LISA MARIE BASILE IN CONVERSATION WITH LYNSEY GRISWOLD
“Tracy Queen is a lot like those, in that it celebrates the s*x-positive* values and the labor of s*x** workers...Except it's weirder. It’s about a woman who makes adult entertainment for a living, loves her life...and is BFFs with a raccoon! And also creates a race of cyborg-clone warriors to protect her from the forces of mainstream p0rn and her own criminal past…You know. Normal stuff.”
Can you tell us a little bit about Tracy and her story? What was Volume 1 about?
Tracy is a love warrior. I'm using a term I first heard from Madison Young—an adult performer, director, and producer who's also an author, performance artist, coach, and overall amazing human being. Madison described herself that way, and requested that the cameo appearance she'll be making in Tracy Queen's later volumes be called that as well. I realized that "love warrior" is exactly the right description for Tracy herself.
Tracy Queen is a character that I originally based on someone I knew in my own life, and who deepened and became bigger and more real as I wrote her story. She starts Volume 1 of her 8-volumes journey having lived her whole life under direction from other people. She's always been told what to do. And, unfortunately, that's brought her a life mired in violence. In Volume 1, she realizes that she no longer wants to hurt people. At the behest of her new best friend—a talking raccoon who's her new roommate—she breaks free of her violent past and sets off to make a future that's more focused on pleasure. She discovers adult webcamming as a means of income, but also as a liberating and empowering experience.
In Volume 2, "Dangerous Experiments," which we're Kickstarting now, she continues down her path toward freedom and sexual enlightenment when she decides to start filming sex scenes with partners. It's her response to having a face-to-face encounter with a very ugly truth that some people think women's bodies and sexuality can be owned by anyone but the women themselves. It's also her way of deepening her commitment to showing the world that empowered women can have sex, enjoy it, and own the footage.
There's a lot more to come, including lots more sexual discovery, higher stakes in the struggle against the forces of darkness, cameos from a bunch of fantastic adult performers, and eventually a climactic battle between Tracy's own cyborg-clone fighting force and an army of porn stars brainwashed against her by an evil porn kingpin... But that all comes later.
Who is your dream reader? Or, who would fall in love with this series?
Folks with a penchant for weird, pulpy, sci-fi could enjoy this series, because there is a lot of bizarre, over-the-top junk science that's a total delight! But Tracy's story goes really deep into the ways in which internalized misogyny can keep women living as lesser-than when they're capable of so much more. And sometimes that "more" is being open about their sexuality, even profiting on it. So I think anyone with an interest in the intersection of feminism and sex work will find a lot to enjoy...as long as they're into some truly weird shit, also.
“Folks with a penchant for weird, pulpy, sci-fi could enjoy this series, because there is a lot of bizarre, over-the-top junk science that's a total delight! But Tracy's story goes really deep into the ways in which internalized misogyny can keep women living as lesser-than when they're capable of so much more. And sometimes that "more" is being open about their sexuality, even profiting on it. “
Where are you coming from, as a creator, with these stories? Can you tell us a little bit about yours and Jayel's background?
I've been writing about the intersection of feminism and sex work, with a focus on pornography, for well over a decade. I started as a reviewer for adult films, then moved into criticism, interviews, journalism, curation, even documentary filmmaking on these topics. I've written an award-winning memoir—Watching Porn—about everything I've from about the adult entertainment industry, and I've stacked up some pretty impressive bylines with mainstream magazines. I even won a Feminist Porn Award for my one of my films! Tracy Queen is really, in many ways, my opus on all I've learned and seen, particularly on the ways that consumers interact with sex work and porn. Although Tracy's journey is deadly serious and deeply nuanced, it's shadowed by unbelievable, gonzo weirdness that feels necessary in order to lure mainstream readers into a deep conversation around sexuality's place in our culture.
My partner in this venture, Jayel Draco, is a lifelong, brilliant visual artist who had primarily worked in visual effects, animation, and fantasy art before we met. When I started telling him about Tracy Queen, however, he knew he needed to be a part of it. It was a stretch for him to approach illustrating a comic that would require him to draw a woman being sexual—repeatedly—without overtly objectifying her. And, I've got to say, I've been stunned at the work he's put out. Tracy is so alive in his illustrations! He started out working with a live model so that he could be sure he was getting the proportions right from the beginning. He didn't want to do what so many comics artists do—accentuate all the "sexy" parts of a woman's body instead of showing what a real person looks like. Once he'd established how Tracy looked from about a zillion different angles and in every position imaginable (sexy ones included), he was able to bring her personality and a feeling of realness to every panel he's created. It's been a huge pleasure to work with him on this!
How can people support your art?
Right now through March 20, we're Kickstarting Tracy Queen, Volume 2: Dangerous Experiments. It's the second of what will eventually be eight volumes in this series. We successfully Kickstarted Volume 1 in late 2018, and we've noticed a big difference in the online climate between then and now: It's a lot harder to get our links to the Kickstarter campaign seen on social media! If anyone here has read about the passage of FOSTA/SESTA at the federal level, they'll know that the past year has seen a chilling effect on discussions about sexuality online, because websites are now being held responsible for their users' content. That means that, if people are talking about sexuality in a way that's illegal (e.g. sex trafficking), the website that hosted their conversation is liable. Which is ridiculous! Talking about sexuality, pleasure positivity, consensual sex work, and so on is not the same as talking about sex trafficking. The differences between these topics are vast, and it's harmful to people on both sides of that divide to treat those conversations the same way.
But I digress. The upshot is that, since our campaign links to and necessarily uses terms like "sex" and "pornography", we are being deep-sixed by social media platforms and search results. We're technically allowed to post the content, but social media platforms and search engines then conveniently "forget" to show the content to anyone. We haven't even been able to pay to have our posts seen my more people! It's massively frustrating.
So, the best way that people can support Tracy Queen right now, aside from backing the Kickstarter (and getting sweet rewards!) is by helping us to get the word out! Every link share, every blog post, every podcast shout-out, every awkward mention at a fancy dinner party...it all helps us get closer to our goal and spreading the idea that sex shouldn't be shameful!