Tom’s taste for police officers and criminals, and the sexual tension between them, was born in the final years of his career. “I’ve never been to jail,” he said in a class at the California Institute of the Arts in 1985, “but I’ve been told it’s a closed world where different roles exist and people behave differently than they do in freedom. It fascinates me. It’s another subject I keep returning to again and again.” With this, Tom confirmed that he never stopped fantasizing about it repeatedly, since he only included in his works what sexually excited him.
The uniforms of the California Highway Patrol motorcyclists were his favorites: cinnamon-colored and tight, with tall boots and soft black leather gloves. The artist designed his own variations of these uniforms, a mix of military and police attire, and created tough criminals but ones the officers could catch, although once caught, the power struggle could go either way. Tom was determined to show everything while portraying masculine roles equally, and it was just as likely that his cops would end up happily impaled on a criminal’s penis as inflicting a punishment sex act. Criticized by some who considered his work a glorification of power, Tom was quick to remind that the world he created was fantasy, where everything was possible and consensual, even in prison.
The Little Book of Tom: Cops & Robbers explores Tom’s fascination with the world of justice and crime through a combination of comic strips, drawings, and full-page illustrations in a compact and affordable 192-page format. The selection of frames and posters from historic films, personal photographs and sketches by Tom, as well as the artist’s own reference images, make this book much more than a review of his comics.
