Dale Lazarov is the writer of quality hardcover gay erotic comics such as STICKY
, drawn by Steve MacIsaac, MANLY
, drawn by Amy Colburn, and the newly published NIGHTLIFE
, drawn by Bastian Jonsson. Being a life-long fan of gay erotic comics myself, I jumped at the opportunity to interview Dale and bring all of you three great last minute gift ideas at the same time! Without further ado, what follows is the first of our email exchanges over several days comprising the interview. Enjoy! (And be sure to click on the links and images to get your own copies of these amazing books from Amazon.com!)
ACE: Dale, I’m starting with the dumbest question I’ve got: if there are no words in the finished product, what exactly are you writing?
Dale: That’s not a dumb question and it’s one I love the opportunity to respond to at length.
First, I pitch the story idea to the artist to see if it connects with them. Once I get their OK, I write what they call in comics a “full script” which breaks the story down into pages and the pages into panels. Artists are free to interpret the script and add to or subtract panels from the pages which works perfectly if the artist is true to the feel of the story and keeps the story, character and sexual choreography beats in the script.
I basically write transcripts for silent gay erotic comics I imagine in my head. First, I write a description of the protagonists so the artists can send me character designs based on them. Then, I write a script that details, page by page, the flow of the story, the character interactions, the sexual choreography, etc. I only write down what needs to be on the page and don’t spend a lot of time with incidental details. Since my gay erotic comics lack captions and dialogue, I write stories that work visually.
Then the rest of it is editorial work. The artists send me character designs and I give them feedback and/or corrections if needed. Then they send me layouts of the pages to see if the storytelling, body language and the design of the page is clear. Then I see either pages in process of pencils and/or inks to give more specific notes on the expressiveness and anatomy of the rendered illustration. Most changes I ask for are minor as I work with very talented illustrators who really get what a comic is and does and also know how to show hypermasculine carnality with inner sweetness through sequential art.
Here’s a brief sample of “Fair Cop”, a script I wrote last week for Chas Hunter, a Canadian illustrator who lives in London. I pitched him a story about a sexy chav (the UK equivalent of a “hip hop gangsta”) and Chas suggested we hook him up with a policeman at a park when he’s out walking his dog. Since the idea of cops and toughs hooking up in parks is very Tom of Finland, my challenge was to make it new and interesting while keeping what makes that kind of ToF story very hot. Since Chas said he wanted to try drawing in a bande dessinée (European comics) style that is slightly more cartoony than American comics styles, I wrote the script with this in mind as well, and made the chav’s dog a little more of a supporting character like Tintin’s dog. There’s something really perverse and fun for me in pornifying art styles not associated with filth — say, Amy Colburn drew MANLY’s butches in an animated Disney art style! — so I instantly got into the idea of using Eurocomics tropes for making hypermasculine gay sex comics filth.
I hope this script excerpt gives you a sense of the scripting part of the process.
***
PROTAGONISTS
Gaz — He’s 22, 5′9″ and combines the outer masculine confidence of a tough guy hustler with the inner cuteness of a boy. His hair and beard are 1-inch in length. His bling is all platinum and he likes his track suits classic rather than overdecorated. His most significant features are the enormous pectorals that no track jacket zipper can contain; he has a cute little boyish butt, too. He has a little bulldog named Kinnell (as in “fuckinnell!”)
Ved — He’s 25, 6′2″, and looks like he should be doing Bollywood movies as he is incredibly chiseled and handsome with elegant chest hair covering chest, legs arms and butt. But he’s a British bobby. He has thick, wavy but very well cut hair under his helmet and neatly-trimmed facial hair of your choice. (“Any style of facial hair is allowed in British police forces as long as it is neatly trimmed.”) You know what a bobby outfit looks like; at the end of the story, he’s wearing a metrosexual but sports-casual outfit.
Please keep in mind that these are all night scenes on the street unless I note that it’s during the day. The point is that Gaz has to give Kinnell his night walkies and Ved is the night beat patrolman for the area.
PAGE 1
Panel 1 — At street level, we see Gaz’s awesome shoes as he walks Kinnell who trots happily right next to him. Kinnell looks like the happiest dog in the world. We’re on an East End street lateish at night.
