(written by Terry MacNeil, on April 10-13, 2026)

I first head of Chester Brown’s graphic memoir Paying for It: A Comic-Strip Memoir About Being a John after it was recommended to me by Amazon. I don’t read many graphic novels or graphic memoirs – but reading one about a real-life john sounded like something I’d be willing to pay for. See what I did there? I’m so clever.

Mr. Brown’s graphic memoir is well-made, thoughtful, preachy, and never boring. And if Mr. Brown is to be believed – he’s always treated the (female) prostitutes he hired with a higher degree of consideration/respect than most johns do. BUT Mr. Brown is not nearly as “empathetic” as he sees himself. If anything, he’d be passive-aggressive whenever he’d be unimpressed with his experience with a prostitute – he’d typically punish the prostitute by writing mean comments/reviews about their interaction on websites (where johns anonymously critique prostitutes), which can make it more difficult for the prostitute to be hired in the future (if she gets a negative review).

Also, Mr. Brown’s book more than lives up to its sub-title – because the graphic memoir is told almost entirely from the viewpoint of the typical (heterosexual) male john. So the prostitutes’ viewpoints are almost entirely absent, and the myriad unpleasantries commonly experienced by prostitutes are almost completely glossed over (because Mr. Brown emphasizes he was afraid if he revealed ANY details about the prostitutes’ lives, they might be identified by people that know them). As far as Mr. Brown is concerned, prostitution is a (mutually) happy business transaction that (in the end) is no less pleasant for the prostitute than it is for the john – EXCEPT when the prostitutes fail to totally satisfy Mr. Brown. He sees himself as an “ordinary customer”, who is ENTITLED to whatever he thinks is his “money’s worth” – and if he doesn’t get that (for whatever reason), he gets passive-aggressive (as already mentioned). So it is no surprise that Mr. Brown is a “minarchist libertarian” – who feels most comfortable when treating everyday life as a series of impersonal “business transactions”.

Mr. Brown’s real-life(!) ex-girlfriend(!) is the STILL HOT Sook-Yin Lee(!). She also directed a movie adaptation of Paying for It – her movie retains the graphic memoir’s main title (but dropped the sub-title, because she made sure her movie had less focus on prostitution from the perspective of heterosexual male johns). Interestingly, Ms. Lee’s movie presents “Chester Brown” in a less cold and more likeable light than Mr. Brown presented himself in his own graphic memoir. Mercifully, the movie also had way less emphasis on the pro-prostitution preaching (in the graphic memoir) that Mr. Brown would FREQUENTLY hammer over the head of his readers. And the movie has an Emma Goldman reference – which pleased me.

Ms. Lee also made the fictionalized character based on herself (“Sonny Lee”) have a way more prominent role in her movie, than she herself had in Mr. Brown’s graphic memoir. I consider that to have been to the movie’s benefit, because Mr. Brown is a VERY boring person – and simply paying for sex is not in itself enough to make someone “interesting”. Well, at least that is the way he is presented in the graphic memoir AND the movie.

In closing, I enjoyed Ms. Lee’s movie more than Mr. Brown’s graphic memoir. I wouldn’t say it’s a great movie – but it IS good! This was the first movie I’ve seen directed by Ms. Lee – and I look forward to seeing more of her work in the future. As for Mr. Brown, I actually really want to read his Louis Riel someday – I expect great things from it! Ⓐ