From: Cinema Sewer vol. 2, 2009.
Robin Bougie is a Canadian editor, publisher and cartoonist, active in the alternative comic industry since 1991. As a publisher, he is mostly dedicated to genre-based anthology series and fanzines, including the 'Sleazy Slice' annuals (2007-2015), devoted to porn comics, and Cinema Sewer (1997-2021), a showcase of his love for exploitation movies. Since 2021, Bougie has published the fanzine 'Gutter Hunter', devoted to independent comics, particularly the most obscure and bizarre ones.
Early life and career
Robin Bougie was born in 1973 in Uranium City, Saskatchewan. Like the name of the city implies, it was originally built because of an uranium mine closeby, but once the mine was closed, the city became more or less a ghost town. Bougie was the child of a single mother who worked as a music teacher. Because of her profession, they had to go where the work was, so the family moved around a lot, until settling in Calgary, Alberta, when Bougie was nine. By then, he was already a comics reader, enjoying Sergio Aragonés' 'Groo the Wanderer', Scott Shaw's 'Captain Carrot' and Milton Knight's 'Midnite the Rebel Skunk'. They inspired him to draw himself, and by the time he was a teenager, he produced hundreds of DIY mini comics and zines. His original drawing table was a door, turned on its side, of which Bougie used the hinges as a height and angle adjuster.
Autobiographical comic from 2021.
Bougie described his mother as a "hippie". At age 10, when she visited her marijuana dealer at his home, Bougie was brought along and bored stiff waiting in another room, while they were talking and having fun. Since the man had no children, he had nothing to entertain young Robin with until he remembered having some boxes with comics in his basement. He brought the kid there and let him rummage through it, not realizing that they contained underground comix and downright pornographic material. It made Bougie discover and appreciate new strong graphic influences like Robert Crumb, Rand Holmes, Greg Irons and Gilbert Shelton, while later also stumbling upon Heavy Metal Magazine and the work of Tanino Liberatore and Milo Manara.
'True Teen Crime Stories'.
At age 19, Robin Bougie and his girlfriend (and future wife) Rebecca Dart lived on welfare, while teaching art classes for children. After watching Ron Mann's documentary 'Comic Book Confidential' (1988) in 1991, they decided to establish their own alternative comic imprint. The couple bought a shop in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, named it Mind's Eye Artwear and made it a T-shirt and comic book store. They ran it for two years. A lack of money motivated them to not go to art school, but instead get their art education from library books and self-study. In the 1990s and 2000s, Robin Bougie earned a living through a variety of projects, including writing for the adult magazine Screw, reviewing porn movies for adult magazines like Fox and Lollipops, all while he often had to hassle his editors to get paid. During this period, he released several mini-comics under his Mind's Eye Comics imprint, such as 'True Teen Crime Stories' series (1995).
Since 1993, Robin Bougie and Rebecca Dart have been a married couple. Dart worked for notable animated TV series, such as 'Ned's Newt', 'Braceface' and 'My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic'. Once their financial situation improved, they moved to Vancouver. Between 2006 and 2021, Bougie worked at a local DVD/Video store, called Videomatica.
Comic by Robin Bougie.
Sleazy Slice and other sex comics
Between 2007 and 2015, Bougie edited and published eight annual issues of 'Sleazy Slice', an adult comics anthology marketing itself as devoted to "dirty comics". He contributed comics to Spread Love Comix, a comic anthology released in Montreal. Selections of his comics and pin-up art can be found in the self-published zines 'Mount Pleasant' and 'Scary Cherry'. Other comics by his hand have run in the Vancouver comic zine Drippy Gazette and also in Dexter Cockburn's 'Oh My! Comics' series. Together with fellow artist Hugo Schifoso, Robin Bougie provided the artwork for the biographical comic book 'My Secret Cockupation: Private Journals Of A Prostitute' (2009), scripted by Lil Princess (pseudonym of Meg McCarville). Published by Spread Love in Montreal, a later story collection by Robin Bougie was 'Cotton Candy' (2025), which contained new material and previously published anthology contributions.
'Oh My Comix' and 'Mount Pleasant'.
