FREE: Black Kiss #1 By Howard Chaykin – NSFW-ish

The Steve Bissette piece earlier brought it all back. The fight to get mature readers content into comic books and onto shelves. And no more was that fight fought than over Black Kiss #1. A hard-boiled crime comic book that dared to show participants having sex, including a pre-op transgender hooker.

At the time the publisher Vortex had to change printers to publish it, issues had to be distributed in those infamous black bags and some people wondered if it was the end of comics as we knew it.

I remember as a teenger seeing copies already bagged in black at the top of the racks at my local comic shop, priced outside of my reach, but damn was I curious. Later I’d buy the set for 50 pence each, wonder what all the furore was about, but still rather enjoy the comic.

And wonder how Howard Chaykin could get away with charging full price for a 12 page black-and-white comic.

Now Dynamite are the latest to collect and publish the book, remastering and relettering the art and collating it into a hardcover volume for $24.99, with a signed and numbered version for $69.99. And Bleeding Cool are letting you read the whole first issue for free.

You can read Matt Fraction’s review of the series here.