The Agency by Katie Skelly is porn. Torture porn. Sex porn. Women in power porn. Women as submissives porn. Gender is explored, sex is really explored (casual to really casual). If there was an opportunity to show a long-legged-half dressed or fully undressed woman, they took it. S&M means Sex & Me all the time. All the women are supposed to be physically beautiful but no one has ever met a calorie they did not ignore. You can tell if the carpets and drapes match, and what cup size they are. Even when “wearing” clothes. They are trying to be sex positive. And I am positive, it is sex.
The illustrations were actually wonderfully done, as they were clever and left nothing to the imagination. In fact they were the stories and the words an afterthought. A mixture of color and lack of colors, and using black and white, shape scenes, as details are minimal to nothing. Unless there is a page that is filled with something. Still there is not a lot going on. There is some repetition to images, especially in the Agent 73 story (which is written by another author, but since I didn’t bring my notes with me, I’ve forgotten their name; but Skelly is the illustrator) with the art. Several pages were just there to show you how much blood, and beaten up and shot/dead people they could make. Here is where some gender issues are given, but maybe not fully explored. Each story has a slightly different style to it, but for the most part they do look/feel similar.
The book is broken into several chapters or sections. We follow a few women such as Agent 8 (she needs to learn how to make her garden grow a little more PG), Agent 10 (her new found octopus lover is real hands and arms on) and Agent 73. Of course there is an Agent 69 who goes by Six, and wants to go into the vibrator business. This allows for some interesting jokes (for about two minutes) and one heck of a splurt at the finish line.
I was left wondering why there was a yellow-orange colored Spider Man in space, if the mushrooms gave consent for being used, how does a skeleton lover get pleasure (I know how he gives), and no wonder Skelly had their work on a website with the word Slut in it.
