"One of the things we try with Prophet is trying to think about how things might work far removed from our modern ideas." With respect, that's a dangerous realm. How far do you think is too far when bending the norms of gender and sexuality? Don't get me w

hmmm I don’t see any problem in bending the norms of gender and sexuality.

As for the rest, I think most things are made or broken on how they’re shown. There are slaves used for sex in the Prophet universe, and the pleasure caste Jons are basically sex workers who are not given a lot of choice in their occupation. They’re bred and raised into it, so it’s not-not a gross scene. I think it comes down how characters in that situation are shown, or whether you use that kind of thing as a shallow, throw-away plot device. The character Greenknife comes from that but that’s hopefully not the whole of how readers see him as a character. 

All that stuff is from me and the Prophet dudes thinking about how the realities of this Prophet society might work. many armies had young guys they’d keep to have sex with, it’s not even an alien concept. 

There’s certainly abrasive ideas that I avoid. I tend to avoid showing things like guns (I’ve drawn a couple.) and rape in my work. I tend to think of what I do as comfort comics so even if I’m dealing with the awfulness of life and whatnot there’s things I’m just less interested in spending hours at my desk thinking about. 

And granted what’s not abrasive to me might still be abrasive to some people, sooooOOoo it’s always worth thinking about. I am an ever evolving creature. 

(here’s a page by Simon and Joseph)