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| Zelolee - Shoot at this Guy |
Zelolee's style is at the opposite end of the spectrum to Zaria, his captives are muscular, masculine and mature. As you can see from this image, his stories are concerned with fantasy worlds where men are men, but as captives, naturally, they are shown no more mercy than Zaria's erotically tormented younger men (who seem to have turned here out to witness this ancient hero's self-abasing humiliation in what looks like a very modern jail cell). There's a certain 'plasticity' about his rendering of the muscle detail here which is distinctive if not entirely convincing.
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| Zelolee - Crisis page 9 |
In this example from 'Crisis', however, the same rendering technique works very well on the hero's skin-tight suit, suggesting a clingy suppleness that must be a treat to wear! Unfortunately it also seems to be irresistible to the genetically-bred 'monsters' that he has come to hunt down. The drawing here is highly-stylised with minimal background detail and the hero's face totally obscured by a sleek, futuristic, helmet. In contrast the monster is rather crudely and confusingly imagined, as a sort of humanoid dinosaur with added tentacles which appear to grow out of his backside (see next frame!).
(Remember to read these pictures from right to left)
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| Zelolee - Crisis page15 |
Needless to say the creature duly has it's way with the hapless soldier, gradually removing his entire uniform – but not his helmet which appears to be an integral part of his body with the eye holes cleverly changing shape to convey his reactions. The rough assault is portrayed by the artist in a series of angular frames with close-up detail which is not always easy to read but conveys a sense of the desperate, slightly comical struggle. Inevitably I suppose, the coupling soon takes the form of the standard, tentacle 'sit in my lap' pose, similar to that in the first picture in this article (in case you hadn't noticed).
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| Zelolee - Crisis page24 |
Eventually our hero is rescued by a comrade who comes to his aid and dispatches the randy monster, who presumably dies happy. The story has a delicious end-twist when the recuperating hero is told that the monster's impregnation must be removed from his body or he will turn into one himself.
The extracting machine, designed to probe all the relevant orifices turns out to have monster-like dimensions too and the story closes with treatment in full flow. We get to see the hero's fully naked body in this scene and I'd have been tempted to remove his helmet too to give this scene a more human dimension, but I suppose that's not the way of heroes.
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| Zelolee - Brothers |
Zelolee draws upon pseudo-medical imagery for this scene too with a needle poised threateningly above the captive's vital organs. His technique here is even more basic with minimal body detailing but the same sense of style and design is very apparent.
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| The Perverted Sage - page 14 |
This versatile artist shows another side in 'The Perverted Sage'. It's another tentacle saga but one is struck by the extreme stylisation which depicts these entities as arching, pointed, almost one-dimensional shapes, rather like blades of grass. That association imparts to them a quality of flexibility and delicacy which makes the possibility of arousing their victim a credible one. Their capability to grip and penetrate is also portrayed but the artist's technique suggests it's through an almost magical gentleness, leaving the viewer to imagine the what follows.
Zelolee matches this lightness of touch with a restrained palette of pastel colours which suggests normality rather than drama. It seems to drain the energy from the captive warrior. Notice too that the Sage and the Warrior are almost indistinguishable with similar angular, masculine features and stylised hair. It suggests an equivalence in their heroic status which is illusory, the Sage is an alien with self-transforming capability, but their similarity lends an erotic twist to their struggle.
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| The Perverted Sage - page 19 |
In the final frames the captive is imprisoned by the tentacle entity which is seen to have a simplicity of structure that does allow us to draw on our normal constructs for beastly beings. It focuses us on what it is doing, holding the captive and milking him of his semen which has acquired the status of a gastronomic delicacy for the alien being.
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| Zelolee - The Battlefield Urinal page 5 |
'The Battlefield Urinal' is set in a more real world with no magic or fantastical beings and Zelolee accordingly adopts more earthy tones. I suspect 'Urinal' is a mistranslation as this story does not concern golden showers. It recounts the tale of a captured soldier who develops (or reveals) under torture an erotic response to pain. It leads to much abuse until a sympathetic officer intervenes and sends him back to his own side. Unfortunately his secret is soon discovered there by his commanding officer who cannot resist adopting him as a sexual slave.
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| Zelolee - The Battlefield Urinal page 15 |
Zelolee characterises the hapless soldier visually as something of a muscular brute in comparison with his normal looking colleagues. In fact he shows heroic qualities under torture by his enemies before his weakness is revealed. His misleading appearance adds pathos to his serial subjugation in which even his own side abuse him. It's the sort of tale that Tagame specialises in, but Zelolee's simpler approach to illustration allows the psychological sub-text to show alongside the more visual mechanics of his tortures.
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| Zelolee - When The Ice Meets The Fire |
I've left this picture to last because I like the depiction of the muscular captive. His face is less forbidding than some of Zelolee's heroes seen above and the gleaming bruised body with a tantalising smattering of body hair is terrific. I confess that for me the monster between his legs is more arresting than the one looming over him.
I haven't found a site yet for Zelolee but search engines will bring up examples for you.
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