Everybody has fantasies, about power, fame, adventure, or sex. Lots of them are about sex.
Like getting it on with that hot girl or guy at the office/in the apartment across the hall/that you see on the bus, having a tryst with a favorite celebrity, or being alone with an adult film star. The chances of these fantasies coming true hover some insignificant distance away from zero, but that doesn’t stop the human brain from creating them, lingering over them, caressing them, and returning to them again and again. But if presented with their fantasies, how many people would actually have the guts or ability to perform as they’ve dreamed? Damned few, that’s how many.
This is the premise of Sexy Losers, created by hard. The title is quite apt, since the characters in Sexy Losers are either losers in the literal sense, by failing or being denied the opportunity when they think they’ve gotten their chance, or losers in the figurative sense, by engaging in acts that place them out beyond the pale. But it also is a gag (interesting choice of words, that) strip, using these characters and their sexual foibles to poke fun at sex and sexuality.
Did I say “foibles?" I meant “freakish behavior." Sexy Losers has necrophilia, coprophagy, incest, bondage, golden showers, bestiality, constant masturbation, bukkake (a Japanese term for men ejaculating on a woman’s face), and plenty of other weird shit. A reader has more than his or her share of fetishes, positions, and bodily fluids. But is Sexy Losers funny?
That will depend on the reader’s tolerance for sexually explicit material. Simply put, if you don’t like looking at pictures of people having sex, or talking about sex, or of exposed genitalia, then don’t even think about reading. If you think you can handle what hard is dishing out, then you will indeed find some laughs. In the commentary to the very first strip hard gives his motivation behind starting Sexy Losers: “[I wanted Sexy Losers to be] adult humor the way it was meant to be — not with sex as the punchline, but sex as the medium to which explore what makes sex and all its weird little quirks funny." This is a worthy goal, since the phrase “sexual humor" probably makes most people think of the cartoons found in Hustler, not an intelligent examination of the humor that is present in human sexuality.
Sexy Losers starts out promisingly enough, poking fun at what men must think of women who draw or write erotica, how a fanboy might react if his animated fantasy girl was made flesh, and some pretty clever movie parodies. Unfortunately, over the course of the strip’s archives, hard loses sight of his original motivation and in fact winds up using sex as the punchline more and more. Sexy Losers is more often Hustler material than not.
Worse yet, hard begins recycling the same jokes over and over. Touro attempts to seduce Madame X, but fails and is humiliated. Mike likes masturbating out in the open, to the mortification of his roommate Mark. Shiunji only likes having sex with dead people. Chie, the bukkake actress, can’t go on a date without winding up with a face full of semen. After a while, it stops being funny and becomes merely tedious. A joke about bukkake is the X-rated equivalent of a pie in the face, and when was the last time you thought that was funny? When Jim Davis repeats his jokes he is regularly and rightly pilloried, so there is absolutely no reason for a webtoonist to expect to get away with it. At least Davis took ten or fifteen years to get to that point.
Sexy Losers is much better when hard stays away from his established characters and storylines. A short series about a pair of magician lovers is imaginative, as are the new products introduced by the staff of Scientific Erotican magazine. These strips are much closer to hard’s stated vision for Sexy Losers, poking fun at sex and sexuality without using intercourse or orgasm as the joke itself.
In part, Sexy Losers succeeds in its mission to produce sophisticated adult humor, but taken as a whole, it is no more sophisticated than Howard Stern or Porky’s. If that’s the sort of adult humor you like, then head on over to Sexy Losers, because it will give you what you want. Otherwise, it just may make you feel disappointed, used, and sticky.
I’ve posted my own review in the General Discussions area here. I disagree strongly with some of your conclusions, and felt it needed to be longer than a quick comment here. —Al
Xerexes suggested I put this here, since it’ll stay, so…
A second opinion on Sexy Losers:
The recent review of Sexy Losers—such as it was…prompts a lot of thoughts from me, and I don’t think a short little comment to the main article will really do it justice.
You see, I LIKE Sexy Losers. On several levels, and not just the hormonal.
For one thing, the art is good…manga-influenced without being slavishly so….but surprisingly, given the subject matter, not that sexy, though very sexual. The women in SORE THUMBS are much more appealing than Kentai’s sexy mom, for instance.
But more intriguing, the jokes tend to be, for me, unexpectedly good and original in the oddest situations. Most sexual comic strips make the mistake of making the sex the punchline. Hard doesn’t—instead the sex becomes the means by which we GET to the punchline. And that makes all the difference. For instance, the recent Scientic Eroticon strip where the female scientist brags that she’d NEVER be so desperate that she’d need to use a machine for sexual satisfaction—then cut to her using a vibrator. The punchline is the irony, how many women would say the same thing—and then hypocritically do the same thing…as the female scientist. Not the fact that she’s pleasuring herself–it’s how she’s doing it that’s ironic, therefore funny.
