The Killer Condom by Ralf König

 

(pb; 1988. Translated from the German by Jim Steakley.)

 

From the back cover

“It looks like a condom.

“It feels like a condom.

“It fits like a condom.

“But it’s no ordinary condom—it’s a killer!”

 

Review

In New York City, at the sleazy Hotel Quickie—where police detective (Macaroni, no first name given) has sexual encounters with his rent boys—twelve men, during trysts, had their penes bitten off by a creature (or creatures) that look like safe-sex rubbers. Macaroni doesn’t believe this until his right testicle is chomped off, and his investigation becomes personal. Macaroni is aided by his latest lust-struck size-king rent boy (whose name is not given) who’s gone sweet on the gruff inspector.

König’s milestone work is presented as “A Ralf König Film. . . presented by Twentieth Century Fux,” its writing and tone dead-on hard-boiled and double-entendre hilarious, its framing and art appropriately cinematic, a veritable stick-to-it blueprint for any film that might result from it (one did). A sly skewering of human relations, mostly sexual, underlines the fast-moving, crisply edited proceedings, and König’s artwork, while sexually explicit at times (with plenty of male and female frontal nudity), is often Mad magazine hyperbolic, general (e.g., no extreme closeup “money shots”) and frenetic, an imaginative, topline masterwork that rises well above the level of mere porn.

Killer is one of my all-time favorite graphic novel reads, one that mixes unapologetic smut with pun-intended, often risible cleverness and a genuine, well-executed love of tough-guy pulp. Worth owning, this, if you enjoy Mad magazine-style artwork, and are good with its aforementioned qualities and aren’t heterophobic or homophobic.

Followed by another graphic novel, Ralf König’s Down to the Bone.

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The resulting film, which includes select plot elements from Down to the Bone, was released in Germany on August 29, 1996, and made its stateside debut at the San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival in 1997. Martin Walz directed and co-scripted it with Mario Kramp.