M/M Pulp Stick Figure Theater

A part of me loves old pulp covers. I think they're awesome and hilarious. Another part of me loves gay romance books because I also think they're awesome and amazing (and sometimes hilarious.)

Then a mysterious third part of me (I'm not sure where it is, somewhere behind my eyeballs) loves the idea of gay romance pulp covers, ala Paul Richmond's Cheesecake Boys or the fantastically pulpy covers of M.J. Pearson's gay regency romances. (Yes, they exist! It. Is. Awesome.)

Unfortunately, I'm not Paul Richmond and am too lazy/unskilled to draw hot guys swooning over each other in various stages of nakedness, with cool call-outs in text surrounding them, like "He knew NO SHAME" or "He said goodbye to virtue, and hello TO THE NIGHT."

What I can do is stick figures though, in various stages of not-obvious nakedness, and mediocre call-outs to some of my fave gay romances.

Why? I dunno. Boredom? And because I love them? I feel like that's reason enough to draw messy stick figures fondling each other.

Now on to M/M Pulp Stick Figure Theater! 

New! 

Among the Living by Jordan Castillo Price. #1 in the awesome Psycop series, which is set in our world except psychic abilities exist. Chicago cop Victor Bayne enjoys coasting through life, except he's always hounded by ghosts since he's the only one who can see them. Things change in Among the Living though, since Victor faces a killer so thorough, not even ghosts are left behind. (That, and of course, Jacob Marks forces his way into Victor's bubble of non-committed living.) Great series.

Zero at the Bone by Jane Saville. I think of it as the mothership for m/m romances about an assassin who falls for his target. It's super long, and it is awesome.

Muscling Through by J.L. Merrow. Wonderful contemporary romance novella about Al, a big guy who many consider not-too-bright, and his sweet-sweet love for Larry, a posh professor. 

Fatal Shadows by Josh Lanyon. The first in the five-part Adrien English Mysteries series, and one of the first gay mystery romances I read. Excellent first-person narrator. Really fun books.

Burying the Lead

Sometime ago, I had a comic idea about a guy who goes into an interview for a position, but he goes in under the unclear guidance from a hiring company, who had only told him that the company he was applying for "made video games," He knew nothing else. He went to a big blocky building in Kirkland, and couldn't find info about the video games around the lobby or front office area, but he's called into the interview, and is in front of a panel of people.

Faced with the question, "What do you like about our game?" the hapless interviewee finds himself BS-ing his way through, and just makes up a fake video game. He talks about the "riveting conflict" and the "tragic back-story" and the "amazing character development" and just makes a bunch of shit up. At one point, he's interrupted by someone who asks, "Do you even know what we do here?" And the interviewee, still riding his creative high from his made-up glorious game, retorts back, "DO YOU???" In the end, he stomps out of the interview, declaring that his idea for this awesome game is "MINE-ALL-MINE!" and he runs away.

Later, his roommate finds him at his laptop, posting fanart for his own made-up, still non-existent game "Trash Can Terror," which is about a rancid trash can and a recycle bin that fight crime. "You already slashed them??" his roommate asks, pointing at the screen to a messily drawn picture of the recycle bin slowing entering the trash can's opening. "You're making...porn???"

"It was going to happen anyway!" yells the failed-interviewee as he draws another panel. The Recycle Bin is blushing as he sinks down into Rancid Bin's warm, enveloping heat. "I call them Rancycle."

This whole thing came out of me almost applying to a nebulous job that only referred to the employer as "Game Company in Kirkland" but demanded throughout the job requirements that you would need to have "extension knowledge and love of the company's (unspecified) game."

But like my failed interviewee, I got so caught up in the thought of the fake video game, that all I came up with in the end was my slash Rancyle pairing.