The cover of the Eros Comix edition of
Black Kiss. Art by Howard Chaykin.
Black Kiss is an American hardboiled erotic comic book series written and drawn by Howard Chaykin, which was originally published in 1988 by Vortex Comics.
Publishing history
Black Kiss became one of the most controversial American comics of the late 1980s, this
was due to the comic having the sort of explicit scenes of sex and violence unseen in most comics published at the time. The
twelve issue series was written and drawn by Howard Chaykin, best known for his
American Flagg! series which often hinted at the sort of sexual content which
Black Kiss showed in detail.
To help retailers who had worries over selling what could be described as pornography,
Vortex released the series sealed in a plastic bag. This meant that casual browsers could not open the comic, or obviously see
the internal content. However, this was not done when Vortex released a series of collected editions called Big Black Kiss
in 1989.
The series attracted a vast amount of controversy, mainly over its sexual content, but also because of the pairing of sex and
violence that Chaykin used throughout the series, and especially in the later issues. However, the series attracted praise for
bringing the hardboiled crime genre back into comics, and Chaykin himself was appreciated for his storytelling techniques.
The series was collected into trade paperback format several times, the most recent being
in 2000 with an edition released by Eros Comix.
Synopsis
The series is set in Los Angeles in the 1980s
and opens with Dagmar Laine, a transsexual prostitute and lover to former 1950s film star Beverly
Grove, searching for a reel of film taken from The Vatican's collection of pornography. The reel has been sent to Father Frank Murtaugh by his brother who is a Cardinal in The Vatican. Laine tries to grab the reel from Father Murtaugh but the reel is stolen
by a nun.
Laine and Grove then get Cass Pollack, a jazz musician and ex-heroin addict who is on the run
from the Mafia, to steal the reel in return for them providing Pollack with an alibi. Pollack is
also on the run from the police, due to the Mafia killing Pollack's wife and daughter and Pollack being the only suspect.
Laine and Grove (who look virtually identical) provide Pollack with a lead as to where the reel is after the death of Father
Murtaugh. This takes Pollack first of all to an occult bookshop called "The Oath of
Incannabulata" where he steals a copy of a book about the mysterious "Order of Bonniface". After the bookshop he ends up in a
funeral home called "Tanas" where he finds a number of celebrities indulging in bizarre rituals.
Going through Murtaugh's possessions, Pollack finds an invitation to the next meeting of the "Order of Bonniface". He attends
this and discovers the Order was formed at the beginning of Hollywood's movie era and that they worship Charles 'Bubba' Kenton, a
1920s film star who was also married to Beverly Grove. He discovers that Kenton forced Grove to
give their daughter Sophie up shortly before Kenton became a vampire. After becoming a vampire
Kenton forms The Order of Bonniface and turns many of his followers into vampires, including Beverly Grove. This gives Grove the
chance of revenge over the loss of her daughter and she switches Kenton's alarm clock so that he wakes during the day and dies in
the sunlight.
However The Order want the reel of film as it shows Beverly Grove and Bubba Kenton together in a pornographic film which shows
that Grove is much older than she claims to be to the world. They hope she can turn them into vampires and therefore give them
eternal youth.
However one of The Order, a young woman called Magda, wants Grove to only make her a vampire. This is because she is Grove's
granddaughter, in addition to the nun who stole the reel from Father Murtaugh earlier in the story. Pollack becomes caught in the
middle as everyone around him attempts to win, leaving Pollack in a position where he seems unable to survive.
External links
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