It’s called Rainbow Country.

That’s the new title from Patrick Fillion’s line of Class Comics, which usually feature the far-out sexcapades of oversize superheros in distant galaxies.

Rainbow Country is set in the real world — as long as the real world is located somewhere off the French Riviera — and features everyday guys like you and me…

… as long as me and thee have mega pecs, industrial-strength abs, expanding orifices and the sort of flexibility that would bring a gold-medal gymnast to tears — if not his knees.

Dicks the size of salamis, of course, cockheads the size of a baby’s fist — all that comes standard in a Class Comic, and we mention them only in passing, for documentary purposes.

Welcome to Sodom by the Sea: Rainbow Country is a dazzlingly buff gay mecca — all male, all the time — where everyone lives in luxury condos that tower over a glittering aquamarine sea.

It is the dream paradise of Parisian artist Max and was originally published in France. In its translation to English, the comic retains some lovely Gallic touches: The main characters have names like Philippe and Marc, and there’s a sense that man-on-man is happening everywhere: on the boulevards, in the utility closets, in the rest rooms, along the highways, and down the darkened corridors at Le Club Go-Go.

Another slice of life, then, as real as anything seen on Queer as Folk — except believable, with an actual plot:

Marc, as the story begins in this the first issue of the series, has a philandering doctor boyfriend and a virtuous next-door-neighbor waiting on the sidelines but too noble to destroy the teetering relationship. Hilarity, as they say, ensues.

Gone are the topical quips and pop-culture zingers that season Fillion’s sci-fi epics, the dialog here is down to earth … or as down to earth as things ever get in Pornville.

Consistent with the high quality we have come to expect from Patrick Fillion and his crew at Class Comics — the glossy paper, the exquisite colorings — Rainbow Country is impossibly beautiful.

We love the way the artist Max uses light, as in the disco scene at right:

The sense of the jarring strobe, the staggered double images, the Wizard of Oz emerald green — it’s all very particular and acutely observed by the artist.

Other frames capture the boozy red dimness of a backroom lit only by an exit light. The sudden spotlight blasts of track lighting over a bar counter, where the shirtless men below alternate between those who are overscreened by the glare and those who are in dark contrast.

When you look at the work of an artist like this — where the world is not merely described but diagrammed, where the subtle play of light on the eye is visually “explained” — you get a strong sense that the original panels will one day be sold at art auction. Issue 1 of Rainbow Country, we predict, will become a collector’s item.

Viva Max!

Crazy for Boytoons?

Visit Max’s site
Visit the Patrick Fillion website
Get a fabulous character T-shirt
Buy the Class Comics
including the comic just discussed:
Rainbow Country

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Patrick Fillion: The League of Super-Hung Superheroes
My Super Hung, Super Sexy Cat Man by Patrick Fillion
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