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Jon Macy
Teleny and Camille
by: Jon MacyJon Macy, longtime contributor to gay comics publications such as Gay Comics and Boy Trouble, has adapted a moving and erotic gay love story from Oscar Wilde’s classic Teleny: Or the Reverse of the Medal.
Camille, a wealthy young gentleman in Victorian London, falls in love with the handsome and mesmerizing pianist Teleny. While Teleny performs on stage, the two star-crossed lovers discover they share a psychic link in the form of an erotic vision. While Camille struggles to resist his homosexuality Teleny is being pursued by others. After telepathically witnessing the erotic encounters Teleny has with both sexes, Camille attempts suicide. Teleny rescues Camille physically and emotionally with his rapturous love forsaking all others. In this newfound happiness Camille tries to forget that Teleny owes much of his success to the generosity of the women who desire him.
Fans of gay comics and gay love stories will devour this sensual tome.
$9.99 – $29.99
Jon Macy, longtime contributor to gay comics publications such as Gay Comics and Boy Trouble, has adapted a moving and erotic gay love story from the classic Teleny: Or the Reverse of the Medal. attributed to Oscar Wilde and his circle of writers and poets.
Camille, a wealthy young gentleman in Victorian London, falls in love with the handsome and mesmerizing pianist Teleny. While Teleny performs on stage, the two star-crossed lovers discover they share a psychic link in the form of an erotic vision. While Camille struggles to resist his homosexuality Teleny is being pursued by others. After telepathically witnessing the erotic encounters Teleny has with both sexes, Camille attempts suicide. Teleny rescues Camille physically and emotionally with his rapturous love forsaking all others. In this newfound happiness Camille tries to forget that Teleny owes much of his success to the generosity of the women who desire him.
Fans of gay comics and gay love stories will devour this sensual tome.
Winner of the 2010 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Erotica!
PREVIEW:
Read the entire first chapter right now! (This preview has had a few images obscured in order to make it more acceptable for general audiences; the full graphic novel is sexually explicit and is intended for adult readers only.)
INTERVIEWS:
Interview with Outlook Columbus — “The bottom line? This book is fun. It’s unique, academic and sexy. Teleny and Camille is far and away the most innovative gay novel of the past few years. I caught up with other Jon Macy to talk about his creation.” — Mackenzie Worrall
Northwest Press Interview on Comic Book Queers — Comic Book Queers’ EvilJeff takes over L.A. with the help of Zan Christensen of Northwest Press who brings his lackeys Justin Hall, creator of Glamazonia and Jon Macy, he of Teleny & Camille fame.
Interview on The Feast of Fun podcast — “Based on Teleny, the secret round-robin novel written by Oscar Wilde and his anonymous circle of friends, the classic work of erotica is now visually re-interpreted by Macy in all its lush, sexual excess. Join us as we take a look at the origins of modern gay culture in Victorian England, the origins of one guy one jar, the complicated man that was Oscar Wilde and how to cruise for sex in ye merrie olde England.”
ISBN: 9780984594009
Publisher: Northwest Press
Publish Date: 2010
Page Count: 240
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The Collected Black Gay Boy Fantasy #2 $2.99
It’s Zelda’s welcome back party! Prepare yourself for a night of flirting, dancing, chowing-down, drinking, processing, and drama! (Not to mention the morning-after hangovers… and the guests who decided to stay over!)
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Tough Love: High School Confidential $6.99
Inspired by shounen-ai manga—melodramatic Japanese comics by girls about gay boys—Tough Love is a teen romance and coming-out story about a shy boy named Brian. More realistic than Japanese manga, this story centers on the relationships Brian develops with the boy he likes, Chris, and Julie, the girl who befriends him. Serious issues like gay bashing, suicide, and coming to terms with one’s own sexual identity are depicted with an honest, gentle touch. Socially relevant, fun, immediately accessible, and a bit of a soap opera, Tough Love helps gay teenagers to be more comfortable with themselves and less troubled, especially when they’re feeling alone and misunderstood.
148 pages, black-and-white.
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The Legend of Bold Riley $9.99
Leia Weathington’s sword-and-sorcery epic The Legend of Bold Riley is illustrated by Leia and a host of talented artists.
“Who is Bold Riley?” you might ask. She has hunted the wildest game and dallied with countless beautiful girls, but still longs to know the world beyond the city walls. Princess Rilavashana SanParite, called Bold Riley, leaves behind her station and sets out to travel through distant lands and find forgotten ruins, fearsome enemies, inscrutable gods and tragic love.
She’s as capable with a sword as she is with her wits—man, does she carve things up when the need arises—and is a strong, beautiful, confident woman who doesn’t wear a bikini into battle. And she always gets the girl!
