Some words about 'That Night in '66' (Patreon)

Just to be clear, lots of SPOILERS AHEAD.
So if you haven't read this one, go check it out first and then come back here later.

---------------------------------------------

Spider-Man: Blue is one of my favorite Spidey comics. Ever!

Tim Sale and Jeff Loeb knocked it so out of the park I actually feel a bit ashamed to even dare making a lewd spoof about it.

Shame, however, isn't known to be a thing that have stopped me before.

That Night in '66 was born out of a Co-Writer Tier pledge from patron Blackhood9043. For those of you who don't know it, that tier is available for patrons who are willing to contribute with a much more substantial amount of money to develop a comic together with me. The exact amount varies, depending on the artist who'll work on the story. But it can currently range from $700 to even $2000, for a more detailed illustrator.

During that process, the co-writer pitches a few ideas of stories, until we find something we both like. Then on, the collaboration level can vary from him just giving me guided input on my writing to us actually writing it together. It really depends on the particular dynamic and interest of that patron.

So, in this case, Blackhood pitched me a handful of ideas, and among them was this one:

Ladies night 70s style story,
with MJ, Gwen Stacy, Betty Brant.
Taking place in the early 70s before Gwen died, MJ organises a ladies night with Gwen and Betty in her apartment. After a lot of drinking and dancing, a tipsy Gwen, who’s currently Peter’s girlfriend, begins complaining about how Peter sometimes brushes her off without an explanation. MJ and Betty agree with her, as he’s done the same to them. Gwen begins getting emotional and worries if Peter really cares about her. MJ and Betty comfort her, telling her that anyone would be lucky to have her. Betty reveals that her boyfriend Ned Leeds would be distant sometimes especially when they’re intimate, due to work commitments. As MJ was a very outgoing person when she first appeared in ASM, she suggests to the two women that they shouldn’t dwell on men too much, assuring them that a woman’s touch can make all the difference, before going on to begin kissing Gwen. A threesome ensues. 

To some extent, that's very similar to the final result in the comic. While talking about details on how to break this outline into a specific story, we considered making it a sequel to another comic I did some years ago, Our Valentine.

"Would you believe it's been 7 years since Our Valentine came out???"

Our Valentine was in fact heavily influenced in Tim Sale's visual style for the characters. The scenery and outfits for both MJ and Gwen were based on their looks in scenes from SM:B.

But on the other hand, Our Valentine's plot didn't quite match with the lesb-threeway pitch from Blackhood. In OV, the plot-twist was that it was both girls having a shared dream of sleeping with Peter (instead of the usual other-way-around), while this new story would be about MJ helping Gwen and Betty with their intimacy issues with each one's boyfriends.

So, we compromised to something in the middle. We went for the same visual aesthetics that referenced SM:B and slightly changed the pitch to set it narratively in the period of time where Peter lived with Harry in that penthouse apartment.

Then I proposed the following revision for the outline:

There was supposed to be a party, but all the men failed to attend. Even Harry couldn't come, since he had to come by his father's residence for some reason. Flash sprained his ankle while playing football and Peter, as usual, is missing as he always does (Spider-Man-ing elsewhere...).So that leaves MJ, Gwen and Betty alone and already quite tipsy at some point in the night. 

Now, what I'd change from the original suggestion is Betty teaming up with MJ, leaving only Gwen as the lesb-noob.I suggest Betty and MJ get a bit frisky to one another and Gwen, competitive as she gets, doesn't want to be left behind. So she engages with Betty, pushing MJ aside. 

At this point, we can either have Peter come by somewhen in the story and join in on the sex, or he just entirely misses the lewd action, with his Parker Luck striking once again.

Blackhood liked that direction and went on to outline a few ideas for what he wanted to see in each of the 8 pages for the story. After that I jumped in and further broke down the story, with more detailed descriptions for each panel, while also writing the dialogues.

With the script ready, I reached out to the artists we wanted for this story. Luckily, our first choice was XGEEK and he was very interested in drawing that story, available to start immediately. 

Some long weeks later, a comic was born.

Now, with all that said, here's some curiosities about the development of this comic scripted that I think you might find interesting...

"Rent-controlled much?"

From the start, we wanted to ground this comic as much as possible with the vibe of SM:B, and having the story take place in Harry's penthouse was crucial to achieve that. With that in mind, X-Geek did a fantastic job reproducing the high-ceiling living-room of the double-floored apartment, with a fantastic attention to details too. Even Peter's bedroom was quite similar to the reference, even if we see just a glimpse of it in the last page.

"Clothes are the best part of nudity!"

There was a long, detailed conversation about the choices of attire for the girls. 

If you're familiar with my work, you may have already noticed that even in the most explicit scenes, | always try to keep the most recognizable visual traits from the characters depicted in my comics.

I am a believer that super-hero costumes are quite important to keep the characters easily identifiable and to prevent the "it's-just-two-random-people-going-at-it" effect.

So I try to keep parts of their attire on their bodies or on the background for the longest time possible (sometimes for the entire story).

In this case, the clothing choices for the characters were based on both sexyness and on how their design could allow for exposing the ladies' fun bits without needing to get them fully undressed.

So, MJ would wear a calves-high white boots, a tight top and a skirt (which could be rolled up to expose her intimates) and Gwen would sport black boots, a buttoned blouse and skirt (which could also allow for easy access). 

Now for Betty, in order to keep her secretary look, we went with a more conservative sweater (which would eventually come entirely off of her). But to compensate for it, she got a skirt, thigh-long stockings and medium-sized heels.

All in all, I think we achieved the goal we set for.

"Whoa! Is that licensed merchandise?"

Here's a small trivia: The Spidey-Vibrating-Dildo depicted in this comic was actually inspired in a supposedly real vintage product I found on the internet: a Beatles-themed ladies massager!

Honestly, I think it's a prank of sorts, but it looked too cool not to be referenced in the story.

"Now that's what I call a long pillow-talk."

I realize that I have this tendency of having A LOT of dialogue in my comics. Yeah, I know... guilty as charged. In my defense, the reason for that is that my budget usually only allows for eight pages of story, so I try to fit in as much as possible of the sheer myriad of ideas for characters' interaction. 

One perfect example is Panel 8.4. That's really WAY TOO MUCH dialogue going on in such a small panel and I simply couldn't write any less. So, not only I embraced that "problem", I ran with it and gave it some sort of artistic expression layer. Not sure how evident it became, but... 

Did you notice the speech bubbles and its tails form a slight heart shape around the girls? That was actually intentional, though I wonder if it's really as cool as I hoped it would be. What's your opinion?

...and that guys, was the story of how you got this comic today.
I hope you enjoyed reading it.

I've been trying doing these not-so-little, behind-the-scenes to show a bit of the work involved in their production.

Feel free to use our Discord channel to ask more questions and share your thoughts on this story (or any other comic of mine, while you're at it).

Now, onto the next release!
Talk soon!
-Tracy.