Smut Peddler

Smut Peddler #1

by C. Spike Trotman (Editor), Trisha L. Sebastian (Editor), Johanna Draper Carlson (Editor)

Indie comics' most sex-positive, lady-friendly, dirty little mini is back as a FULL-SIZED ANTHOLOGY!

Smut Peddler began life in 2003 as a digest-sized mini-comic, published by Saucy Goose Press. It was an anthology of erotic comics, with contributions from some of the best and the brightest creators.

There were three issues, and they were AWESOME. But that was it. The third Smut Peddler mini was followed by a years-long publishing hiatus...

UNTIL NOW.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Erotica, Queer, Anthologies, Short Stories, Graphic Novels Comics

340 pages, Paperback

First published September 11, 2012

About the author

Trotman is also the creator of the webcomics Lucas and Odessa, Sparkneedle, and Blikada, as well as the somewhat less serious Playing With Dolls. She lives in Chicago with her husband.

Reviews

[Candice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ate this up with a spoon. Some pieces have density that will stay with you longer than others; most have really clever, fantastical, twisty ways of queering up literary/graphic pornography with body diversity, non-traditional sexual pairings and interesting backdrops (from futuristic Bedouin camps to frat parties to fin de siècle Europe and back, no lie). Some are playful and almost precious in their youthful, fanfic-style wistfulness; all display an insane range of artistic talent with frequent narrative depth that reaches beyond one dimension and can leave you a little breathless, bada-boom). If you're a sex-positive perv who craves seeing women rock a male dominated genre with wit, finesse, whimsy, intelligence and smoking-hot sex, nab a copy of the eBook from the Iron Circus website.

[. (not active on this account stop adding me) · Rating 4 out of 5]

All the horny bitches out there who love inclusive and positive depictions of sex, please stand up. Smut Peddler is exactly what it sounds like. An anthology of a multitude of couples - and throuples/groups - having sex, written and drawn by various authors/artists (many also identify on the LGBT spectrum). I tried to keep track of all the representation, but it was difficult to distinguish certain gender identities because they weren't elaborated on in full:

➵ Just Friends: m/m
➵ Meet Cute: m/f
➵ Asteroid!: m/f, sci fi
➵ A Boy and His Tenta-Bot: m/... robot with a dick?
➵ Love Lorn: f/m
➵ Once Upon A Time: f/f
➵ Easy: m/m/f polyamorous
➵ The Feather: f/f, historical
➵ Oil for Water: m/f, sci fi
➵ Travesty: m/m, historical, drag queen mc
➵ Kung Fu Hustlers: m/f/ plus sized mc
➵ Computer Love: m/f (literally the exact plot of Striking Vipers, but heterosexual)
➵ French Vanilla: m/m, bdsm
➵ Love It Loud: wlw mc
➵ Overboard: f/m, trans mc
➵ Wicked Switch: f/m
➵ Yes and No: m/m
➵ Extended Version: m/m, m/f, f/f
➵ Busking Beguile: f/f, gender-non conforming mc (I'm not sure what their label is and don't want to assume. They are not part of the f/f)
➵ The Hand: f/f, plus sized mc's
➵ A Hymn to Prosmnus: m/m
➵ Fixer-Upper: f/... robot, again. I think it's supposed to be f/f, but it's a robot
➵ Thistlebed: f/m
➵ The Annunciation: m/f
➵ Friends With Benefits: m/f
➵ Daydreams: m/f

[Jaylee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lovely art and a super fun, sex-positive, queer-friendly smut. There was a lot I appreciated about these pieces, although most were a bit too casual/solely focused on sex without much of a story. My two favorites were the first (friends at a party suddenly kissing/doing sex) and the one about the chubby rocker girl and her silly guy who likes it up the ass. ;) Those two were absolutely charming and full of personality and humor. But overall, I don't think these were really for me. I'm too demisexual to enjoy smut for smut's sake. I appreciate what was going on here but just... not really for me.

[Jassmine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an anthology of feminist erotica comics. I quite liked this, but I didn't find one that would... truly resonate with me, you know? Strangely, I actually already knew some of those comics, not sure how that happened...
3,5⭐ rounded up

[Liz N · Rating 5 out of 5]

This anthology is a perfect gem and a must have for fans of erotic writing and art. It's pro-sex, pro-woman, pro-sexuality of all types. Such a refreshing read. It turns stereotypes and porn cliches on their head and makes them legitimately interesting stories. Support independent artists and great storytelling, and buy this right *now*.

[Sophie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good!! There were a handful that I wasn't completely a fan of. but the majority of it, I did enjoy!

[Marion · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing collection of smutty comics, with wonderful representation (I'm talking characters of color, disabled characters, lgbt characters, etc). Also, really fuckin' hot.

[Bryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Technically a “re-read” as I’ve owned this anthology for quite sometime, but this was pre logging in on here. Went to a masquerade ball themed show on New Years and needed to refer to Jess Fink’s entry as I wanted to dress up like a character (Joe/Josephine) from it. Well going back and reading that story made me want to revisit the whole anthology again.

This is definitely a 5 star book! Like all anthologies it’s nearly impossible to have every entry appeal to the reader, but for me there are MANY entries in here I absolutely adore. Also, at the time I hadn’t owned or really read any graphic fiction that was so explicitly drawn. So I do recall my first time with this book there was an initial shock factor. Also, at that time I really wasn’t reading comics especially indie stuff whereas the past couple years it seems my strong interest in comics/graphic novels won’t taper off as there is so much awesome work being created.

As for the entries I adore...

Busking Beguile by Jess Fink
Easily one of my favorite “short comics” ever. Unfortunately, my masquerade ball wasn’t anything like the story here... and I didn’t meet a Josephine...or a Morris. Fink really draws characters (especially males and here an androgynous female) that I just find cute and totally crush on. Cheeks definitely flushed while reading!

A Hymn to Prosymnus by Nechama Frier
Love the mixture of eroticism and mythology. Um...this story also has a character (Dionysus) who made me flush.

Wicked Switch by B. White and Ambrosia
If EC comics had a sex themed book this story would fit right in.

Overboard by Alice Fox
Ahoy! A pirate themed sex story. Totally has a moment I didn’t see coming and cleverly caught me by surprise.

Love it Loud by Steve Horton and Erica Leigh Currey
Another entry where I love the combination of fantasy and eroticism. All three characters are totally cute as well!

Travesty by Ursula Wood and Jennifer Doyle
This entry is about a man whose nightly gig is a drag show. His drag persona, Titania, is gorgeous by the way. There’s back to back lines of narration spoken when describing the club in this story that I really related to: “A few of them are here for truth that lies beneath. The ones who feel hunted and strange, who need to know they aren’t alone.” This reminded me of my first time seeing a drag show when I turned 21; Kit Kat Club in Chicago. At that time I didn’t personally know anyone who wasn’t “straight” and I was totally still very confused with relation to an identity because I never felt “straight”. Going there I felt like Dorthy opening the door to OZ. It was totally an eye opening experience and so comforting to see people obviously my age and those older than me so happy, proud and embracing their identity so freely out in public with others. An expression on one of the characters in the club is probably the same I had on that evening.

Well, those were just a few, but great anthology! I’m definitely going to revisit the 2014 edition next.

[Cait · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

A very mixed bag!!!!!!! A handful that I loved! A lot that were okay! A lot that were less than okay! Quite a few that were bad!

I think something that this suffers from is the fact that it's like, idk, it falls into a lot of the same pitfalls as porn aimed at yr standard cishet dude. There's a lot of shitty consent. There were tentacles. There was gross and creepy shit. I was fine to read it though, like for me it was more of an annoyance than a like 'wow this is upsetting me' but also I would not ever unconditionally recommend this to anyone, for that reason.

At a party once my roommate selected this off the shelf truly at random and started reading it aloud. That was a fun time.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of these were really cute and fun, but overall not the most fulfilling smut. I like that pubic hair exists in most of the stories xD I did enjoy the diversity of characters and pairings. Just, not a lot of substance to most of the smut and substance and really add a lot to smut's enjoyment.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read! Sexy, gorgeous, funny - full of engaging storylines. *Intersectional.* Everything you could ever want from your smut. I usually give books away, but this one is definitely staying on my shelf!

[Heron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Utterly fantastic. Buy this book. Read this book. Sexy lady-pos queer-pos smutters, unite!!

[Ariel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun, sex positive, lady friendly, ultra saucy shorts.
This anthology is everything it promises it will be!

[Marina · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 🌟
This was great. Not your usual erotica. This book is filled with shorter stories with gay, lesbian, bi/pan, trans, poly, poc & fat characters. Some stories have kinks and light bdsm. Theres many different genres too, from contemporary to fantasy and sci-fi. I loved some of stories, but most of them were good actually.

[Claire (Book Blog Bird) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know the title is literally Smut Peddler, but I wasn’t prepared for how RUDE this book was. I acclimatised pretty quickly though, don’t worry.

[Phobean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Somber, silly, funny, sexy, curious, weird, spacey, inspired, sad, daring, and enthusiastic --this collection by a truly impressive, talented group of short story/comics authors and illustrators is not to be missed.

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not for the Faint of Heart - Smut Peddler Review

This is, without question, the best single book of graphic (as in visual, not explicit, though there's definitely some of that) smut I have ever read. Anyone looking for some sexy comics about sex need look no further than this. It is amazing, with an incredibly diversity in pairings, plots, and overall styles. And it's all hot, all worth reading and wishing desperately that there would be hundreds of volumes of it, that each single story was just the first part in an ongoing saga. It's good. It's good and people should go out and buy this for themselves, give it as gifts, and generally just sing its praises because the world needs more projects like this one.

So how to describe a book that is not just a collection of graphic stories, but a multi-author anthology that pushes the boundaries of what one would expect from published smut. It's incredibly refreshing, first, because of its diversity, because it doesn't limit itself to just male-female pairings. There are male-male pairings and female-female pairings and some that don't fit as easily into either of those categories. The body shapes and the ethnicity of the characters offer a wide range of experiences and looks. This isn't a collection that just shoots for the macho-guy with stacked blonde demographic. It's showing some real people (and some definitely not real people) enjoying each other through sex.

That's another part of the collection that I loved, that the sex is always affirming, always consensual and always, well, good. It is definitely erotic, but it also manages to be at turns funny and serious, dramatic and light. The characters are memorable and sympathetic and the volume is filled with fun little Easter eggs and nods to nerd culture and speculative fiction. Which again, shows the diversity of smut, that here are stories that range from very grounded contemporary stories to fantasy tales to ones set among the stars. Each of the stories feels compelling and most work the sex into the story in a way that works better than just showing up with pizza.

Really, there aren't enough good things to say about this book. The production is solid, the book rather large, rather thick, rather satisfying. Oh yeah. This book knows what it's doing and does it well. The colors pop, the binding is sturdy, and the whole thing looks great on a bookshelf. Sitting here, writing this review, drinking slowly from my white Russian, I can only say that you should go out and buy this book. Already have it? Buy another. That's how good it is. A turgid 9.5/10.

[Glyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow.

First off, there's an insane amount of talent contained in this book. Some of my favourite comic artists participated, and even when I didn't recognize the names, I enjoyed their entries. I don't think there's a single story whose art I didn't like.

There's a charmingly varied amount of styles; there are even manga ones that aren't eye-bleeding or fall into the pitfalls of that style (see: DramaCon for what I'm talking about).

I suppose the book gets a bit redundant, as all of them are about people having sex in some way. So I grew to prefer the ones that hinted at relationships, had humor, and/or a bit of plot.

One really neat story, by Jess Fink, was about two grifters/street artists who sneak into... ugh I don't know what to call it, but discreet hookups? Anyway, the story itself was an interesting look at "performing," in terms of say, singing, but also in terms of gender. I'm pretty sure it was the only story with a person who fell outside the gender binary.

Another seemed to be influence by Eastern mythology (and I say that as vague as possible since I didn't really recognize the references), which did it's own take on immaculate conception/a God impregnating a woman.

The whole collection is, as advertised, body/sex/female/LGBT positive. It's an admirable project, and I suggest checking it out if any of the above sounds appealing to you.

[M— · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-presented anthology of illustrated (comic-book type) erotica with an LGBT focus. I liked the wide variety in the stories and thought most of the artwork was top notch. I'm generally not a fan of manga-style art; there were few examples here.

For me, this was best read in small sections — every few stories I had to give myself a break from the sex. If this anthology is weakest at anything, it's in the inherent difficultly of having the last sex-focused story impact with the same success as the first. While I thought the stories were nearly universally good, every time my eyes started skipping over the explicit panels in search of dialogue I knew it was time to step away from the book.

I wavered between giving these three or four stars and eventually settled on four. It's not a keeper volume for my collection, but I suspect if I stumble on it again in the future I'll reread it because hey, sex. Recommended for fans of this genre and theme.

Related review:
No Straight Lines

[Elisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Smut Peddler is not only my first exposure to what can only be considered elevated pornography, it's the very first "comic" or "graphic novel" I have ever read. Obviously, since I don't even know how to categorize it -so please don't be insulted if I mislabeled it.

The artwork is beautiful. Each and every artist is so talented. The sex-positive message the images provide highlight the same idea the words convey. That two creators -writers and visual artists- can come together to make a single story, let alone the number of pairings in this collection, blows my mind.

