Sweet Paprika #1 Is Not as Sexy as You'd Think

Paprika is a successful businesswoman. Job and career consume her, forcing her to neglect her personal needs as well as her friends and family. Her heart is broken from a previous relationship, and a rigid upbringing has made her a very introverted person. She wants a romantic relationship, but she doesn’t know what she’s doing. Not like Dill, a naïve and suave delivery boy with an angelic attitude who’s always surrounded by beautiful women. He doesn’t have a worry in the world, and this makes Paprika nervous. But he’s the guy who could help her with her feelings (and with … sex). Writer/artist Mirka Andolfo, colorist Simon Tessuto and letterer Fabio Amelia try to send us to horny jail in Sweet Paprika #1 from Image Comics.

Nola Pfau: Zoe! We never get to write together. I’m excited that we found something to appeal to both of us, like this comic about a demon lady, which seems like the kind of thing we will definitely have a lot of fun reading, without any problems at all.

Zoe Tunnell: Happy to be here! And yeah, when I saw a demonic sex comedy from Mirka Andolofo was up for review, I jumped on it along with you because, well, it sounded like it would be my sort of thing and a blast to write about!

Whoops!

Nola: Whoops, indeed. Shall we dive right in?

The Wrong Kind of Spice

Zoe: Let’s just get this out of the way up front: This book isn’t horny, at least not in a way that is exciting to engage with in the year of our Lord 2021. It definitely WANTS to be and there’s boobs and butts and steamy situations all over the place, but absolutely none of it lands with any degree of success. It’s a shame because Andolfo is absolutely capable of nailing Sexy Comic Books, but this sure ain’t it.

Nola: I’m less familiar with Andolfo’s work, but I’m definitely aware of the reputation, from seeing books like Unnatural a couple of years back. With some of those covers and the overall aesthetic of it, it’s a little disappointing here to see a book that is ostensibly about sex to be so … timid with regards to it. Perhaps this is just us coming from a position where we’re just … I dunno, too far beyond these kind of piddling first steps? I found Money Shot to be really disappointing as a sex comedy, too.

Zoe: Yeah, Unnatural had some … STRIKING covers and was the first time I took notice of Andolfo, but the book was, tragically, far too straight to do anything for me. Which I think is one of the problems we are running into with Sweet Paprika, honestly. It isn’t just timid, it’s stale. Every character and sexual encounter is full of rote stereotypes and situations that just suck all the excitement and fun out of it. I’m fine with a story being more cheeky than outright explicit smut, but it’s still got to be a good story. Paprika, the repressed, business-focused demon lady, and Dill, the hot but shallow delivery man, aren’t exactly pushing the envelope here.

Nola: I took particular exception to the scene with someone assuming that Paprika was an assistant. While I’m certainly aware of the way misogyny in the office can perpetuate, are we really intended to believe that this man doesn’t know his own CEO’s face? If she’s as hands-on a CEO as she portrays through her narration here, she’s a micromanaging nightmare, and I don’t see anyone getting through the front door without knowing who she is.

Zoe: I believe he’s from a marketing firm that is pitching their services, rather than an employee, but even then it’s a biiiiig stretch for a tired gag. Honestly, that scene is where I realized this book probably wasn’t going to land for me. Andolfo’s cartooning is wonderful, of course, juggling outlandish stylistic flexes and very human, natural expression work, but it can’t salvage something as boring and rote as this scene or the innuendo-laden mailroom scene that follows. It’s understandable to have misogyny as a plot point in a female-led office-driven tale, but this has nothing to add to the conversation that you couldn’t find in some forgotten C-tier comedy flick from 2004. Probably starring Dane Cook.

Clever Art Header

Nola: Actually, getting into the art, I agree with you there — there’s a really fun energy to the artwork, even if the story doesn’t match it. That coffee scene, for all that it’s tired and dull, is beautifully rendered. I enjoyed the way Paprika’s expression goes from neutral to full on teeth-out snarling, as the background of the office gave way to something a little looser, with her suddenly looming over the Marketing guy, much larger than him. I like when comics break the bounds of their internal reality in that way, and I think it’s doubly fitting in a world with established metaphysics like demons, angels and the like.

