With the Stripped anthology (available from any bookseller, including Amazon), publisher Bruno Gmünder has assembled an excellent collection of illustrations and short strips by gay artists from the USA, Europe, Japan, etc. Here’s the complete list of contributors:
Aru, Axel, Beau, Tom Bouden, Michael Breyette, Michael Broderick, David Cantero, René Capone, Angel de Castro, Marc Ming Chan, Dave Davenport, Marc DeBauch, Patrick Fillion, Franze & Andärle, Ted Fusby, Andrew Georgiou, E. Gibbons, Xavier Gicquel, Justin Hall, Craig Hamilton, Ian Hanks, Glen Hanson (who also drew the cover), James Huctwith, Tom Jones, JJ Kirby, Roy Klang, Ralf König, Kumoki, Logan, Roland Maas, Steve Maclsaac, Martin Meyer, Jörg Meyer-Bothling, Mioki, Allan Neuwirth, P239COM, Ralf Paschke, Joe Phillips, Sean Platter, Player, Brad Rader, Miguel Angel Reyes, Robert W. Richards, SATT, Christian Schilling, Kinu Sekigushi, Sepp of Vienna, David Shenton, Hector Silva, Douglas Simonson, Ira C Smith, S T Monkey, Gengoroh Tagame, Steve Walker & Ross Watson.
I don’t even know all of them!
 Michael Breyette |
 Ian Hanks |
 Logan |
 Mioki |
 David Shenton |
As you can imagine, the variety of styles and ambiances is impressive. From Michael Breyette’s almost photo-realistic style to Ian Hanks’s rounder and very sensual work, from Logan’s hairy bears to Mioki’s college twinks, there’s something for everyone. Themes run from graphic sex to tender scenes, from real- life to fantasy and science-fiction. I must admit I would have liked to see more comics than there is, but that’s only my personal tastes–but still, we get comics by Justin Hall, Ralf König or David Shenton, among almost a dozen cartoonists included here. And anyway, a large part of the illustrations themselves have storytelling aspects and are not only exposition scenes, which is not surprising since most of them are at least erotic, which lends itself to pictures telling a story.
Those 350 pages are certainly a good primer of what’s being done nowadays by gay artists, or at least by some of them–the contact and website references at the end of the book are also a very nice idea. I only hope the publisher will give us more comics/illustrations books in the near future and won’t content itself with teasing us with the breadth of art presented here.
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UP.: Publisher Bruno Gmünder now has an official site, with information about the books and excerpts.
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UP. 2010/08: This book, now out-of-print, has been collected with the second one into Completely Stripped.
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