When I first began Opal back in 1989, it was published as a serial in Bondage Life and Bondage Parade magazines, two of several publications I was editing at the time. Harmony, the publisher, was interested strictly in bondage for its own sake, and I wanted to come up with a fantasy story that was interesting and fun, and would satisfy both the readership's interest and my own love for sexual bondage. Opal was my solution, an exotic tale of a kidmapped virgin who, despite being at the mercy of lustful mistresses and masters, is forced by circumstances to remain a virgin, though she must endure endless sexual teasing. I thought it an excellent compromise, full of the tension of sexual arousal and the threat/promise of ravishment, but with no actual fucking.

The sensuality of the story was a big issue back then, because Harmony had a strict non-sexuality policy, despite its professed devotion to “Love Bondage.” I tried to keep it as clean as I could, but to me, bondage IS sexual, and non-sexual bondage is just pointless. My boss would get mad every time something happened in the strip that caused poor Lisa to become aroused, and he had fits over the scene where she was made to sit on the fountain all afternoon. So the strip caused a lot of tension, but you know, it was MY strip, and I had a vision of how I wanted it to be.

The boss and I reached a point, finally, where our philosophical differences reached a head, and I left Harmony to work for HOM. I ended Opal on a cliffhanger, with little Lisa slung naked and bound over a saddle, the desert bandits riding off into the desert with her.

I had been careful, right from the first, to retain full rights to the strip, and I have always intended to finish it up and publish it myself, as a full-length graphic novel. The years went by, and I just never seemed to be in a position to do it. In case you don't know, printing costs a lot, and both my wives have had expensive hobbies. Fans kept asking me about it, and all I could tell them was “someday.”

So where did the inspiration for Opal come from? Opal was mostly inspired by an old silent film from 1921 called “The Sheik.” Most modern critics dismiss it as a bit of romantic piffle with a simple plot, but that film captured the imaginations of an era, and made Rudolf Valentino the first male mass-media sex symbol.

Now, if you look at pictures of Rudy, he wasn’t all that handsome. So why was he such a babe magnet? What was it about the role he played in The Sheik that made him irresistible to women?

The film wasn’t exactly high art, and by today’s standards of acting and filmmaking it was laughable. But it had one defining scene in it, in which a pretty English girl is captured by the sheik, and taken to his tent as his prisoner. It’s a terrific scene, loaded with the stuff that has fueled romance novels since there have been romance novels.

The girl expects to be ravished by the sheik. It’s a reasonable expectation. After all, he can do as he pleases with her, and he has a reputation for kidnapping women and selling them into slavery, so you know he isn’t burdened with an excessive amount of morality. And besides, he keeps giving her that look, that predatory stare that became Rudy’s trademark. Of course she’s excited by his dangerous dominance, and is torn between her desire to be ravished and her sense of propriety, so she’s rather counting on him to take the decision out of her hands and just rape her. For his part, he wants to ravish her, but he becomes so fascinated with her that he wants to keep her for his own, and make her love him. So he treats her well and tries to woo her as a gentleman would, even though he seems constantly on the verge of grabbing her and ripping her dress off.

The situation plays masterfully on women’s instincts. Romance with a capital “R.” Eventually she runs off into the desert, gets captured by a more brutal sheik, and then Rudy rescues her and they live happily ever after, so everything turns out okay. But I’m convinced that it’s the sexual tension of that one scene that made the film, and its star, a big hit.

In Opal, I’ve taken that scene and twisted it a bit to suit my own predilections, adding a somewhat different kind of sexual tension, but it was The Sheik that got me thinking along those lines.

Of course, when you read the story, you’ll notice that the heroine spends an awful lot of time in the Sultan’s harem. That’s another favorite fantasy involving Arabs. You see, I’ve always had a fascination for Victorian-era erotica. Having an innocent white girl get kidnapped for a harem is a common theme in the fantasies of that era. Look for a book called "The Lustful Turk," my favorite example.

The Victorians were fascinated by the Eastern cultures, and what they called "orientalism," and I think it was largely due to Sir Richard Burton coming back from India with his translation of the Kama Sutra. The English of that era had to be so proper within their own society that it was painful, so naturally they were fascinated by the mysterious middle-east, where a man could have multiple wives, keep them locked up, turn them into sex slaves and just generally do as he pleased with them. I’m no Victorian, but I’m fascinated by that scenario myself!

So Opal is like a blending of The Sheik and a Victorian harem fantasy, with a bit of Gwendoline-like bondage fun thrown in at the beginning. Oh, and the long-awaited ravishment scene at the end! Poor Lisa doesn't have to spend the rest of her life a virgin, after all!

Well, printing hasn't gotten significantly cheaper since 1989, but this is the digital age, and there are options. I’m releasing Opal at last as a downloadable PDF! I’ve re-scanned all the original artwork, taken the censorship out of it, laid it out differently, added new scenes, re-written the text, and finished the story at long last. Those of you who have been waiting sixteen years to see how the story ends will not only get to see the ending, you’ll see a better, more sensual and explicit beginning.

Opal, the graphic novel, has had a long and uncertain journey, but this is some of my finest work, my magnum opus if you will. I sincerely hope you find that it was worth the wait.!

-Brian Tarsis