Most of Bougie's comics hold the middle between autobiographical stories, absurd comedy and humorous porn. He has never been ashamed about his interest in pornography, which goes beyond mere lust. Interviewed by Keri O'Shea (Warped Perspective, July 2013), he explained: "We're all consenting adults, so why the heck not? I'm a big believer that people only think something is 'wrong' if you ACT like it is wrong. I'm a pornographer, and I honestly think that is something to be proud of - and so I use the title of pornographer or smut-monger with a sense of pride and enthusiasm. (…) Ever since porn was legalized, if you were a woman you had to walk into a porn shop to be exposed to this kind of material - and that wasn't really open to you thanks to the cultural taboo of such an act, and also the fact that there wasn't really anything in there made for, or marketed to you - even if you were made welcome, which they were not. Now they can investigate and discover this stuff just as easily as men, and on their own terms. And if what they want to see isn't there, instead of picketing and getting all pissed off about it like the previous generation did, they get creative and make it themselves - how fucking fantastic is that?" Bougie also added that "every one of us is a sex-based organism. Own it!"
Interviewed by Electric Transit Wordpress (23 May 2025), Bougie explained that he really likes to find his personal connection to the content of what he's doing and how his life relates to it. "I think that's the most interesting thing for the reader, for them to get to know you better. So no matter if I'm making comics, or writing about other people's comics, or movies, or porn, or music - I'm always looking to find a way to make it as much about me as it is about the art." Bougie actually handletters all of his writings, to give them a more personal touch. In cases his arm gets tired, he has also made his handwriting into a digital font.
Autobiographical comic from Cinema Sewer #34 (2021).
Cinema Sewer
Robin Bougie has always been fond of movies beyond the mainstream, appreciating the sleaziness, campiness or bizarreness. Between 1997 and 2021, he released the annual fanzine Cinema Sewer (a title thought up by his wife), devoted to a variety of low-budget B-movies, some going even lower in the alphabet. Splatter horror, vigilante movies, martial arts, "Mondo" pictures, blaxploitation, nunsploitation, to downright porn: Bougie and his staff covered them all. He went beyond their trashy public image or merely looking at them through an ironic, deprecating eye, but instead expressed the appeal of these pictures in reviews and articles. In addition, he also looked at them in historical context and through artistic analysis, going so far to track down people formerly associated with its production, promotion and distribution.
From this perspective, Cinema Sewer soon outgrew its niche as a mere "fanzine" and became a professional magazine. In October 2007, the British publisher FAB Press began publishing soft cover book collections, resulting in eight volumes. FAB Press also published the two-volume 'Graphic Thrills', documenting various adult movie posters. In 2021, Cinema Sewer was flushed down. After 25 years and 34 issues, Bougie lost interest and felt the subject had run its course.
In addition to articles, Bougie also provided artwork and comics for Cinema Sewer. Other artists whose work was featured in its pages were Joseph Bergin, DJ Bryant, Rick Chessire, Chris Doherty, Sean Donahue, Maxine Frank, Danny Hellman, Mike Hoffman, James Lloyd, Brad McGinty, Ben Newman, Putrid, William Skaar and James Stokoe.
Cover illustrations for Cinema Sewer.
Gutter Hunter
In 2021, Bougie released a follow-up magazine to Cinema Sewer, only this time focused on comics: Gutter Hunter, also published by Fab Press. Like Cinema Sewer, it delves deep into the echelons of the industry, digging up comic books, writers, artists and publishers from the world of underground comix, alternative comics and exploitative niches, like porn. Titles are reviewed, discussed, analyzed, historical context is provided, while their creators are tracked down and interviewed.
Sonic Sewer
Robin Bougie has also been active with the 'Sonic Sewer' project, in which he discusses his love for pop and rock music, focusing on the "most bizarre, groovy, sexy, awkward, genre-defying, and thought-provoking music in modern recording history." Interviewed by Electric Transit Wordpress (23 May 2025), he revealed that he has Menière's disease, which causes hearing problems, which urged him to start reviewing and talking about the history of music immediately.
Album cover for the 2015 self-titled Deboned album.
Graphic, written and other contributions
Bougie was executive producer of the porn film 'The Cumming of Jizzus' (2010), taking care of sound, prop and set design and cleaning everything up afterwards. He also played a small non-sex role in the production. About 500 copies of this biblical porn parody were distributed, with John Howard illustrating the video cover. A plan for another porn film, 'Hump Monkey Wasteland', was scrapped and instead adapted into a porn comic story by him and Maxine Frank, published in Sleazy Slice issue #6. Reflecting on the experience, Bougie said he was glad to have made a film once in his career, but prefers drawing comics since you don't have to rely on others or expensive equipment to create a story.
In 2015, Bougie designed the cover for the self-titled album of the grindcore band Deboned.
Artwork by Robin Bougie, 2025.