"Mickey Smith," Professional Soft Core Fetish Comic Book Pr0n Artist

Another bit I wrote for CONSPIRACY! last night. This isn't from my initial notes I wrote years ago, I just came up with it on the spot. I like it. When CONSPIRACY! is over, I think I'm going to have to write a "Mickey Smith" novella.

Excerpt from:
"2012: The Glory Road"
by Nestor Planchette

If you are still reading this, you must be one of the Chosen.

Just kidding!

But here's another cool story.

Two years ago, I ran into a pornographer at a comic book convention that was held in a church. The man was lit like a torch, barely standing by 6:00 when the exhibitors started packing.

Now, as a matter of full disclosure: I was a customer of said pornographer. I'm being very upfront about this, because I know these are the sorts of details that come out on the Internet and are used to discredit you (even though said details have diddly to do with your point). Further, I purchased a very special type of pornography – made-to-order – from said pornographer. Soft-core fetish porn. Believe me, the stuff I asked for was tame compared to some of his clients.

Anyway, this guy – who I'll henceforth refer to as Mickey Smith, not his real name – was very inebriated, and was actually searching me out to talk to specifically. He said he had something to tell me that might be relevant to my non-porn interests. So I helped him pack up his table and roll the whole kit-and-caboodle to the Dunkin Donuts down the street from the church. I thought the lack of alcohol and a surplus of coffee might be good for him. Seriously, I thought if we ended up at one bar or another and started a tab, the guy would be dead.

And, not to be crassly utilitarian about all this, if Mickey Smith died, he'd leave a lot of disappointed fans in his wake. The guy drew like a Michelangelo of porn. Such an intuitive grasp of the subject matter and what the client wanted. Knew all the standard comic book superheroines. You could ask him, "draw Halo from Batman and the Outsiders handcuffed to a radiator pipe." He instantly knew who you were talking about, even though that was a relatively obscure character. Sometimes, reference wasn't even necessary. (I never asked for Halo and a radiator pipe, by the way, that was just an example that I saw).

But it wasn't just that Mickey knew the logistics. He really made you feel for these figures on the page. I don't know what it was. The eyes, maybe?

Mickey Smith even had a best-selling underground book of his art that he was selling at the con featuring nothing but unauthorized pinups of superhero chicks in bondage. The book brought him some legal trouble here and there, but I think he got this group of lawyers familiar with that stuff to rep him pro bono. It was shame that Mickey wasn't getting work from the pros, but when I told him so he just sneered and said to me, "what do I need that bucketful of misery for?" And he said that he made so much money from his art that he didn't have to worry. International clients, deals with porn websites. There was even going to be a little video-game in Flash coming out. He should have been a happy man.

But, just to cut you Moralists off at the pass – I don't think the subject matter of his illustrations was what was dogging Mickey Smith. A $50 8x11-incher with some naked lady on it ain't the most important thing, it's not the thing it all hinges on. It's not what's going to end Society.

I mean literally end it.