It’s a never-ending source of surprise where queer artists draw their inspiration from, so when Dave Davenport and Bryan Knight told queerguru that their new adult comic was born from their anger after RENTBOY was closed down by the Authorities, we took it all in our stride.
What they developed together with VELVET COLLAR is a brilliant new series that celebrates the work and secret lives of male sex workers who worked for largest male escort advertising website in the world based in Union Square New York.
Issus I, Unhappy Endings that has just been released and introduces the five main characters of the series, Abel Rey, Rica Shay, Will Foster, Scott Reynolds, and Storm Wilde, on the morning before the raid of the advertising agency prepared to make them the newest international site models. The five are based on real people in the adult entertainment world and represent a wide range of the experiences of modern male sex workers. Each character faces a life-changing moment that shows their relationships with their clients, their families, and themselves.
This is the first of a planned nine-issue series. Real porn performers and sex workers volunteer to be drawn as characters in the series acting out their own stories or overlapping experiences. For example, Scott Reynolds is a composite of three real male sex workers over the age of sixty and their perspectives over generations.
The series also serves to record the experiences of the vibrant, wild, mysterious culture of male sex workers before society erases their presence. Sex workers and their valuable contributions to the world have been ignored and erased many times. Davenport and Knight noticed this and said that they would make it different this time.
The stories of male sex workers are either too good to be true or too true to stand by in public. Their experiences are kept secret because of competition and fear of retaliation by law enforcement and hostile adversaries behind computer screens or behind corners armed with baseball bats. The stories are even exaggerated to themselves to look better to clients or among peers. In reality, most of the bizarre, amazing, wild and scary things they experience have actually happened. To protect themselves in the outside world, they have to wrap the truth in fiction.
Take a look at the video Brian Knight made about this excellent project, and keep an eye out for the next one on Kickstarter to support Issue 2: Rough Trade Secrets.
Log on to http://velvetcollarcomics. com to buy your own copy of this Limited Edition Series: it is so wonderful and unique and deserves our support.
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