"We Killed Our Virginity!"

When Boze originally handed me the stapled minis of something he was doing with Stasia Kato and calling "The Virgin Project," I was amused by the concept. Everybody's First Time in the sack, huh? This should be entertaining. The stories were pretty cute, and quite well-written. The art was light and pleasant, if not quite finished, but it was only a mini. I'd seen plenty of projects like this wander through a moment's pleasure and never go anywhere.

The next time I saw a larger version, the stories had dug deeper. Whether the word had gotten around or not, more and meatier kinds of stories were opening up to the talented artists/writer duo. People were talking. Stories with quotes like, "I was raped by my wrestling coach. I don't want to talk about this." My eyebrows went right up.

Boze would call me occasionally - usually late at night -- about publishing details: where to get ISBN's, how to get listed with the Library of Congress, which printer did I like better for print-on-demand? I gave him the nuts and bolts and he took them and ran. When an author gets to the grinding side of getting out a book, I believe him. The project was going to happen, that much I knew.

Finally, he asked me for a review, I agreed, and the book arrived in the mail. The package was bigger and heavier than I expected, with those little minis in mind. When I opened up the envelope, the surprise turned to delight.

The Virgin is a big, solid book, with page dimensions the size of bond paper, glossy, sleek and full of substance, and not just for its impressive print values; Girlie Press, the best gay-owned company in Washington State for two years' running, can take a bow. An offset press, they put in the production time and it shows. But there's more to the book than just pretty pictures or silly memories of youthful initiation.

"The Virgin Project" is an important book, beyond its own form as a drawn book. It's important because it faces human sexuality with humor, tenderness, a mature, balanced sense of reality, and a profound sense of compassion. It never pulls its punches, it never loses its mature lightness of touch, even in its darkest moments.

The art is personal. Kato is a more finished artist than Boze, with more solid hand control. The layout, and the sense of when to use plain stark line, solid blacks, hard color or ink wash, is fully developed. Boze and Kato know how to make a story flow and pop. Both are growing quickly as artists.

The writing is the drawn book at its most poetic, in the classic sense of poetry of saying the most with the fewest words. Boze and Kato are pithy, loquacious when the stories are funny, short and harsh when the story goes dark. And some of these stories are very dark. The authors pay close attention to the true voices of their subjects. The only thing that colors the stories is an accepting humanity. No sort of tale of the First Time is ignored in "The Virgin Project."

The more painful sex is to a subject, the less likely subjects are to talk about it. Those stories are choked out in a few forced words, twisting with the memory of assault and abuse. An old woman only remembers her first time with shame and pain. Religious guilt sullies natural function. In an almost unbearable revelation, a woman finally told on the step-father who had been ravishing her. He carried out his threat to slit her beloved dog's throat; there is a special Hell someplace for him.

But there's a lot more fun than bad. Again and again, people love and anticipate sex as the sacred gift it is, and remember the first time they got some, with joy, amazement, often a pure youthful goofiness. Rape victims rise above what was done to them and refuse to accept guilt for what was never their fault. Coming-out stories can be simultaneously confusing, frightening and silly.

The book itself is physically tasty. Its big 8" x 11" pages are thick and glossy. The perfect-bound paper cover displays a line drawing of the torso, front and back, of a young woman - tattooed and hennaed -- in her Victoria's Secrets. Use of colored lines and a limited, sophisticated pallet is reminiscent of the deceptively simple Bullwinkle cartoons. The silky matte gloss of the cover soothes and invites the hand. It asks to be picked up and enjoyed.

I don't keep a lot of the books that are given me to read or review; I've even stuck the ones I didn't want to keep in the back of airplane seats.

"The Virgin Project" is going on the book shelf by the bed. Talk about sexy.

Order sites and book and comics stores listed at: www.artofkdboze.com ISBN (EAN) 978-1-60585-513-4 in Books In Print.