Panel 2 — Now we see Gaz from shoes to cap — he is iconographically a chav only especially homoerotically so. He’s smoking a cigarrette and looking like he owns the world. However, he is not performing “sexy” as boldly as he does in the following pages: his trainer jacket is zipped up, his trainer pants are floppy, etc. We now see the details of this street that establish this is “East End London”. Across the street there’s a park where the protagonists will have sex.
Panel 3 — Gaz checks his cellphone as Kinnell smells a post office box. The cellphone is important to a later development in the relationship so let’s plant it here.
Panel 4 — Kinnell pees on the post office box. Gaz looks up as if he’s been startled. Ved lifts his helmet slightly to greet Gaz as Ved walks his beat.
Panel 5 — Gaz looks at Ved walking away. Wow, that is one hot bobby with the classic tapered V shoulder and waist. Ved has a massively huge butt but we can’t see it under the jacket — or maybe we do.
PAGE 2
Panel 1: Another night, another awesome Chav outfit for Gaz as he walks his dog: this time, he’s wearing a zip-up hoodie. As he’s “escalating the sexy”, consciously or unconsciously, the hoodie is zipped open to the midwaist and the trainer pants are a bit tighter on butt and pubes. He’s wearing one of those extremely homoerotic 70’s style undershirts that cut right between abs and man-cleavage. On the back of the hoodie, it says EXTERMINATE! in black and silver Dalek 60s comic-strip lettering that have been expensively machine-sewn onto the cloth. (Reference: http://www.solarnavigator.net/images/dalek_amiga_computer_attack_game.jpg )
Panel 2: Gaz picks up Kinnell’s poop with a plastic bag. Wow, he has such a hot little boyish ass! Kinnell looks at Gaz’s butt like he’s saying, yup, that’s my master’s hot butt…
Panel 3: Gaz stands up with the bag of poop in his hands to see Ved walking in his direction.
Panel 4: Ved, down on one knee, scratches Kinnell while looking up making friendly small talk with Gaz. Nothing untoward is happening, other than the body language and panel framing aligns Gaz’s basket with Ved’s mouth and Gaz has his hands on his waist, spreading his hoodie open…
Panel 5: They wave each other goodbye…
PAGE 3
Panel 1: Another night, another awesome Chav outfit for Gaz as he walks his dog: a three-tone trainer suit with matching cap. The trainer jacket is wide open to reveal he is wearing a VERY tight, 70s gay guy criss-cross cable knit wifebeater which shows more skin than clothes it and cuts above his waist, with his tight jogger pants almost showing pubes and the top of his designer jockstrap and, on the back, most definitely showing buttcrack. Kinnell looks up at Gaz like, uh, I don’t need to pee, what’s this all about?
Panel 2: We are now looking at Gaz, from Gaz’s side of the street, spotting Ved across the street, on the side of the street where the park is but walking in the opposite direction. Ved is twirling his baton and whistling; a tiny, pretty bande dessinee musical note comes out of his lips.
Panel 3: We now reverse the frame and are now looking at Ved, from Ved’s side of the street, responding to the VERY loud wolf-whistle that Gaz is throwing at him from across the street. Gaz is using his fingers to help himself whistle and the bande dessinee musical note emerging from his mouth is HUGE and POTENT.
Panel 4: Facing down both sides of the street. They kind of stare at each other in misunderstanding.
TITLE: FAIR COP
PAGE 4
Panel 1 — from the same position as panel 3 of page 3, Ved responds calmly as Gaz, with one arm, holds one side of his jacket open to reveal his body like a flasher, and, with another, pulls down on his pants and jock strap to reveal his beautiful, hardening penis.
Panel 2 — from the same position as panel 2 of page 3, we see Ved walking into the park. He’s signaling, with an amusingly cliché police waved pointed hand, the direction in which he should be followed.
Panel 3 — Same position as panel 1 of this page, only without Ved. We see Gaz jogging playfully towards us with his pants held under his balls and his dick still out, bobbing about with the movement. Now Gaz is cheerfully whistling a tiny, pretty bande dessinee musical note. Kinnell runs next to him, looking like he’s saying “I should have guessed”…
Panel 4 — Gaz finds Ved inside a bush with his huge dark brown cock and balls sticking out of his unzippered pants fly. Gaz and Ved make friendly eye contact so it doesn’t seem very anonymous. It’s kind of a neighborly or public service sort of engagement! Kinnell looks blasé.
***
And that’s the end of part one of this interview. While I work on bringing you part two, take a look at the books:





