spc 02 dragon’s tooth

spc 02 Dragon’s Tooth

Print Mint (1975)
Jim Pinkoski’s second effort at a solo comic comes off measurably better than his first, which is really saying something when it comes to his already-solid illustration.

Spaced #2 opens with “The Dragon’s Tooth,” which is presented in an 11-page chapter at the beginning of the book and a five-page chapter at the end. The opening chapter begins with three pages of naked bodies, lustful poses and verbal foreplay between Kneon, a well-hung barbarian warrior (mirthfully pictured on the front cover), and Cylvainia, a voluptuous and extremely horny sorceress. After they finally get down to fucking for a couple pages, Kneon hits the road to fulfill a favor requested by Cylvainia: bring me a dragon’s tooth.

After a two-day journey, Kneon battles and destroys dozens of pint-size reptilian “she-creatures” before getting to the dragon’s lair. He slays the dragon but suffers a near-mortal blow himself as the first chapter concludes. The story wraps up at the end of the book with Cylvainia getting her dragon’s tooth and Kneon learning a few life (and end-of-life) lessons on his death bed. The second chapter is a bit abrupt and the ending rather bizarre and heavy on the melodramatic narration, but it has a spooky atmosphere that fits the mood.

In between chapters of “The Dragon’s Tooth” are a series of dream sequences called “Lil Nemo Starring in Slight Omen in Slumber Land” and a short vampire tale called “Vamp.”

The “Lil Nemo” strips are parodies of Windsor McCay’s landmark “Little Nemo in Slumberland” newspaper strip from the early 20th century. McCay’s innovative full-page comics depicted a little boy named Nemo having amazing dreams that always ended when he woke up in his bed in the final panel. Pinkoski’s “Lil Nemo” stories faithfully replicates McCay’s characters and elements of the strip, but adapts them into dream sequences about childhood sexual development.

Pinkoski surrounds his Nemo with naked, ugly villains who fear Nemo’s innocence, gigantic vaginas and landscapes of female breasts, and a Satan-type character who lectures Nemo about his frustrating future as a heterosexual male teenager. Of course, this is tricky territory to navigate, but Pinkoski doesn’t dodge bullets just to stay safe. He never shows Nemo in the nude, but he does depict plenty of surreal adult erogenous zones and portrays a little girl in the nude as an example of someone who will mature into a sex object that Nemo will eventually masturbate about.

Though daring in its subject matter and imagery, it’s fair to say that Pinkoski executed these stories without crossing the most gratuitous lines in the sand. The only other comic book that tackles the subject of child sexual development is Jim Himes’ Sex and Affection, but Himes had an entirely different (more wholesome and educational, but still utterly honest) approach to the subject. What’s really remarkable is knowing that Pinkoski was ever capable of this type of storytelling given his current beliefs as a Seventh Day Adventist.

The short vampire tale “Vamp” is a fairly innocuous story about a female vampire who enters a stranger’s home to suck his blood…and then suck his dick. The five pages of illustrations are stylish indeed, but the rhyming narrative is rather fawning.

Spaced #2 is an adventurous display of bold illustrations and dynamic compositions. Pinkoski’s use of various screentones, cross-hatching and stippling builds compelling images that are a joy to ponder.