Graphic Novel Spotlight: Nightlife by Dale Lazarov
As you might recall we at Jack Manly are comic book and graphic novel readers and fans---everything from super-hero comics to alternative comics and gay erotica. Most super-hero comics and graphic novels from the major publishers pretty much get plenty of press and publicity but the alternative comics genre, especially gay erotica, doesn't get nearly the attention that it warrants. We've written about several gay erotic creators, artists, etc before and today we'd like to spotlight Dale Lazarov and his exceptional collection Nightlife published by Bruno Gmunder.
Nightlife is a nicely sized 80-page collection of gay erotic comics stories featuring men from various backgrounds meeting up at night in a variety of locations. Written by Dale Lazarov and illustrated by Bastian Jonsson each story in Nightlife tells what happens sexually after each of these couples meet. What you'll find in each of these stories is the Lazarov touch--a dialog-free narrative, combining hot sex with fun & romantic situations and featuring hot and realistic masculine men. We highly recommend Nightlife and if you want to see more you can find a full 6 page excerpt of Nightlife at the Gay/Lesbian Excerpts blog.
We've been following Dale Lazarov for several years ever since his first series Sticky first saw print. It was originally a three-issue series published Eros, the erotic comics line of alternative comics publisher Fantagraphics. Sticky was a unique story in comics publishing at the time and really stood out because Eros was more than 90% straight content. It also stood out because the "story within a story" narrative contained no word balloons or dialog--so it could definitely reach a wider international audience. As illustrated by Steve MacIsaac the series was cleanly drawn and simple but remarkably sexy.
Sticky was eventually compiled into a graphic novel by Bruno Gmunder and followed up by Lazarov's second book Manly illustrated by Amy Colburn. Again, the simply & cleanly drawn stories were the combination of erotic & romantic found in the first series and clearly established the Dale Lazarov style. Finally, this year you can expect to see Fancy illustrated by Delic Van Loond. For a great interview with Dale Lazarov be sure and check out Comics Reporter. This piece from the summer of 2009 will give you a good sense of what he and his work are all about.
That leads us to our current connection with Dale Lazarov. Through Twitter we learned that he also has an outstanding blog dedicated to the art of the late legendary Superman comics artist Curt Swan. Swanderful is a touching appreciation of an artist who drew the Man of Steel for decades and whose interpretation is still considered the benchmark for all other artists. Check out the blog and you'll see how his choice of artists on his gay erotic comics clearly reflect his love for Curt Swan art. As Swan fans ourselves we love the blog for the art and the fun trip we take down memory lane.
Posted by JackManly at 1/15/2010 1:12 PM 
Categories: comics and graphic novels, news
Tags: Dale Lazarov
Categories: comics and graphic novels, news
Tags: Dale Lazarov
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