Room: HALL C (602-603)
Start: 11:20AM
End: 12:15PM
It's a cliché of the comic book industry that the medium "grew up" in the 1980's, but the facts are that the representation of explicit sex in American comics goes back at least as far as the 1920's with the publication of the first, so-called, "Tijuana Bibles." The underground comics of the 1960's and 70's were equally daring, depicting the full range of human sexual behavior in their pages. In spite of this history, comics that treat adult sexuality as a central theme (as opposed to a headline grabbing gimmick) remain relatively rare, at least in the United States, and can still be subject to censorship when they do appear. Comics scholar Ben Saunders will offer a brief history of the explicit representation of sexual behavior in American comics, from the 1920's to the present, before engaging in conversation with legendary creator Howard Chaykin - a writer-artist who has genuinely extended the frontiers of the comics medium in his representations of graphic sexuality.