He’s ahead of the curves!
A sexy sci-fi comic strip has finally reached its climax, exploding into a 520-page graphic novel. “The Complete Curvy” collects 10 years of the weekly webcomic “Curvy,” created by Flatbush resident Sylvan Migdal, who also works as a web designer and illustrator for this newspaper.
The series was born from Migdal’s experience as a comic book artist at a highbrow fine arts college. Instead of creating a literary graphic novel full with subtle metaphors, the artist said he found himself sketching a story of sexy princesses, wizards, and caramel cockroaches.
“I was trying to figure out how to do work that I was excited about and how to impress my professors and peers with what a fine, fine artist I was,” Migdal said. “So I was racking my brain trying to think of how to do comics that were in that vein, and then this comic kind of happened as a reaction against that.”
Migdal also wanted to create an inclusive erotic novel, one that would be a fun and exciting read for audiences of any orientation. But it took a little while to work out the kinks in his art style, said the author.
“I had to develop my artistic skills to draw naked people that didn’t look like a pile of legos,” Migdal said. “But also drawing images that were representing body positivity and figuring out how to get that on to the page.”
The story follows Anaїs Phalese, a Brooklynite who meets a visitor from another world — Fauna Lokjum, the Liquorice Princess of Candy World — who is on the run from an arranged marriage to a supervillain. The two hop across dimensions and explore their sexualities while trying to save the world from Fauna’s would-be fiance.
Migdal’s art style evolved over the years, and for “The Complete Curvy” he added color to the original black and white panels — an element that adds more context to the story, the artist said.
“Candy World, as depicted in the original comic, was colorless, so I wanted to bring color to it and be able to bring that to life,” Migdal said. “I was able to do some very nice effects with these colors.”
Migdal’s experience working at a Brooklyn paper also helped to solidify Anaїs as a Brooklynite, just as the local newspaper experience helped to forge his own identity as a King County resident rather than a generic New Yorker. He also incorporated some landmarks and elements of the borough into his story that locals might recognize, Migdal said.
“The school handball court that is the magic monolith that much of the overarching story centers on is based in a particular school in Fort Greene,” he hinted.
Read “The Complete Curvy” at c.urvy.org, or order the collection from ironcircus.com. $50.
