We wanted someone that could make someone into whips and chains and hoods look like someone you could take home to meet your parents. We wanted an artist who could take short, pithy personal ads - short, pithy, filthy personal ads - and infuse them with the kind of playfulness that true kinksters bring to their sex lives. And we didn’t want to hyper-sexualize what was already plenty sexual. We didn’t want to sensationalize what was already pretty sensational, thanks.

« So when we decided to start running a weekly illustrated personal ad - ‘Lustlab Ad of the Week’ - we knew right away what we didn’t want. I’ll let Dan Savage and Corianton Hale recount the tale: Which brings us to Ellen Forney, who, for a span of four glorious years, illustrated choice excerpts from Seattle alternative paper The Stranger’s personals… oh, never mind. To understand what she means, I refer you to this particular story, which I showcased last fall. The fact that my drawing was comic helped him get away with more than he could with other artists. « Those were all Joe’s productions, and there was nothing he liked better than to get around the Comics Code. Not long ago, I chanced upon this passage from an interview with the lovely Ramona Fradon, wherein she touches upon her mid-70s work for Joe Orlando‘s ‘mystery’ comics at DC. I’ve been musing a bit on the old Trojan Horse / Pill in the Hamburger scheme. May I land my kinky machine? » - Jimi Hendrix « Your mysterious mountains I wish to see closer.

The Hospital Horror by Otto Binder