Porn Valley- [goodcomics.com]- Writer Neil Strauss co-wrote Jenna Jameson’s autobiography, How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale. Former comic book artist Bernard Chang (he did a lot of work for Valiant, but did some Marvel work as well, including an issue of X-Men in the mid-90s) drew illustrations for the book. So afterwards, Strauss decided to use some of the multitude of stories about the porn industry he learned from being around Jameson to do a graphic novel about the porn industry. Chang supplies the artwork. The result is a fairly prominent disappointment, especially as it appears to fly in the very face of what Strauss claimed in press materials to try to be doing here, which is to write an actual examination of the porn industry, which is an interesting enough concept. However, he appears to have convinced himself that that is not interesting enough, so more than half the book is this absurd plot without a basis in reality, while less than half of the book is an actual examination of the porn industry.
The decision is an odd one, and, ultimately, I think a poor one.
Bernard Chang embraces a real cartoony style, and I think, for the most part, it works for the project, as part of Strauss’ approach is to treat the world of the adult film industry as a sort of disturbing cartoon. There are parodies of comic book ads and activity books mixed in throughout the graphic novel, between chapters. Some fairly ribald stuff.
In any event, the story is about Claudia Corvette, a composite figure of various porn stars Strauss met while working on Jameson’s book. When Strauss details her background, it is pretty interesting (if also fairly cliched). And if you really know nothing about the porn industry, this stuff really would come as a revelation, but with the amount of movies and TV series that have discussed the porn industry, I find it hard to believe there are all that many people who don’t know the basics behind the porn industry (heck, as my pal Jake reminded me, there is a whole issue of Desolation Jones that is practically all about the porn industry).
Strauss, though, spends most of the comic on this bizarre plot involving a sultan who trained Claudia in the art of lovemaking to present to his son, the prince, for his birthday, but she betrayed the sultan by (lordy) crushing the son’s penis with her highly trained vagina. See how lame that is? The prince now has a special prosthetic penis with razor blades on it, and he is hunting her down to get revenge. Meanwhile, her porn director husband just left her, so Claudia goes to get revenge on the porn star he left her for, but she gets into the cab of some psychopath who is obsessed with her.
He kidnaps her, and rapes her – and then we find out – he’s her half-brother! WACKY, huh??
That’s right, Strauss has decided to play the rape for laughs! Awesome!!
In any event, there are a bunch of crazy, wacky action scenes and the whole thing ends up mostly happily ever after.
But really, reading the book, all you are struck by are some of the bizarre choices Strauss makes.
1. Combining a true-to-life story of the porn industry with a wacky action movie plot.
2. Playing the incestual rape for laughs
3. Not spending nearly enough time on the actual lives of porn stars
It is just a mess of a graphic novel, although the art by Chang is good, and when he is playing it straight, Strauss does a good job (and the parodies between chapters are cute).
Not recommended.