Rainbow, originally titled Rain-Bow, is one of Harrison’s more unusual stories, turning the world of erotic comics itself into part of the subject. Its protagonist is Jim Bow, an ageing cartoonist who once enjoyed enormous success but has now become depressed by the changing tastes of the public. He believes that the era of romantic serials – and his own career – has passed him by.

Determined to return to the drawing board, Jim’s attempts to revive his fortunes lead him into an increasingly absurd situation. His principal problem is no longer simply finding ideas but finding a way to satisfy the expectations of publishers, readers, and the women who have become part of the mythology surrounding his work. The answer is his nephew Clarence, a younger man with little talent for drawing but with plenty of other qualifications for the job.

Jim recruits Clarence to act as a surrogate using the name Rain (thus Rain-Bow), effectively turning him into the public face of a new generation of erotic comics. Rain becomes the darling of the erotic comics scene, and what follows is a comic exploration of the gap between artistic reputation and commercial success, as Clarence discovers that producing sexy comics involves far more than simply drawing attractive women.

It isn’t a big stretch of imagination to detect an autobiographical element in Rainbow, drawn by a creator of erotic comics as he reached his early fifties.

Rainbow was serialised in Kiss Comix beginning with no. 116, and subsequently published in English by Last Gasp in 2003.