You know, I think the easiest response to this issue is, "Wow. Look at all the sex. Isn't that self-indulgeant and easy?" In reality, this is the hardest issue I've ever written of any comic book. And it's not just because "Oh, how could we possibly show sex?" We show murder in every single issue and violence and all these horrible things, yet when we take something beautiful we all turn into Puritans...but that's too easy a riff to jump on, so I don't want to jump on all that. What I'm saying is that it's hard to write something like this because you want to handle a subject like this sensibly – and not because of a prude issue, but because you don't want to do it as a stunt. You want to do it to fit the storytelling.
And the truth was, it came from the storytelling. Full credit to Joss, we were talking about this issue, and we knew there was going to be sex. We talked about it, and I'd already seen the one where the panties are on the floor and the bra's just behind it and you know exactly what's happening off panel. Then you see them in bed, and it's up to you to complete it in your own mind. We've also seen the one where you come on right before it, kind of cheat it and cut to right after it. And Joss said, "Why do we have to cheat it? Why can't we just show it?" It was one of those moments where I went, "Okay. Are you sure?" But that's bravery. It's to try what we haven't tried, and I love the fact that he's willing to take the risk and say, "You know what, Brad? Try it."
I had to take some risks and find out what his boundaries were, and there's nothing more socially awkward than talking with someone about exactly what position they can and can't be doing it in and where there parts can be. And then you invariably have to start talking about your own sex life and what you think is cool and doable and not. Believe me, it starts turning your conversation into a third grade cafeteria talk where you're all giggles and blushing red. But the real place where it came from was "We haven't tried it in this medium, so let's try it." I love standing on the edge of that trapeze and going for it. I think the point of pushing any story medium is trying to do something no one's done before.
So we started with that: "Let's see if we can show everything." And all I can say is that of the "nude scenes" in the book, there are far, far more graphic pages drawn than what you see. We had to look at them and go, "Are we okay with this?" because not all of our levels are set to the same baseline. It was wild to try and find the right place, and the one thing we always said for this was "There's a fine line between sexy and hardcore porn." We had a discussion where we were sending in what movies turned us on and what scenes turned us on and what we were going for whether it was "Y tu mamá también" or some single shot from a movie from the '80s that Rebecca DeMornay was starring in, say, if I were talking about myself.
But it was really difficult to find that baseline, and I think what Georges came out with was one of those things where if you look at the script, it'll make you blush for sure, but all the execution was on his shoulders. He was the one who actually hit it to the fences. This was visuals unlike anything he'd done before.