Zoe: Andolfo breaking the world in favor of Looney Tunes-flavor cartoon antics is something that happens a few times and is the closest the book gets to being genuinely funny. When Paprika fantasizes about getting railed by her Doordash driver they just completely go off-model in some wild ways that made me chuckle. Her boobs wave around like the inflatable tube men at a car lot, and Grubhub boy’s limbs go full bendy noodle arms! It’s goofy as hell! Definitely not sexy and doesn’t salvage yet another tired scenario, but it’s something.

Nola: Unfortunately, even her private fantasizing is interrupted as she next imagines her own father speaking down to her. This is … it’s another one of those things, right? It’s 2021, everyone’s got daddy issues these days. If you’re going to portray an angle like that, do so in an interesting way! Give us something we haven’t seen before instead of “Oh, dad’s disappointed because you didn’t marry the guy he liked.” I’m with you though … I enjoy the cartoony nature Andolfo employs with rendering these bodies, but for a sex comedy it’s absolutely not sexy. It’s just kind of … there. It feels a bit like a second cousin of something you might find on Slipshine, but it’s nowhere near as adventurous as the comics on that site can get.

Zoe: Honestly, it feels weird even calling this a sex-focused book. It undeniably is, there’s multiple sex scenes and most of the page real estate that isn’t devoted to bangin’ is filled with eye-rolling innuendo. But despite that, nothing about the sex feels intimate or genuine, its all just in service of some mediocre comedy. The only time it tip-toes anywhere near being genuinely horny are the two panels where Paprika starts to…

HEY EDITOR, CAN I SAY SHE FINGERS HERSELF? IS THAT ALLOWED?

[Grote’s note: Mmm … I’ll allow it.]

but even that is immediately followed by the aforementioned cartoon slapstick fantasy. It’s a book about sex that isn’t really about sex, and it suffers for it.

Dan Brown, Eat Your Heart Out

Nola: Another thing that suffers? The setting. I admit it’s probably the most interesting thing about the whole book, yet we learn almost nothing! Why are angels and demons living and working together? Is this some sort of purgatorial midpoint in the afterlife? Is there some kind of big world-building beat that we’re waiting for the reveal of? Hell is mentioned several times in the story, but is that a sort of casual reference the way we make it in the real world, or is it a real destination? Given the religious connotations of angels, demons and places like Hell, does that firmly cement this story in a Christian background, or is it playing with those concepts in an agnostic form?

Zoe: It feels closer to set dressing than anything thematically meaningful to me. If you took off everyone’s horns and halos and told me this was set in a modern-day Manhattan with zero other changes, I’d believe you. The closest it comes to actually engaging with the dynamic is defying expectations by having the overtly sexual lead be an angel while the repressed, sex-starved business woman is a demon. Unfortunately, the THOROUGHLY worn out gender roles tied to those archetypes kill anything interesting about the swap.

Nola: I find myself hoping we’ll hear more about this world in the next issue, but I’m also not getting my hopes up given … everything about this issue, plus the impending tease of … Paprika’s dad dying? Or being hospitalized or something. I guess that’s the main issue I’m finding with this book; it’s not what it was billed as. I came in expecting sexy, funny demon shenanigans and instead I find a repressed nightmare CEO struggling with her family issues. It’s not funny, and worse, it’s not even heartfelt, which at least would save it.

Zoe: I used the comparison earlier, but it’s really the closest thing I can think of. This book is a forgotten 2000s rom-com with some Christian Myth visual trappings. At least in the first issue. Everything about its structure, its characters, how it approaches their motivations and opinions, it left me feeling like I had read the adaptation of some movie I half-remember catching on Comedy Central at 2 in the afternoon. I genuinely hope it goes somewhere interesting, or at least actually sexy, in the next issues because as-is it didn’t bring anything to the table that hasn’t been better executed in countless other places.

Final Thoughts

Dill-do. Heh.
The teaser page at the end says a “dinner” is the only kind of thing Paprika can’t handle, but I feel like this issue demonstrates that is entirely untrue. Girl’s a mess.
I am never reviewing a het-focused sexy book again. This was just OVERWHELMINGLY straight in every way.