There is a huge swath of talent amongst Melbournes independent comic book artists, and you can always be sure that the works that they produce are cutting edge litanies. From the daily to the macabre, the fantastical to the conspiratorial, these artists take on all the challenges of communicating the foibles and fallacies of  our times.

Fleshtonez, the next upcoming group show at Paradise Hills, follows in this vein perfectly – though, not exactly in the way expected. Erotica is a definitive genre in our modern day, a ubiquitous element amongst the creative realm – and though not all artists focus on the genre solely, they will, surely, touch upon it at some stage in their creative journeys.

“FLESHTONEZ is an opportunity for eleven cutting-edge, Melbourne-based comic book artists to explore the erotic side of their practice. Free from the presumption that strong sexual content can demean the work, each artist can create their own unique take on erotica in contemporary graphic art.

Whether the result be playful, profound or disturbing, by doing so the artist has at once tapped into a rich vein of personal material and contributed to a broader discussion on sexuality, a more crucial facet than ever of the current zeitgeist.”

By taking such artists as M P Fikaris, Katie Parrish, Michael Hawkins and the rest of the comic luminaries in Fleshtonez, and letting them run unfettered though their erotically charged imaginations curator Michael Hawkins may have just created a … okay, okay, I’ll avoid the bad puns, really grand show show – we’re really looking forward to seeing what work is up on the walls on the night!

I really made an effort to not mention my hopes for at least some suggestion of tentacle pr0n in this writeup. Ah. Shit.

Too late.

Who: Michael P Fikaris, Simon Hanselmann, Emily Hasselhoof, Michael Hawkins, HTML Flowers, Jnr Blue, Katie Parrish, Lee Lai, Elliot Lamb, David Mahler, Marc Pearson, Josephine Waite
What: Fleshtonez group show
Where: Paradise Hills, 8 Doonside St, Richmond, Melbourne VIC
When: Show opens Friday 31st May from pm til 10pm and runs for two weeks.

Check out the Facebook event page as well as the Paradise Hills website for more info!