I loved Smut Peddler from beginning to end. I read it as slow as I possibly could in order to prolong the experience but, unfortunately, it had to end. I can't wait for the next one.

Now I have to go laugh about all the unavoidable double entendres contained in this review.

[Highlyeccentric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jon brought me this for... er, temporally dislocated gift of some kind, possibly birthday or Christmas? Not sure, he brought it to me at Easter. At first I was puzzled. I do not do comics! Why would you bring me sexy comics?

Then they turned out to be awesome. Except for the boring one about the anime-like tree lesbians; and for the one about the fat black lady who had man-eating plants growing over her vulva but just needed a nice (fat, black) man to loooove her, whereupon the man eating plants opened into accessible flowers. There was a GREAT comic about some young adults being told by their drunk uncle about how their parents *really* met (bondage was involved).

[Tiamatty · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an anthology of erotic short stories. And it's great. I mean, yeah, if you're looking for material to get off to, then sure, it's good for that. But it's so much more than that. A lot of the stories are hilarious. A lot of others are really sweet. They range from period pieces to sci-fi to fantasy to more normal stuff. So there's a nice variety of stories. They're all made by women, which is great, and the most important quality shared by all the stories is that they're sex-positive. They're all feminist stories, and they're all encouraging women to own their sexuality (even if the story is about two guys having sex).

So this was a very enjoyable read.

[Brigid Keely · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I know the editor and have met several of the artists and writers. This may have colored my view, but not much.

This is a fantastic collection of illustrated/comic erotica and porn featuring women authors, artists, and subjects. It's sexy, raunchy, fun, and powerful. There's a broad range of sexuality, body types, gender expression, and "flavors" of erotic encounter. It's a very sexy book with a little something for everyone. If you're looking for a fun way to spice up your sex life, whether a shared or solitary sex life, then check this book out.

[Michael Hanscom · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually read this last year when I got the .pdf version from the Kickstarter project, the physical book was delivered earlier this year. I found the Kickstarter when one of my friends announced that she was contributing a piece to the project. Perhaps not my usual reading material, but I really enjoyed all of it -- I don't remember there being a bad entry in the bunch, and quite a few extremely good stories. Not at all disappointed to have it in my collection, and I'll be adding the second volume when it's Kickstarter project goes live.

[Микола · Rating 3 out of 5]

Як це буває, ідея захопила мене значно сильніше, ніж виконання. Я дивився відео з виступу упорядниці, і досі (минув рік чи більше) під враженням. Антологія коміксів із порно поза жанровим мейнстримом, авторами якого є переважно жінки (за умовами, жінка має бути присутньою у творчій команді, але я не перевіряв, чи були учасники-чоловіки взагалі) — це формулювання звучить дуже заманливо.
Всередині різні історії. Про чоловіків, жінок, роботів, міфічних істот в різних комбінаціях (без міфічних істот і роботів у одному сюжеті). Іронічні, комічні, романтичні…
Було цікаво, але не зачепило.

[Desiree · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this titillating anthology very amusing and enjoyable! The stories vary in length and amount of plot, but there weren't any I disliked. My favorite of the whole bunch was Jess Fink's "Busking Beguile," both for its sweet story and her charming art. The contribution from Spike, the editor, was also very memorable for her beautiful art and the "ooh, she went THERE" factor.

A well done collection. I recommend it for any sex-positive reader looking for inclusive erotic comics.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really the by-line says it all: "Impeccable Pornoglyphics for Cultivated Ladies (and men of exceptional taste!)"

I loved it. Loved the artwork, loved the kink, the consent, the feminist storylines, the protection, the orgasms, the new experiences, and the expressions of acts that were not enjoyed, as well as the ones that were.

Mainstream pornoglyphics should be more like this.

[Catherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fine, solid smut! I think I'd prefer something long form/graphic novel-y, but the variety of art and authors was nice, even though I didn't enjoy some of the styles. There were a few uncomfortable ones that have shady consent issues, but overall, if you're looking for some smutty comics, it's not a bad place to start!

[Micah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like the idea more than what's all inside it. Some stories are much better than others, but the bad ones rarely last long enough to be a problem. The best ones are a tonne of fun and more than make up for the lackluster stories.

[Fawndolyn Valentine · Rating 5 out of 5]

(well, this isn't really a review, just sort of an instantaneous reaction of sourts)
Awesome and fun smut! Totally sex-positive. I don't wanna spoil it, but 'Kung Fu Hustler' is definitely the best story! Second best is 'Easy.' They're all really good stories, though! Such great talents!