The Pervert

by Michelle Perez, Remy Boydell (Artist)

Overview

Vulture/NY Magazine's Best Comics of 2018

A surprisingly honest and touching account of a trans girl surviving through sex work in Seattle. With excerpts published in Eisner nominated anthology ISLAND, the full colour volume, drawn and painted by Remy Boydell is an unflinching debut graphic novel. Written by Michelle Perez

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781534307414
Publisher:	Image Comics
Publication date:	05/01/2018
Pages:	160
Product dimensions:	7.20(w) x 10.10(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	16 - 18 Years

Editorial Reviews

03/12/2018
This collection of watercolor vignettes—some melancholy, some wryly funny—has a down-to-earth realism and humanity rare in comics about sex work. Most of the characters are anthropomorphic animals drawn in simple cartoon artwork, like a child’s art class project, allowing some distance from the protagonist’s not-always-happy experiences. Somewhere in Seattle, a shaggy-haired trans woman ekes out an unstable living. Sometimes she passes as a rent boy; sometimes she takes clients looking for a transgender partner. She’s trying to save money for a gender-affirmation operation, but somehow she keeps getting poorer and poorer. She makes friends with other sex workers, most of whom are more comfortable in the life than she is. For her, the anonymity of being a body for hire is wearying. “Each day of this,” she says, “I’m just part of someone else’s day.” The sex scenes are graphic but unemotional, a series of still images depicting the drudgery of the job. The parallel story of one of the protagonist’s regular clients, a widower who misses his wife, who was trans, offers a brighter vision for future love. Perez brings her own background as a trans woman with a history in sex work to these frank, honest pages. The short chapters build to a convincing collage portrait of a woman learning, sometimes the hard way, who she is and who she isn’t. (May)

Publishers Weekly

LIBRARY JOURNAL — Fictionalizing her own experiences and those of people she's known, writer Perez recounts episodes (some selections previously published in Island anthology) documenting the life of transgender sex worker Felina Love. This isn't champagne-glamorous, high-class stuff but a sometimes bloody obstacle course undertaken at great risk to stay alive, solvent, and sane. For while Seattle offers Felina more permissive ambiance than did her childhood home in Michigan, threats and bullying plus physical and psychological danger lurk everywhere for a person perceived as neither fully male nor female. Her sometimes tormented customers don't have an easy time of it either. Boydell's (Emergency!; Recovery Blogger) anthropomorphic watercolor art provides a manageable distance between readers and characters while lending ironic poignancy. Felina's sexual life, both professional and personal, is depicted candidly, yet in Boydell's hands the effect is dispassionate, not titillating.
Verdict A challenging, intense, and empathic account of finding oneself despite heavy odds.-Martha Cornog, Philadelphia





AUTOSTRADDLE — It's a real story that doesn't try to gussy itself up at all. It reads like a Goya painting looks. Perez is telling stories that are so different from other mainstream comics, but will also resonate with so, so many people. You don't need to be trans or a sex worker or depressed to see yourself in this book. Perez is able to capture a shared experience that Millenials have where we just can't seem to swim upriver no matter what or how hard we try. Sometimes when I read books I think "wow, I'd love to live in the world this person has created;" with The Pervert, Perez has written a book where I think "wow, I already do live in the world this person has created." While it's brutal, there's also kindness and love in the book. One of the clients we meet had previously had a relationship with a trans woman and the way he loves her and talks to her warmed my heart. He's never shown as a perfect person, but he's given sympathy, because he's a human being and he's trying. I love these parts of the book. There are also splash pages of art that is simply beautiful. Sometimes the subject matter is something gruesome, like a car crash or deer carcass, but it's still overwhelmingly beautiful.

From the Publisher