lb_lee: The Blue Beetle doubled over laughing. (bwa-hah-ha)
[personal profile] lb_lee
Rogan: this post involves two booklets involving dicks.

Mentaiko Itto is a gay cartoonist we’ve been aware of for years, and we used to own one of his two paper books licensed in English: Priapus, the Bruno Gmunder release. Well, we recently discovered that Mac’s favorite comic from it, Gachinko Battle, has been licensed in English again by Irodori Sakura, under the name “Gatinko Battle: Balls-to-the-Wall,” which is admittedly a way better English title. Mac and I were happy to toss Mentaiko some more bucks, but I was wondering: what would the translation be like, compared to the Bruno Gmunder release?

Better, it turns out! Way better! Some of the jokes went WAY smoother—“you spooge, you lose!” was especially inspired. The ending of the plot gets EXPLAINED this time, allowing me to finally understand the ending victory! And speech patterns between characters was more differentiated. A delight, and we’ll be keeping an eye on this group working to bring doujinshi into other languages!

Today, we also went to the Boston Anarchist Book Fair, hunting zines. I truly love zines. Sure, a ton of them are abstruse political manifestos, or boring, or incompetently made... but you can also find weird, amazing things that nobody else would touch. For example: Malleus Maleficarum Members. What is it? Well, it is a collation of every time the word “member” is used as a euphemism for “penis” in a hundred-year-old translation of a 1487 witch hunter’s manual. It also has a dildo on its Risographed cover, alluding to its original status as performance art: “After laser duplex printing the 1494 edition, each page was individually shredded by the artist. The pieces were then burned to ash and mixed with transparent base and water. A dildo was then dipped into the ash mixture, and dropped forty-nine times, once for every time the author wrote ‘member’ as a euphemism for penis in the text.

“In addition to the documented 36 editions printed between 1487 and 1669, there were at least 51 editions printed in Latin, German, Spanish, Italian, Greek, Polish, and English between 1850-2024. This riso edition is printed in an edition of 87, one for each of those editions... Documentation of the performance is available at youtube.com/@vincaponigro.”

Best ten bucks I ever spent. It’s like reading someone’s extremely overinvested 500-year-old fandom manifesto on omegaverse anatomy. My roommate dramatically read it aloud, nearly dying of cackles. Seriously, where else but the BABF could you find something like this? You can buy sex worker memoir zines, zines about the illegalization of zines with the Prairieland Defendants, sermons on hermetic anarchism... I truly, truly love this event and this art form. Pay in cash, and no Paypal can jump out and extralegally stop you.

I may well post about others as I work my way through them, but first? Had to talk about the dongs.

Did you know witches can steal your dick? They can! “And what, then, is to be thought of those witches who in this way sometimes collect male organs in great numbers, as many as twenty or thirty members together, and put them in a bird’s nest, or shut them up in a box, where they move themselves like living members, and eat oats and corn, as has been said by many and is a matter of common report?” I dunno, man, but I’m sure glad you’re here to tell me!

Date: 2026-11-09 03:04 am (UTC)
alatefeline: Painting of a cat asleep on a book. (Default)
From: [personal profile] alatefeline
*wheezing* Oh, wow, I have got to get to that zine fair someday!!! Sounds like there are absolute treasures!

Date: 2026-11-09 04:08 pm (UTC)
alatefeline: Painting of a cat asleep on a book. (Default)
From: [personal profile] alatefeline
That is a very high recommendation. Thanks, Rogan.

Date: 2026-11-09 04:19 am (UTC)
sinistmer: A squirrel eating cake (squirrel)
From: [personal profile] sinistmer
A dong stealing witch would make an amazing horror comedy book/movie.

Date: 2026-11-09 04:09 pm (UTC)
alatefeline: Painting of a cat asleep on a book. (Default)
From: [personal profile] alatefeline
*cackling* Now we know who to blame for No Ao3 November. It was the penis thieving sorceress all along!

Date: 2026-11-09 04:40 pm (UTC)
alatefeline: Painting of a cat asleep on a book. (Default)
From: [personal profile] alatefeline
HAHAHAHAHAHA

Date: 2026-11-09 07:27 am (UTC)
pantha: (Default)
From: [personal profile] pantha
That is the most perfect response to Malleus Maleficarum.

Ding!

Date: 2026-11-09 12:55 pm (UTC)
storyheight: (mega tree IMA)
From: [personal profile] storyheight
..dong! The witch has fled!

Date: 2026-11-09 01:27 pm (UTC)
wispfox: (Default)
From: [personal profile] wispfox
"eat oats and corn"

!!!!

Date: 2026-11-09 02:53 pm (UTC)
storyheight: (weretiger in my hatband)
From: [personal profile] storyheight
ok so reading that reminded me that Corn is a new-world plant; so it's like, "imagine being a box-penis in the 1400s and only being able to eat oats...AND THEN BUT A FEW DECADES LATER--"
won't someone please think of the witch stolen box wangs

Date: 2026-11-09 04:40 pm (UTC)
alatefeline: Painting of a cat asleep on a book. (Default)
From: [personal profile] alatefeline
*mock-angry eyebrows* I scared the cat off my lap laughing, pals!

Date: 2026-11-11 01:32 pm (UTC)
wispfox: (Default)
From: [personal profile] wispfox
LMAO!
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios