INTERVIEW: Phillip Sevy & Christie Porter on She Comes With Magic
What happens when you combine high-stakes fantasy with unapologetic, sex-positive storytelling? You get She Comes With Magic, a wildly original comic by industry veterans Phillip Sevy and Christie Porter. The series follows Maeve, a pink-horned wizard whose magical powers are fueled entirely by orgasms. Far from a cheap gimmick, this daring mechanic forms the bedrock of a hilarious, deeply personal ‘Epic Erotica’ adventure rooted in bodily autonomy and enthusiastic consent. We sat down with the creative duo to discuss breaking free from mainstream publishing constraints, subverting classic fantasy tropes, and balancing high-stakes action with the beautiful, messy absurdity of adult intimacy.
You’ve both worked across major publishers and acclaimed indie projects. What creative itch did She Comes With Magic scratch that your mainstream work couldn’t?
Phillip Sevy: Throughout my career, I’ve been able to go to the world of creator-owned comics every few years. I absolutely love being able to tell my own stories. But with She Comes With Magic, there was an absolute freedom to push boundaries, explore any idea, take the space we need, and be both incredibly bold and incredibly personal in our storytelling. Not being beholden to any publisher, we knew we could make this book our way. And that combination allowed us to begin telling an epic, giant story that is also incredibly personal, sexy, funny, and unlike anything we’ve ever done.
Christie Porter: She Comes With Magic is such a personal story, especially in its lack of inhibitions. I think most of us don’t often have the chance to work or exist in spaces that afford us the kind of freedom we explored in making this book. I hope that same freedom and enthusiasm translate to the page as well, in the experiences of the characters. It might seem obvious, but truly so much love went into making this book. In more mainstream work, it is rare for it to feel as wild or radical as this. It’s the freedom to be what it is, unadulterated.
Christie Porter & Phillip Sevy
Maeve’s orgasm-triggered magic is one of the most daring fantasy mechanics in comics. How did you develop this idea so it feels like genuine worldbuilding rather than just a provocative hook?
PS: That was the central idea from the beginning: “What if we had a wizard who gained her magic by cumming? And she had to save the world that way?” So everything in the story was built from that conceit. Once we came up with it (no pun intended), we both laughed and were like, “YES. THIS.” As a storyteller, I’m a firm believer that every choice you make should reinforce the idea of your book, so there was no way to have this idea and not weave it into the plot, the characters, the main idea of the book. We knew if we were going to make an NSFW comic, the explicit nature of it was integral to the story — not just titillating or extraneous.
CP: There is something very tempting about the idea of “sex magic, but make it literal.” And then it snowballed from there, shaping the rest of the story around it. If this is the defining feature of our main character, what does that have to make true for the rest of this world we’re constructing? How do we build a magic system that can include a wizard who channels magic via orgasm? What sort of challenges would she face that make her magic both an asset and a liability? Fantasy worldbuilding and developing magical systems are something of an obsession of mine, and Maeve’s magic is not just a surface feature of our world — it’s the core of it.
Erotic fantasy can easily lean into shock value, but your preview pages show humour, heart, and character depth. What tone were you aiming for when blending explicit adult themes with classic adventure storytelling?
PS: We’ve long been talking about the potential for what we called “Epic Erotica.” Is there a way to tell a big, high-stakes, giant-budget story that is also erotic and explicit and includes actual sex? So many fantasy books lack sex, and so many sex books lack fantasy — plot, character, or anything beyond a thin thread to string sex scenes together. We wanted to take everything seriously: stakes, characters, emotions, goals, and themes, while also acknowledging the silliness of the situations. You have a sex wizard. That’s hilarious. You have all sorts of other sexual situations that are quite funny. And that’s life and sex. Sex is often an integral part of our lives, and it can be serious, intense, and powerful, but also very silly at times. Being open and deliberate about viewing all aspects of sex and life and death has allowed us to strike the tone we want. It’s a fun book, with big moments, sexy moments, and silly moments — that we can enjoy without breaking the emotional reality of the characters.
CP: Not only is the idea of a sex wizard hilarious, sex itself can be hilarious. And messy. And absurd. And beautiful. And (hopefully) so, so hot. From the beginning, we knew we wanted She Comes With Magic to have room for all of those things to be true. Also like sex, I didn’t want it to be vague or boring, but thrilling (and maybe a little rough sometimes). I wanted to shape the story to mirror that energy and potential so it felt like a natural progression into a classical adventure story.
Maeve is immediately memorable — pink horns, stubborn attitude, and a magical system tied to bodily autonomy. What core traits defined her early development?
CP: After her defining magical trait, I think the next thing we decided on with Maeve was making her an earnest sort of protagonist. I have a lot of fatigue from stories centred on cynical or reluctant anti-heroes. And while Maeve deserved all the same complexity and richness, I felt we could give her that and make the more interesting choice to have her care — and care deeply — about what was happening around her. That really helped inform everything else about her and gave Maeve such a presence, and her power and self‑possessedness flowed out of that.
And of course we had to give her a design to match! I am a cosplayer, and designing a character visually appealing enough to cosplay was a guiding principle. Horns and a tail are not only playful and present fun artistic opportunities, but give her a distinct silhouette on the page. As for why she’s pink — maybe fantasy worlds need more colour?
The brothel oracle scene sets the tone for the series: irreverent, mythic, and unapologetically adult. Why was this the right moment to launch Maeve’s quest?
PS: That was another element in the initial idea that started everything. It was a fun subversion of the “You meet in a tavern” trope of fantasy RPG-style adventuring stories. So it became “Our sex wizard begins her adventure in a brothel,” which felt incredibly right and a fun way to dive into the tone and style of the book. We’re starting with sex. It was a visual way to introduce the main mechanics of Maeve’s magic and her relationship to them. She’s not embarrassed or ashamed or surprised by her powers. She knows what they are and is happy to use them. A brothel also allowed us to set the precedent for the series — consent is very important to this story and to Maeve. She’s not having sex with someone who doesn’t understand the transactional nature of Maeve’s interactions. And there’s going to be lots to explore in the future with that idea. Setting that scene in a brothel communicates that Maeve is paying for Branwyn’s services, which also benefit her. It shows the audience, right from the beginning, that sex is an important and explicit part of the story. Plus, it’s a way to show people the series is fun, hot, and isn’t afraid to go there.
CP: We wanted to show that consensual sex can appear in a variety of forms, and a brothel is a great place to do that. It also shows that consent doesn’t rob sex of its excitement or magic. For me, the lack of consent described in fantasy smut often feels unimaginative or immature. Taking a more adult route allowed us to have a protagonist who goes into sexual encounters as an eager and equal partner, no matter what kinks they might have.
There were also a number of little ways we wanted to tweak or slightly subvert the more “classic” notion of a fantasy‑adventure inn/brothel setting… all of which would hopefully prepare readers for what is to come.
Syphon, the Starving King, is a villain with a wonderfully ominous presence. How does his hunger‑driven power contrast with Maeve’s pleasure‑driven magic?
PS: Syphon’s powers are in direct opposition to Maeve’s. He takes power from people. His abilities are destructive. He leaves death, despair, and desolation in his wake. His power only works by robbing others of theirs. Maeve’s power comes from an act of connection, creation, and sharing. She doesn’t take power from people. Her power comes from people being together, connecting, and sharing an intimate moment. Syphon’s power (and backstory, and impact, and more that we’ll explore as the series goes on) is the literal antagonist of Maeve’s.
CP: We wanted to give Maeve a threat that would feel personal, direct, and immediate. This is a creature, along with his minions, who can take everything from a magical person and leave them empty, powerless, and with nothing… and it will never be enough for him. Maeve also gains her powers through others, but in a way that’s more mutually enjoyable for everyone involved. I think those are also contrasting interpersonal and relationship dynamics that a lot of people have experienced and can probably relate to.
Visually, the book is lush and expressive. How did you depict erotic magic in a way that’s stylish, symbolic, and story‑driven rather than purely explicit?
PS: How magic works is very central to the story — and while we didn’t feel the need to have a giant expository lecture in the first issue, we wanted to show our audience the beginning kernels of the mechanics. Comics is very much a “show, don’t tell” medium, so the choice of magic colours, how it moves, where it comes from, and where it goes was very important in the design and illustration. With Maeve specifically, her orgasms channel her magic, and while that is explicit, it’s not the entirety of her magic — it’s just an aspect. Finding ways to flesh out the ideas we had relating to sex and expand them with character, world, theme, and plot allowed us to make sure the choices we made weren’t just for titillation — they were important and deliberate choices made to connect the reader with the story.
CP: We also wanted to make sure we were giving ourselves a lot of room to explore a variety of pleasurable acts and demonstrations in future issues that would continue to be surprising but grounded in the realities of sex and true to the world, without leaning on shock value.
You’ve described the series as “salacious, delightsome, and fast‑paced.” What kind of pacing does an erotic adventure demand that differs from traditional fantasy or superhero comics?
PS: This was a balance that we worked on very hard, thought through, and talked about a LOT. The question long before SCWiM was: “Is there a way to integrate story (plot, characters, themes, and emotions) with explicit sex?” Without intention or balance, one can throw the other off. If your story is sex‑focused, the plot can get in the way of the sex. If your story is plot‑focused, the sex can be a distraction or side quest from the main energy. So while we didn’t find a universal ratio of sex to plot, we worked really hard — lots of discussion, dissection, multiple drafts, lots of layouts — to make sure we gave enough time to each aspect of the story. There was an ebb and flow to the pacing and juxtaposition of sex and story. At what point did we give enough of one in order to pivot away to the other?
CP: There’s a sort of intangible nature to pacing, for both story and sex, that can make it so hard to pin down. In some ways, you just know when it’s right when it feels right… when every page‑turn and panel hits at juuuust the right moment.
Christie Porter
Kickstarter has become a powerhouse for adult‑oriented genre comics. What made crowdfunding the ideal home for She Comes With Magic?
PS: I’ve wanted to get back to crowdfunding and the direct‑to‑consumer model of publishing for a few years now. We’ve seen friends and peers have a lot of success in that space — but they’ve also been incredibly smart about it. You don’t just put anything on Kickstarter. It has its own unique landscape. I didn’t want to put a failed direct‑market pitch on Kickstarter just as a place to publish it. I wanted to bring something to Kickstarter that was for Kickstarter. I’m not going to bring an indie, gritty crime thriller to Marvel. Or a Wolverine story to Image. So why would I try to Kickstart a series that didn’t fit the genre and approach that works so well there?
Kickstarter has seen incredible success with NSFW, sapphic, dark‑fantasy books. The audience has found Kickstarter as a place to publish that type of material. Those are not books that would necessarily do well enough in the direct market, but they thrive on Kickstarter. Kickstarter is a place you go to find ideas and stories you can’t find anywhere else. And the adult‑oriented market has thrived there. SCWiM is a book that could work with other publishers, but we knew the freedom we could find on Kickstarter, the audience hungry for top‑quality adult comics, and the do‑it‑yourself model would lead to the most success for this book. And we want nothing more than success for this book because we have so much story to tell and would love nothing more than years telling it.
Christie Porter
Maeve’s magic system is intimate, unpredictable, and sometimes inconvenient. How do you see her abilities evolving across future oversized issues?
CP: In all the ways we talked about sex, it was natural to acknowledge that sex can also be complicated, and that’s something I’m really looking forward to exploring more with Maeve in the future. I mean, how would channeling magic whenever you orgasm complicate your sex life? And we’ll try to do so in a way that is not only earnest and charming but epic and ridiculously sexy.
We have plans for Maeve and her magic, including seeing what she’s capable of as she accumulates and stores more and more power on her mission to confront the Starving King. It’s also important to us that the growth of her magical abilities is directly tied to her relationship with sex and her sexuality and her sensual nature. As her idea of what sex can be and what sex looks like evolves (or depending on the place or person or situation), so will her powers and her ability to channel them. For instance, moment‑of‑weakness sex with an ex with a lot of emotions mixed in could present magically in some interesting ways.
So yes, I think chaos will remain part of the fun.
Maeve’s magic requires her to orgasm — even when she’s face‑to‑face with an enemy who absolutely doesn’t want her casting a spell. How do you portray that challenge without crossing into explicit detail?
PS: We’re going to get more into the mechanics of magic in this world in issue 2 (and beyond), but we introduced briefly the idea that magic channelled can be stored for future use. Maeve and other Arcanists store excess magical energy in bottles, vials, and other containers they have on their person so they can cast spells later. Other Arcanists channel magic in very different ways, but magic’s aspect as a resource with limits is very important to the story. In the future, we’ll explore what happens when you run out — and what, if anything, you can do when you’re running on empty. With Maeve specifically, this presents both profound and hilarious opportunities for story and character. You can’t just get off in the middle of a fight. Orgasming is both a mental and physical act — both requiring specific situations to get there. These parameters and limitations create so many story possibilities for Maeve and for us.
CP: I’ll just add: each body is different, and I’m excited for people to learn more about Maeve’s… and what gets her excited.
Lastly, if you could write a comic crossover for Maeve, who would you choose?
PS: Ooh, that’s such a good question and very tricky to imagine. My mind goes to the Pantheon from The Wicked + The Divine. There’s a colour, maturity, intimacy, and emotionality that I think would align with what we’re doing with Maeve and SCWiM. That and I love that series. Kieron, Jamie, and Matt did such incredible, career‑defining work that it’d be amazing to touch that hem. The Pantheon represents so many of the intense emotions Maeve has and will experience over the course of the series. It feels like everyone would be on the same level in that book, and I feel the power and magic of that pairing would be reality‑altering in their crossover series.
CP: Damnit. That’s such a good answer. I wish it were mine.
I think Maeve could be a perfect fit for the world of Sex Criminals. Seeing her experience the camaraderie and rivalry with other people who also have orgasm‑based powers could be very special and educational for her.
The prelaunch page for the funding campaign is up now at https://shecomeswithmagic.com
About the Author
Adrian Gunning Adrian lives in Melbourne Australia and has a huge passion for gaming, technology and pop culture. He recently finished his a Bachelor of Journalism and is currently focusing on games journalism. When not writing and playing video games, Adrian can be found in Comics 'R' Us debating the pros of the DC Universe and cons of the Marvel Universe.
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