Trigger Warning: This article talks about sexual assault and rape, at length. In an attempt to reduce inadvertent exposure to the material discussed, I will provide links to specific sequences.
In , Heavy Metal changed their format from monthly to quarterly. As part of this format change, they began to print full stories instead of serializing them. Mostly, these stories were originally printed in Europe β where the Francophone market published 48 page collected editions called albums.
This feature introduced Druuna, a sexually charged woman navigating her way through a nightmarish dystopic society with nothing but her wits and her sexual availability to keep her alive. Over the course of the story, she is forced to expose herself, prostitutes herself for medicine , and is forced to perform fellatio at knifepoint.
In retrospect, this was tame. In spite of or, perhaps, because of this appalling level of sexual violence, Serpieri and Druuna, especially became massively popular among the Heavy Metal readership. The appeal was not and is not difficult to understand. Serpieri is a master craftsman.
From the various sketchbooks that have been published, it is obvious that he enjoys drawing women. Naked women. Sexy women. And because he enjoys drawing them, he has gotten really good at it. Any casual connoisseur of pornography can tell you that the act of sexual intercourse is not inherently anything β visually sexy, meaningful, or even necessarily pleasurable.
