My work centers on boys and the experiences of boyhood, and what it means to be a boy. I found Niklas through searching for comics about boyhood and ended up here. I wanted to talk about an alternative approach to Niklas that I'm not so sure has been discussed - (maybe it has, I don't know)! 🤔 What I really love about the story is that it's a comic that discusses that "special feeling" of being with someone or some people who make you feel loved. When you can just open up with someone and be your natural self and they're just as comfortable to be themselves around you. You give you're entire being to them and they give their entire self to you - it's an absolutely wonderful feeling that nowadays feels so rare in a world of faraway friendships and relationships that are superficial. Now the obvious subtext of the Niklas narrative is about gay relationships and/or homoeroticism (Keith and Fabian, Jason and Jonathon, etc.). But what if this feeling I'm describing isn't just applicable to gay romances?

Hear me out for a second. For the past couple of years I've read a great deal of literature from historians, anthropologists, and sociologists who've studied the human need for intimacy, and I made sure to examine this topic from a wide variety of perspectives. Let me use Summer Storm as an example of what I'm talking about. We see the playful Martin invite the lonely Keith into his personal space, asking him to play. Keith, who was initially isolated and alone, now has someone who wants to share their internal space with him. However, Keith reciprocates Martin's play by letting him onto his bike and bringing him to the old farm house where they wrestle and play. This wrestling between the two boys is a beautiful invitation for intimacy, a special type of boyhood ritual that Martin and Keith are comfortable engaging in as wrestling is a type of play that comes natural to boys. This activity better lets them understand each other, their boundaries, and how much they trust each other using the language of the body. With each playful thrust, throw, and toss (that is then associated with the boys' joyful laughter), they are no longer separated, but "joined at the hip." This is a subtle language of the flesh that says: "I trust you with my body," without having to say a word. The Japanese have the term "skinship" to refer to this dynamic, where the act of being "skin-to-skin" with someone demonstrates their level of trust and vulnerability with another person. 

This goes deeper when Martin has them go to his house to escape the rain. His mother has them undress and take a bath together. Again, going back to the Japanese, now we see hadaka no tsukiai (裸の付き合い) or "naked association" in the family bathtub between Martin and his new friend Keith. Both boys have already demonstrated that they're totally comfortable with rough play in clothes, so to be fully undressed, totally naked with someone else requires a very special bond. Although I can't speak for the author, I believe "male vulnerability" comes absolutely natural for boys as they're not hard-pressed to be a "real man" or to conform to particular gender norms until they reach adulthood. One might bring up that there is a sense of embarrassment or unease when Martin and Keith first see each other naked and step into the bath tub, but that shame quickly vanishes because of the pure innocence and essence of boyhood, with the two boys silently acknowledging that they're in the same bath water, that they have the same skin, that they have the same penis, and that to engage in play means for them to share in each other's bodies. We see another brief example of this in Keith, Come Home where the Martin slips into Keith's big sleeping bag, with Keith asking: "Isn't this a lot more comfortable than being all alone in your bed?" I could link to various studies done of this particular topic, but we have enough data to explain why kids have nightmares or are afraid of monsters under their bed. Basic evolutionary psychology tells us that children naturally desire the warmth and protection of their family (usually their mothers) in order to sleep well - and to deprive children (and in particular, our boys) of that is to cause them unnecessary suffering (if you want to do further research just read some work on the Harlow rhesus monkey experiment). Keith makes the right choice to offer his body - his bare chest - as a source of comfort for the scared young Martin. If both boys were comfortable bathing naked together, I believe they could have been able to share the sleeping bag naked together as an expression of their friendship and intimacy.

With all this said, my one criticism as a straight, celibate male is that - although some of the moments in the Niklas narrative are very sweet, I feel that it categorizes all expressions of love into "eros." Put simply, I am not of the belief that just because a boy prefers the company of other boys, that that then means he is gay or has homoerotic feelings. My goal as a boy artist and writer is to demonstrate "boy love" as a form of mutual affection that is natural to all boys. I've talked with other boy artists that share similar sentiments to mine, and they want boys to be able to hold hands, to kiss, to be naked together without any implication of romantic tension. Initially I thought this was a problem just in fiction but it became clear to me that this was a much broader, societal issue that should be talked about at length. I could write much more right now, but I understand this post is pretty long for a first post, so I'll stop myself short. Please, let me know what you guys think! I would love to hear from you! 🤗 

Am I just crazy?

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Webcomic/NiklasAndFriends

Once I had my Sims figured out I ended up seriously thinking about starting a spin-off site and series that was going to be a few years later with Jonathon as the main character with his best friends Sniv, Keith, and Ricardo as they skate, swim, get into trouble around town, and deal with budding romances. I wanted Jonathon to be like one of the cool kids because he's an awesome drummer and gets to be a band with older boys, but I'm not sure how to deal with his relationship with Jason if that's a thing that should have been solidified after so much time, or if it would still be a "will they, won't they" Junjou kind of tease. Their relationship was always going to be kind of the more complicated one since they both tend to skew a little more dominant in their traits. I like the idea of Ricardo being in the group because he's kind of obsessed with Sniv. That it starts out with kind of some jealousy, but then over time he just wants to be wherever Sniv is. But Sniv is so used to playing runner up to his big brother that he doesn't even notice that Ricardo has eyes only for him. And Keith's dynamic is great because he can seem like a bully off the bat to most people, short tempered, will curse people out, but he's also kind of the group protector when things get bad, and he especially is defensive of Martin who he sees as this glowy angelic being of purity and innocence, even if behind Martin's sweet face there might be the dirtiest mind out of everyone.

I'm not going to do anything serious with that idea for a while, especially since I want to see what kind of stuff might be happening around here! But I still wanted to put the idea out there in front of people who actually know who these characters are and get some feedback.

Thanks!

And then the explanation that it will no longer happen:

I looked into Elflord, and while not outright lewd, it is pretty suggestive... much more than any of Niklas's comics. Would have been interesting to see them work together though! That is a VERY cute elf boy.