Does he repeat themes? Undoubtedly. The bukkake star, Kentai’s horny mom, whatsisname the necrophiliac, the jerkoff guy—but I’ve never seen any out-and-out duplication of a joke. Instead, I see different riffs off a theme….an old and revered practice (Exactly HOW many times did Lucy jerk that football out from under Charlie Brown?) It’s not like Garfield wolfing down lasagna for the twentieth time. These are elaborations on a theme—albeit in sexually explicit comics, not in music.
Do some of the comics gross me out? Of course. They’re MEANT to. I have to brace myself when they do the necrophiliac guy, and the fact that he says things and does things I would never do in a million years nevertheless allows me to see a funny side even to the biggest gross-out among the lusts. Ditto the incest-wish of Kentai’s honry mom. But when her son’s girlfriend became her lover, did I laugh?
Bet yer boots.
When her husband went to the camera shop to get the best camera and film possible to film said lovers, did I laugh?
Bet your boots.
Now, some things he HAS carried on too long. Bringing back the dead girl from the grave to meet the necrophiliac guy was a bit much. Let her die and stay dead, already. But that’s a minor cavil. Other bits have been interesting—like that girl who liked him and pretended to be dead just so he would sleep with her, and how it ruined it for him when he found out she was alive.
The madame X thingees are not a big favorite of mine—the situations aren’t repetitive, but the last (and first) panel almost always is.
Still, I LAUGH at this. Which is more than I can say for—to mention something that IS on Keenspot—the (deliberately) crudely drawn and often gross-out to the point of being offensive, and usually (to me only, it seems) unfunny LOOK WHAT I BROUGHT HOME. The main difference between the two is that Hard is a much better artist, and that the jokes are funnier—and that he actually shows genitalia instead of endlessly talking about them.
I don’t really blame some of Keenspot being —uncomfortable—with the idea of Sexy Losers joining their lineup. They live by their advertising revenue, and R-rated movies do much better financially than NC-17 for much the same reason.
But as an artist, Hard compares well with Poe, of ERRANT STORY, and his jokes are quite good. He’ll never be a mainstream artist, but for what he does, I’m hard-put (no pun intended) to think of a sexually explicit comic that makes me smile or laugh as much.
And that’s what it’s all about, right?
This is meant as no disrespect to the reviewer you used—but I think a dissenting opinion is needed.
—Al
“Sexy Losers is much better when hard stays away from his established characters and storylines.”
WTF kind of comment is that?!
How long have you been reading comics? I personally just started a year ago and even I know that established characters help keep readers coming back for more.
Also, I picked up quite the prudish attitude in this review.
“Sexy Losers” isn’t trying to tap into reader’s fantasies. It’s more like putting a sarcastic twist on the Japanese comics that do try to tap into reader’s fantasies.
Perhaps the review of such an intelligent and perceptive comic should have been done by someone who is actually perceptive and intelligent.
The thing I find with Hard’s character driven strips such as Chie is you may well see where it’s going, but you don’t know how it’s going to get there.
You may well know that by the end of the strip Chie is going to end up with a face full of spooge, but it’s the way Hard delivers us this face full of spooge that keeps us coming back. Like snowflakes, Hard’s bukkake is never the same spooge twice.
That’s what keeps us coming back for more.
And here I thought it was all because of the sex
You know, it occures to me that the Chei strips on Sexy Losers are a lot like the clothesline strips on your comic. We all know how they’re going to end, the punchline isn’t the clothesline or the face full of spooge. It’s how we get there.
Sexy Losers has some of the the nicest artwork seen in a webcomic (especially among the manga-style ones) with intricate backgrounds (something you rarely ever see in a 4-panel gag strip), yet not ONE acknowledgement towards the hours of effort put into the drawing and colouring?
That’s because we all know Hard’s dirty little secret. He out-sources all his artwork to Korea and pays them with bowls of rice. Just like all the pros do.
It really feels like most the reviews on Comixpedia come from the exact same template. Chane the name, substitute a few adjectives – and tada. A “new” Comixpedia review.
If you admit to liking a “titty” comic, then you’re obviously an unsophisticated rube who is attracted to shiny objects, who defends his favorite comic and artistic and inventive in order to hide the fact that he relaly just likes to look at naked women.
If you admit to not liking a “titty” comic, then you’re an elitist prick who can’t let down his “art radar” for two seconds to just enjoy a cheap laugh, who is too concerned about how something became popular to notice whether or not it truly has any artistic merit.
If you have any opinion about Sexy Losers at all, then you are the primordial scum of the webcomic miniverse.
We are elitist beyond all comparison.
http://www.checkerboardnightmare.com/d/20040514.html
Pies in the face are always funny. When the hell did having a chuckle get so elitist? 😛
do you read comics at all, or do you just pretend to?
Sexy Losers is always fresh and hilarious. I don’t think you are smart enough to get the comic. I would recommend laughing now and trying to figure it out later.
Do you read reviews at all, or just pretend to?
But what about people who don’t care either way? 😉