The Multifaceted Eroticism of Ignacio Noe

Noe’s Style

In analyzing the portfolio of Argentina’s foremost comic artist, Ignacio Noe, one might be prone to a spell of whiplash, as the primary genre wherein Noe delights — for, let us admit, this is what he, as any artist whose job it is to paint breasts at the exact angle which satisfies their taste best, does — that being the erotic, is the greatest possible tangent from his other work, for one: children’s books. Along with subject and subtext, Noe’s style seems equally adaptable, as no single aesthetic can rightly be labeled The Noe Aesthetic, nor is there a particular stylistic category which, when affixed to a specific work, would then encompass all the rest. Realism, cartoon, landscape, Noe has done them all, and produced satisfying products within each.

Fig. 1  Woman Enjoying Water. Calendar 2023

Fig.2  Woman Enjoying Air. Calendar 2023

Fig.3  Shower. Suddenly. Les Sculpteurs de Bulles

Fig. 4  El Conde de Montecristo (The Count of Monte Cristo)

Fig. 5  Elefentes (Elephant seals). Suddenly. Les Sculpteurs de Bulles

Fig. 6  Air Goddess. Calendar 2023.

Fig. 7  Woman Suffering Water. Calendar 2023

Fig. 8  Woman Suffering Air. Calendar 2023

Fig.9  Nubes Y Arbol (Clouds and Tree), acrylic on canvas

Sex in Comics

In the comics of Ignacio Noe, sex is pursued and plopped into with little of the tact which other erotic artists, concerned with taste, the veneer of class — concerned, that is to say, with reputation — use to provide alibi upon alibi until a wall of Good Reason is built so that depiction of sex is depicted without offense. Noe is, let us say, tactless: without sexual strategy. His work is pornographic and shamelessly so. Transitions between scenes lax in their sexuality — though never completely as most women sport the tight-dress-cleavage-combo, meaning that even if we don’t see sex we are seeing that which is to incite it — to scenes of full penetration are rarely more than two panels: one for his clothes one for her’s.

Fig. 10

Fig. 11

Convent of Hell

Perhaps the work most recently responsible for fanning the flame of Ignacio’s precarious fame, is “Convent of Hell.” A comic whose title, paired with even half a knowledge of the reputation behind the Noe name, is enough to predict the trajectory the comic will take. The story centers on a convent in Spain, where the quotidian life of, ostensibly, religiously devout nuns is revealed — within the first page — to be nothing but a camouflage for the Satanic hedonist’s theme park which they’ve created. The art style of “Convent of Hell” is notably ugly, in a beautiful way. The hard pop lines which combine to make up the jaws, noses, brows, cheekbones of the individual characters are exaggerated in the style of caricature drawings, making coarse and mannish the otherwise meticulously sexual. This partly allows Ignacio to lean into horror just as much as he does into eroticism. The expressions on the faces, along with being of a more tempered expectation of beauty, portray a satisfying gamut of emotion — which in this comic is either pleasure, or fear. Meaning moments of pleasure, just as moments of horror, are more potent — such as when Lovecraftian tentacles with phallic ends begin wreaking both the former and latter upon the convent’s eager, frightened inhabitants.

Fig. 12  Convent of Hell (1998)

Fig. 13  Convent of Hell (1998)

Fig.14  Convent of Hell (1998)

In the extended Premium edition you can check out more about Noe's comics Doctor I’m Too Big, Ship of Fools, The Piano Tuner, Aldana, an extensive analysis of Noe's "Too Sexy" aesthetics, and numerous additional pics.

Ignacio Noe is active on Instagram

Click HERE for the virtuoso erotica of the Argentinian comic art genius El Tomi

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