the backstory for the comic. In fact, this comic features the return of the adventuring party from XXXenophile Volume 6 (just the heroes, none of the villains). The blurb tells us that this comic was drawn first (though chronologically it pretty clearly takes place after vol. 6) as a piece for the XXXenophile RPG (which has since become vaporware), and that Phil liked it so much he eventually made a full-length story for the characters.
The comic itself is fairly brief, but very satisfying (vague sexual innuendo intended). Sooja, the wizard of the adventuring party, has been turned evil by a cursed gem. The rest of the heroes catch her by surprise, however, when they agree to her ultimatum to join her as her servants on her diabolical mission of conquest…and are all too eager to prove their desire to “serve” her. Of course, you can probably guess this is all a distraction to get to the cursed gem, and you’d be right, but hey, it’s an excuse for some gratuitous sex (something that happens a lot with this particular party) so who cares? The joke at the end of the strip is rather amusing, too.
On its own merits, the comic isn’t too bad. The plot is quite thin, and the pacing is rather fast (to the point where even Sooja is surprised at how quickly things develop), but what can you expect from a comic of a half-dozen pages? The sex scenes, which comprise the bulk of the material, are quite well-done and thoroughly raunchy. However, the best part of this by far is how this comic brings back together established characters from the previous volume. While it works on its own, this comic is much more fun if you’ve already followed the previous adventure of this group from volume 6, bringing back the fun characters you got to know over that volume. It’s great seeing them again, and worth the price of the comic unto itself.
The dozen pictures that follow this are so diverse that they can’t really be summed up in any brief statement. These images are all over the map in what they depict, with no real unifying theme…but then, what else would you expect from a compilation of this nature? The pictures range from quite provocative (a pierced demon-girl lubing up her strap-on and leering at another demon-girl) to demure (a male and female centaur, embracing each other as they kiss deeply), from somewhat normal (an almost naked warrior woman poses with her sword) to rather weird (a naked woman kneels in a pumpkin patch…and her head is a jack-o-lantern…). The one commonality in all of these images is their softcore nature. Some display a healthy amount of T&A, some playfully cover the naughty bits, but in none of them will you see any actual genitalia (one pic possibly notwithstanding), let alone intercourse. A couple of the pictures have captions which explain some aspect to them (such as one for an unused Buck Godot page) which is a nice feature, but it only happens for three of the pics…again, a frustrating reminder of how we could get a little more, but are denied.
If I sound a bit piqued over the nature of the pictures, rest assured I’m not blaming the book for it. It’s quite literally doing the best it can with the material it has. I’m glad for getting more of Phil’s artwork that would otherwise have been lost, and I’m especially glad for the comic – it’s just that the layout goes from depicting full-on hardcore sex to more restrained, teasing pictures…exactly the opposite of how a good erotic product should be laid out. It’s the literary equivalent of a premature ejaculation, where the most erotic material happens immediately when you begin, proving to be short but very intense, and after that the remaining erotic material is more restrained, and doesn’t seem as fun after what you just experienced – it really would have been better if it had happened the other way around. Ultimately, calling this volume “Quick & Dirty” is even more apropos than I think even the creator intended, and that’s the one letdown to what’s otherwise a very enjoyable time.
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