While a supernatural fantasy element was present from the beginning, the Cthulhu Mythos slid into the mix in 1993 with the two-issue series Idol of Flesh, where Coley runs up against a cult of Shub-Niggurath.Īs an artist, Blackburn puts a lot of work into his hatching you can see some influence from superhero comics in the often skin-tight clothes and Coley’s heroic proportions, and this sometimes goes for other characters as well.
The first four issues of Coley’s adventures were self-published by Blackburn in 1992 Fantagraphics which was publishing a great number of alternative, independent, and erotic comics picked up Coley, reprinting the first adventures and then new ones. Yet it’s wish fulfillment in the same way that Conan the Cimmerian, or Captain America, or the Vampire Lestat are Coley embodies a pure fantasy, a larger-than-life figure who moves through the world, and in so doing changes it.
Some folks might characterize Coley-the ageless, immortal, six-pack-abs voodoo sex god with a large penis, a bottomless libido, and a constant parade of sexual partners-as a form of wish fulfillment. While normally categorized among gay comics, Coley is bisexual, or maybe pansexual a living sex icon, his very presence tends to attract everyone, regardless of sexuality or gender identity. In 1989, Blackburn self-published his own comic, Coley on Voodoo Island, acting as writer, artist, and letterer. Work goes uncollected, unread, forgotten. Even those who build up a considerable body of work, or a dedicated follow, often sink out of sight once they die. Precious few authors have the kind of posthumous renaissance that H. Popular fiction, whether it be for pulp magazines, comic books, or pornography, is ephemeral. They that write as a trade to please the whim of the day, they are like sailors that work at the rafts only to warm their hands and to distract their thoughts from their certain doom their rafts go all to pieces before the ship breaks up.