“How To Make Money Like A Porn Star” is a comic causing quite a stir of reaction in the blogosphere. Most of it negative.
It has lent itself to a different sort of discussion though, particularly regarding the power of notoriety.
Point:
Kevin Church, of BeaucoupKevin(dot)com, was quite eloquent in his aversion to this book in his review Review: How To Make Money Like A Porn Star:
Excerpt:
This book could have – should have – been very good. A smarter version of Orgazmo3 is just begging to be made, but this nasty piece of work certainly isn’t it. How To Make Money Like A Porn Star plays misogyny for laughs while featuring rape, kidnapping, semen collection, and the same tired jokes about pornography that the masses have been making since the 70s. Most of its threadbare plot works towards a reveal that’s swiped from George Lucas In Love. It’s tiresome, unfunny, and managed to make me feel worse for having finished it.
Counterpoint:
QueenEtCetera from Occasional Superheroine agrees that the comic is bad, but makes a point to consider in her post “Claudia’s Rimshot Rapey-Rapey Revenge”: Bloggers Speak Out On “How To Make Money Like A Porn Star”:
Excerpt:
See, the only problem with reviews such as these is that it gives a book like this the “Golden Crown Of Everything Hateful” and now it’s tops on Amazon.com. Because a lot of people are jaded and want to be shocked. This is sort of why Howard Stern is a millionaire.
It’s definitely something to think about…
October 14th, 2006 at 12:07 pm
As a former reviewer, I just have to say Kevin Church lost me (and I say this as a liberal) with the belief that only right-wingers overuse “reprehensible”. I’m fairly certain Air America taps that word quite often (or they should). Secondly, as a reviewer, if this work is “possibly the most reprehensible piece of fiction that I’ve read in my lifetime” that tells me he totally missed much of Ron Zimmerman’s work at Marvel.
Or how about Kevin Smith’s Spider-Man/Black Cat? Or how about “Pet Shop Boys Versus America” (a book documenting their 1991 tour) [I include this last one, just to plug Mr. Church's latest blog entry http://www.beaucoupkevin.com/2006/10/were-still-pet-shop-boys.html ]
(I am joking here)
Why am I really replying? I’m annoyed that Ms. Krause led me to believe there had been two sequels to Orgazmo, when in fact she neglected to remove Mr. Church’s footnote. I am saddened at this realization.
My reply to QueenEtCetera, take solace in the fact that Zimmerman’s Rawhide Kid did not greatly benefit from all the controversy surrounding and it indeed did not sell well. (Please tell me that is not the last project that John Severin ever does…) For every controversy that boosts sales, there’s controversy that can kill sales.
October 14th, 2006 at 4:50 pm
Note to any readers: there are no sequels to Orgazmo.