The youngest of the three stands by horrified but aroused (another signature of the Bruno realm) and discovers he is unable to restrain the lust he feels for his father and grandfather and proceeds to ram his full face into his dad’s butt. Acting on an old wives’ tale about urine and stings, the grandfather immediately decides he’ll piss onto the afflicted area, and it seems to soothe his hurting son. Both begin in medias res, leaving readers to fill in the narrative gaps that the author didn’t think important enough to waste precious panels on (I very often find myself wondering if I’ve accidentally discovered the second or third chapter of a story and missed all of the exposition necessary to understanding what’s happening, only to learn that the 10-12 panels I’ve got are all there is).īee Sting (from the April 2013 issue of Handjobs Magazine) is a short tale of a grandfather-father-son construction team, where the father discovers he’s been stung by something, right between the cheeks. The two comics featured here, Bee Sting and Big Hungry Mouth, are hallmark Bruno stories. Why is my penis so big and hard over this? That doesn’t seem right…” But almost as frequently, it’s the father-figures saying “Hold on. Very often it’s the youthful characters feeling underpracticed and uncertain about what’s transpiring. Rather everyone is shocked at how natural they find their physical connection and wrestling (at least superficially) with whether or not what’s happening is acceptable. Like Josman, there is rarely a coercive or rapey element to Bruno’s comics. The dads and construction workers in Bruno’s stories are often just as clueless and shocked by the action taking place as their wards. Where Josman comics usually have a predictable arc of young man is exploring his burgeoning sexuality more boldly all the time, gets caught/gets himself “caught” by an older authority figure ( dad, coach, construction worker, Indian chief), Bruno’s characters often forego the ‘father knows best’ element of the older character being authoritative and guiding in the awakening of the younger character’s desires. Perhaps that’s because at the heart of Bruno’s stories is a vastly different kind of sex a complicated type that not everyone can find relatable or desirable.
Bruno always seems like sort of an also-ran when you discuss any of the grownup comics of Handjobs Magazine, with people usually agreeing they remember his works, but that they somehow didn’t make the same sort of impact that Josman’s did. Bruno’s characters exist in a very different world than those of Josman or Julius, though the fluidity of sexuality and the quest for connection via socially taboo sexual congress overlaps heavily. I think obscene is a great way to describe Bruno comics. Incesty, obscene, and raunchy af Bruno clearly defines his filthy world in Handjobs Magazine.