Created by Leia Weathington, with art by Weathington, Marco Aidala, Vanessa Gillings, Kelly McClellan, Konstantin Pogorelov, Liz Conley, and Jason Thompson. Cover artwork by Brinson Thieme. 232 pages. 7″x10″. Full-color with metallic ink cover.
Retailers! Download a Bold Riley Promotional Display that highlights the foreword by fan-favorite writer Jane Espenson and helps encourage customers to check out the book.
PREVIEWS:
You can download a 67-page preview of the book in PDF or EPUB (iPad-only) format right here on the site. The preview includes excerpts from four of the stories in the book, bonus artwork and more.Additionally, there’s a ZIP file of preview images available for use in reviews and articles. Download it here. (11MB ZIP file.)
INTERVIEWS:
Feature on Panel Patter by Rob McMonigal — “Ms. Weathington, working with a variety of other artists, has created a fantasy world ripe for exploration, with our guide being Bold Riley, a young woman with royal (but restless) blood. It’s great to see the ‘Uncharted Fantasy World’ idea given a new twist by having a protagonist that’s not only female, but queer as well.”
Feature on Portland Comic Books Examiner by Christian Lipski — “Author Leia Weathington is releasing Bold Riley, her first book, at the end of June, and spoke with the Portland Comic Books Examiner about her own journey.”
Interview on Portland Comics by Doug Dorr — “I worked with 5 other artists for Bold Riley and made the mistake at first of trying to really tightly control the visuals of the comic. That was something I learned to back off from pretty fast. If you are working with artists you probably decided to get into a collaboration with them for a reason. SO TRUST YOUR ARTIST! What I’ve started doing is making model sheets characters, objects and places that must look a certain way to maintain continuity in the story, after that I send photo references, script and descriptions of mood and setting and turn the artist loose to have fun with it.”
Interview on The Hathor Legacy by Maria Velazquez — “Like many creators I started writing the kind of story I always wanted to see. Like most women I was raised with fairy tales and the complex feelings that go with them. Sure they focus primarily on female leads, but those leads tend to be passive objects. The women are what things happen TO not people who make things happen themselves.”
Interview on Sequential Tart by Lee Atchison — “We like the anti-hero right now. And with reason. Things are shit, we’re all pretty jaded. How can you not be when at the click of a button you can see the latest string of atrocities played out before your eyes. I like the anti-hero, but somewhere amid all of the horror and the skepticism, I wanted to place a story about a hero who, while not beyond reproach, is good and wants to do good and tries her hardest.”
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The Collected Black Gay Boy Fantasy #1 $2.99
Victor Hodge’s legendary zine, Black Gay Boy Fantasy, gets the deluxe treatment in this first new 40-page collection containing the first three zines plus bonus illustrations in color and black-and-white, plus a variant back cover.
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Strugglers $6.99
Tighe, the confused boy, struggles to find himself. Tracey, the girl with too much ambition, struggles to make it big. Alison, the girl with no ambition, struggles to ignore her meddling friends. And Mike struggles to find someone to love.
Sharing a hip Saint Louis apartment, these friends face only the problems we all deal with… finding jobs, boyfriends, bars, and bands. Their struggles end only as they begin to grow up.
Originally presented as “Meet Me in Saint Louie” on the Modern Tales Longplay site in June 2003, this edition adds more than 20 pages of new story and art, and many extras.
OutPersonals –
“Teleny and Camille works as an introduction to the glorious, flamboyant, coded world of the aesthete that Wilde and his cohorts invented and reveled in. You are slowly drawn into the beautiful, sumptuous world of elegance, art, and cruising through wit, an arched eyebrow, a carnation, or a heliotrope in the lapel.” Read T.R. Moss’s review on OutPersonals.
The Gay Comics List –
“What Jon Macy has done with his Teleny and Camille graphic novel is impressive: adapting a work with such a weighty historical and sensual baggage is no small task, and he’s done so by creating visual narrations suited to the powerful prose, without shrinking from the less palatable aspects of the story, but also by acknowledging that this is a fiction, and more than that, a fantasy that was created in a specific culture for a specific audience.” Read François Peneaud’s review on The Gay Comics List.
GayLeague.com –
“This novel, no this affront of debauchery, this Teleny and Camille has the telltale stamp of the once feted degenerate Oscar Wilde. This is no simple manuscript; accompanying the writing are illustrations depicting the lecherous adventures of these two young men as they indulge in unspeakable, lascivious and unnatural acts which are proven as the abhorhence of God and hallowed civilization.” Read Joe Palmer’s review on GayLeague.com.
Oscholars –
“There is an agenda here, and it is not simply the visual re-telling of a well-known novel. It is a celebration of that novel and a celebration of what that novel deeply wants to assert. It is an artistic and aesthetic triumph.” Read John McCrae’s review on Oscholars.
The Gay People’s Chronicle –
“Buying [it] is not a suggestion, it’s a command. Don’t do it to nobly support a gay artist, don’t do it to be cool. Do it because [it’s] an incredibly engrossing, beautifully-drawn work of brilliance.” Read Anthony Glassman review from The Gay People’s Chronicle.
Prism Comics –
“One thing I must thank Jon personally for is his ending. THANK YOU, JON!! Your indictment against the trend in gay literature that ‘even the ones written by the gays’ require a tragic ending because ‘it’s like we’re too damaged to even dare imagine being happy’ is difficult to refute. So many stories dwell on death for obvious reasons, but even pre-AIDS gay media fall to either Boys Beware or Cruising-type idioms. It’s refreshing to have a gay love story with a happy… well, at least an ending without murder, death, or disfigurement (I’ll leave it to the reader to decide if your ending is a happy one). E. M. Forster is no doubt completely behind your modern addition to the text.” Read Sean McGrath’s review on Prism Comics.
cxPulp –
“The art is high contrast black and white, beautifully lined, and Macy varies the style from very representational to somewhat surreal as the scenes and situations call for it. Camille being overwhelmed by psychic visions caused by Teleny’s music is a beautiful sequence, probably my favorite in the entire graphic novel. From the way poodles are depicted, I’m going to go out on a limb and say Macy doesn’t like poodles, but hey, who does?” Read Andrea Speed’s review on cxPulp.
Fanboys of the Universe –
“…I savored and studied each page and felt the book should only be read alone and by candlelight. So vivid is the world Macy constructs, and the threat of exposure so daunting, just the experience of reading the book feels wicked and forbidden. It’s a very sensual reading experience.” Read Chance Whitmire’s review on Fanboys of the Universe.
The Rumpus –
“…Most impressive is Macy’s attention to detail and historical accuracy: plant life, architecture, absinthe spoons, doorknobs—he conducted extensive research in order to give his work such intricacy. The sex scenes between Teleny and Camille are succulent and sinless, but elsewhere, as in the original, the novel delights in the grotesque. Macy brings to vibrancy the troll that prowls London’s gay cruising ground, a hollow-cheeked character sucking his fingers in invitation to the young men looking for trade.” Read Evan J. Peterson’s review on The Rumpus.
Lambda Literary –
“Different chapters follow the two lads to brothels and the salon of their adventurous gay acquaintance, Bryancourt. Dalliances are gay and straight, erotic and shocking. Macy’s drawing style handles it all and manages to be both sexy and fantastical. While the main story line is gay, to Macy’s credit, neither the drawings nor the plot shortchange the women characters. Though more roughly drawn than Beardsley, Macy’s style harkens back to the graphics of Art Nouveau, with its stark black ink pen lines, and its references to nature..” Read Cathy Camper’s review on Lambda Literary.
Broken Frontier –
“I have no idea how daunting this must have been—and daunting I’m sure it was—but it was worth all the effort, because Macy’s finished product is nothing short of breathtaking.” Read Steven Surman’s review on Broken Frontier.
Comic Book Resources –
“Almost instantaneously, the two men form a bond between themselves that goes beyond just attraction, but more into telepathy. That is how much they are tied together. It’s a fascinating inter-relation, and Macy handles it spectacularly with his moody, evocative artwork.” Read Brian Cronin’s review on Comic Book Resources.
renderwrx –
“If you like romance books, pick this up. If you’re an Oscar Wilde fan, this book is a must. And if you’re neither of those things, pick this up because it’s a unique book and I highly doubt we will see a book of this quality in this kind of genre for a long time.” Read P.D. Houston’s review on renderwrx.
The Times Literary Supplement –
“Macy goes on to accompany the already highly charged texts with an imagery of brooding eroticism and, as required, uninhibited pornography, in some passages stripping everything down to purely visual terms. His inky linework stays sensuous and sensitive to the turbulent emotions and settings of his two idealised lovers, shifting between streamlined simplicity and more ornate flourishes from Expressionism to Art Nouveau.” Read Paul Gravett’s review from The Times Literary Supplement.
Fire-Breathing Robot –
“Overall, this is an excellent adaptation; Macy’s visual interpretation fits the style of the original perfectly. The panels flow like stream of consciousness prose, with surreal pictoral representations of a love that words cannot adequately express.” Read Ashley Cook’s review on Fire-Breathing Robot.
Lambda Literary –
“The book is a beautifully illustrated story of the love of one man for another, ripe with all the barriers to such love in a strict unforgiving society. The artwork alone conveys the intensity and beauty of the men’s feelings as the clear, simple language conveys their thoughts.” Read Chuck Forester’s review on Lambda Literary.
High-Low –
“He does a fine job in balancing the beauty and emotion of sex with the raw animal passion of the act, depicting scenes with an expressionist flourish and intricate decorative touches. In the scenes that feature hallucinations or nightmares, Macy’s horror background also serves him well, especially when one character dissolves into another.” Read Rob Clough’s review on High-Low.