Finding Melinda Gebbie in Lost Girls

This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on August 15, 2006 Sign up now!

by Heidi MacDonald, PW Comics Week -- Publishers Weekly, 8/15/2006

As one of the original generation of 1960s underground cartoonists in San Francisco, Melinda Gebbie contributed to such classic anthologies as Anarchy and Wimmen’s. Moving to London in the 1980s, she met writer Alan Moore (after an introduction by Neil Gaiman) and the two began collaborating on Lost Girls, as well as, eventually, a personal relationship. Sixteen years in the making, this erotic reinvention of classic literary characters is a spectacular showcase for Gebbie’s meticulous, fine arts-based style; a lush, dreamy celebration of sexuality that includes artistic references to everything from Egon Schiele to '30s musicals. Gebbie spoke with PWCW about some of her inspirations.

PWCW: What were your thoughts on the story when you first got into Lost Girls?

Melinda Gebbie: At the very first it was a little eight-page thing. My point of reference was that I had very passionate feelings about sexual politics. Being a typical American girl, I was painfully aware of not being perfectly shaped, and used to go to the beach and wear black and chainsmoke while everybody else was out in their bikinis. I was also fascinated when I was a kid by how mad my mom became when my dad would get Playboy magazine. I thought, what business is it of hers, it's his subscription. Why are women afraid of pornography, why isn't it for them?

I watched magazines for years, waiting for a really sexy woman's magazine to come along and it never did. Sometimes I'd find some sexy artwork that had been done by someone in the past, like Franz van Bayros. But there wasn't anything that was classy and beautiful and sexy.

PWCW: Although you and publisher Top Shelf have been braced for the worst, so far the reaction to Lost Girls has been overwhelmingly positive. Are you surprised?

MG: I’m pleased by it because I try to make everything as beautiful as possible, as long as it's not goofily sentimental.

PWCW: Why did you think it was important to create this lavish pornography featuring beloved children's characters?

MG: There were several personal goals involved in it. My own background had been this unease that women have about being depicted. I think it's because of these terrible magazines that show women shivering on studio linens and wearing cheap shoes--that whole ugly thing. That's not the way you see people unless you're going to see a poor little prostitute, who is not there to be your friend and is not there for her own sense of joy or pleasure but because she needs the money.

My dad used to keep little Betty Page books in his dresser drawer, and I didn’t even look at the fact that she was in her underwear standing in front of a sofa. I noticed she's so pretty, she must be a princess, she's so happy. And she got across this idea of "I'm not ashamed, I'm having fun, I'm playing. Don't worry about me, I'm not doing this for reasons that make me unhappy."

[The goal is] to drop the idea that sex is about using and being used, because that's what pornography says. If we can take away the anxiety and get rid of all the things that make porn disgusting--the coldness, the cheapness, the non-personhood quality of it--we can start again. I guess I was writing that book for the little girl I was when I was 10 years old. The book that says sex is good and fun and necessary and there are ways to find your joy and find your way, and you never have to be embarrassed about having a sexual drive again.

PWCW: Was it difficult working on this project with someone you're in a relationship with?

MG: It couldn't possibly have been done without that support. It's such a peculiar thing to work on. Neither of us could talk in any depth to any of our closest friends about what we were doing--it entailed talking about sex. With friends, they start to think, 'this is more information than I want to know or ask, are you directing this at me?' Because at some level it's such a powerful focus. It's a little like trying to engage with cows--you have to look sideways at them--you can't look directly at them or they get scared. We're all a bit like that. And I find that people get very excited, about the book but their reaction is when can I get my copy so I can take it away to my cave.

PWCW: It's not exactly something you want to read in public.

MG: Well, of course not. If it works, you don't want to read it in a public place. It's not that we were expecting any of [our hopes for the book to be realized] because then you’re disappointed, but you hope with all your heart and work for the idea that once the book is out and there's an intellectual esthetic set, people will understand that this is not rubbish. We wanted to make a piece of pornography that people did not want to throw away or hide from other people. That it's okay to have it on your shelf and your friends would still think you were sophisticated and decent.