While I’m not a big advocate of cartoonists censoring themselves, I also do what I can to keep SCAPULA at a PG-13 rating, or in any event “safe for work”.  Depicting nudity is something I’ve been a tad reluctant to do in the past (and for good reason; the moment a bare bum appears on your site all types of ‘warning signs’ tend to appear), but I usually compromised, reasoning that there was a vast difference between nudity and pornography. I still feel that’s true.

Today’s comic, however, was a whole different matter.  Sex often seems like the most taboo topic within the context of a comic, and I worried about how some viewers would react to this scenario.  My reasoning is that this is meant to be a very vulnerable, heartfelt moment, and censoring it or removing it entirely would have hurt the story a lot.  Even prominently displaying Scapula’s extremely offensive tattoo was important in portraying what kind of a man he is, and why this situation would affect him so strongly.

Sometimes a cartoonist really does need to take risks in order to make the best work possible, and in today’s case it was simply a matter just about telling the story in the way that I feel works best.  This isn’t cheesecake, this isn’t self-indulgence, and it’s most certainly not porn.