Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, comixology, entertainment, gay, lgbt

ComiXology Rejects Dale Lazarov's First-To-Digital Gay Erotic Comics

ComiXology carry a number of sexually explicit comic books such as Black Kiss and Sex from Image Comics. They are not available through Apple's iOS but can be purchased through the digital distributor's main site. But not all books are so lucky.

Dale Lazarov, gay erotic comics writer/editor, writes,

Hello, bleeders! Here's an illustrated version of an e-mail I sent earlier today to John D. Roberts, Director of ComiXology Submit & Digital Storytelling. He'd just informed me that ComiXology is not publishing my comics Bulldogs #1 and Nightlife #4, two first-to-digital comics I submitted early in Summer 2013 for digital distribution. Annotations are in brackets.

So I replied, saying,

Hey, John —

Gotta tell you, an 8-month response time is excessive. I would have submitted more comics — I have 7 other digital comics available, both backlist and first-to-digital — but, since I saw comics by friends that were submitted after mine go on ComiXology Submit, I expected your reticence and, honestly, reciprocated it.

Let me know if you decide to make a dedicated site for adult digital comics, though. We're about to hit 1000 digital comics sales as we enter our third month with Selz.

I have two new hardcovers of gay comics smut coming out from Bruno Gmünder Verlag this year and I have the digital rights to those, too. And I expect to have three more first-to-digital comics ready for publication in the next six months.

[Pictured above: The Amazon US listing for GREEK LOVE. Please pardon the Engrish copy; I didn't write it. Last I checked, GREEK LOVE was #7 in the Gay and Lesbian graphic novels best-seller list and it's not coming out until April 1st. :-D Here's the Amazon UK listing for GREEK LOVE.]

Here are the back-cover blurbs for GREEK LOVE and FAST FRIENDS, coming out in hardcover this year:

"Bluntly put, Dale Lazarov and his artists do beautiful books. I've loved them since the first one I saw–and this one is no different. Sensuous, sexy, hot as hell, it's rough and tender by turns, and if erotic art is your thing, you'll love this one too! It's a pleasure and honor for me to tell you just what a treat lies ahead for you. Buy it, read it, and read it again."

–Samuel R. Delany, author of Dhalgren, Hogg, and Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders

"FAST FRIENDS is like a classic gay short novel executed entirely in pictures and without words–the silence makes the story even more seductive. It's pulp fiction transformed into art: erotic, real and surprisingly tender. People often forget that genitals, even male genitals, can connect to the heart. A lovely piece of work." — Christopher Bram, best-selling author of Gods and Monsters and Eminent Outlaws: The Gay Writers Who Changed America

Cheers,

Dale Lazarov

As of this writing, I have not received a response.

No explanation was given for ComiXology's decision not to carry the other comics I submitted. It can't be because of their quality. And it can't be said that we didn't try to make it work. Here's the graphic design kludge that I and Bastian Jonsson came up with last year, at Comixology's request, to make the covers of our comics acceptable for display through their interface:

Ah, brown paper bag: you vessel for safely carrying comics and/or porn home safely and discreetly!

___

Dale Lazarov is a writer/editor of smart, wholesome gay comics smut drawn by distinctive and evocative illustrators such as Steve MacIsaac, Chas Hunter, Bastian Jonsson and Drub. He has published five hardcovers of gay erotic comics through Bruno Gmünder Verlag in the past nine years and self-publishes digital reprint and first-to-digital homoerotic erotic comics through Selz. His website with very NSFW page samples is at http://www.dalelazarov.com/. He lives in Chicago.

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