A Photographer’s Memory: Superboy in August of 2019

Superboy cosplay by Cesar Torres, 2019.

Today I want to take you back to a series of Superboy cosplay photos I shot in my photo studio in 2019. This was a different time, before COVID would change the world, before the collapse of many systems. I want to revisit this creative process so you can see how these images turned out the way they did.

Why Superboy?

To me, Superboy has always invoked images of innocence and naivety. Superboy embodies the archetype of the Fool, visible in the Fool tarot card. This is not an insult to Superboy or his intelligence. It simply means that this hero has yet to encounter his rites of passage, or in some sense, his own failings that life will bring.

I chose to slip into Superboy’s spandex suit for fun as a way to embody this character for my fans, back in summer of 2019. I had purchased this cosplay from the web site Hero’s Time, which used to sell thousands of custom superhero suits, made to order. That web site is now gone, presumably gone out of business. It’s now a memory more than anything.

As a Mexican artist with a beard, I knew that my look as Superboy would go against cultural expectations about the comic book hero. That was my choice to make.

Below you can see one of the final shots from that session.

Superboy cosplay by Cesar Torres, 2019.

The Gear and Method

For this shoot I chose sunglasses, to add a touch of mystery and flair, as well as a soft nod to leather culture. I shot this image in my home studio using a Sony NEX-5T camera and some LED lights and reflectors. I used seamless paper, and I shot the images with a timer. This approach to self portraits continues for me to this present day, even though I work with new setups and cameras. I still enjoy the sense of the timer ticking down and giving myself usually 10 seconds to hit the pose.

Superboy cosplay by Cesar Torres, 2019.

The Edits

This image was edited in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop. The only retouching I did was to erase a few stray beard hairs. The end result is a studio shot that I was able to share out with my Patreon subscribers. Since then, I have left the Patreon platform so I can reach you here through my web site directly.

Superboy cosplay by Cesar Torres, 2019.

Your Feedback

What are your reactions to these images of Superboy? And what kind of future posts about my creative process would you like to see more of? Send me a note.

Back In Spandex, Back in the Fight

Back in Your Inbox, Back in the Fight

I missed you. A lot.

I stepped away from the Muscle & Spandex newsletter in 2025 because life came at me fast. I spent the year caring for a family member with cancer. In April, my father died. The same day he had the heart attack that killed him, I was laid off from my day job. All of this unfolded against the fascistic slide we’re living through. I’m in Chicago; when ICE swept our streets, kidnapping people and violating human rights, I did what I could to resist with my community.

It’s heavy stuff. But there’s also lots to be grateful for. 2024–2025 also brought real wins. I transitioned LED Queens from retail into services—branding and strategy for LGBTQ/BIPOC businesses—something I should’ve done sooner. I got my creative drive back and put in serious work on two books: Hall of Mirrors (out in 2026) and Our Lord of the Flowers. Art is life. I’m grateful to still be here making it.

And no, I didn’t forget my superhero and villain crew.

Coming 2026: How to Kill a Superhero, Second Edition

The How to Kill a Superhero tetralogy has been going strong since 2013. More than a decade later, I want to give it the polish it deserves. In early 2026, I’ll launch a fundraising/Kickstarter campaign to produce second editions of all four books with:

• New cover art

• New introductions in each volume

• Cleaned-up interiors and typography

• (Stretch goal) An omnibus paperback collecting all four books

If you want to support the second edition—or you have specific requests for this refresh—send me an email. Your notes will shape what gets made.

Our Lord of the Flowers Is Live

If HTKS gave you everything you wanted from superheroes, spandex, and BDSM, Our Lord of the Flowers (OLF)brings a new obsession: spandex, pantyhose, masks, and psychedelia—a standalone queer kink novel with a literary edge.

The book follows Sir Vitrum, a Chicago leatherman cleaning out his late father’s hoarded house while navigating gender, fetish, mysticism, and the leather family he’s built. If you loved the raw sexuality of HTKS, this will speak to you.

• Read the first chapter free

• Visit the OLF FAQ

• Browse the free Fall 2025 photo gallery

I’m now fully independent as an author and entrepreneur. If you want to help OLF take off, please subscribe to the free newsletter, shop the store, or—best of all—tell your friends and lovers.

→ VISIT OUR LORD OF THE FLOWERS

Author Cesar Torres Returns with Our Lord of the Flowers, a Bold New Book of Queer Kink Erotica

After a hiatus that began in early 2021, author Cesar Torres is set to re-enter the literary world with a fresh, boundary-pushing work, Our Lord of the Flowers. Known for the compelling queer superhero narrative in the How to Kill a Superhero series, Torres’s new novel promises an innovative exploration of BDSM, fetish, and queer identity, all set against the backdrop of Chicago in 2025.

Reflecting on the Hiatus

Since their semi-retirement announcement in February 2021, Torres has navigated a period of personal challenges, including a short stint with an autoimmune disorder and the demands of caregiving for a parent facing cancer. These experiences brought unexpected but necessary time away from writing. “It was a painful period,” says Torres, “but also one of reflection and renewal, ultimately bringing fresh inspiration and creative direction for the next phase of my work.”

Introducing Sir Vitrum

At the heart of Our Lord of the Flowers is Sir Vitrum, a retired kink podcaster and leatherman who is grappling with the grief of losing his father. During the day, Sir Vitrum takes on the task of cleaning his father’s hoarded house, and at night he seeks solace in the sensual and thrilling world of leather sex, kink, and fetish. But as he tackles the endless piles of papers, trash, and hoarded objects, he encounters a supernatural entity singing haunting songs from within the walls of the house. Sir Vitrum’s world is rocked when he learns two leather persons in the Chicago community have recently been murdered. Against his own will, he is drawn into investigating the murders while at the same time unearthing family secrets buried within his parent’s hoarded house.

This book intertwines the waking world with a dreamlike exploration of identity and desire, echoing the stylistic choices made in How to Kill a Superhero but with greater directness and even bigger thrills.

Exploring New Themes and Fetishes

In Our Lord of the Flowers, Torres expands the exploration of kink beyond the familiar territories of spandex and bondage to delve into themes of deep submission and gender identity. This novel acknowledges kinks and fetishes that often remain unrecognized in mainstream queer erotica, emphasizing a journey of self-exploration and consciousness. Readers can expect a murder mystery that pushes boundaries and encourages deep reflection on their own identities.

Nods to the Past

Fans of the How to Kill a Superhero series will find familiar elements in this new work, including Easter eggs and cameos, including Roland from the earlier series. Torres’s signature writing style incorporates Aztec gods, and in Our Lord of the Flowers two more gods enter the story, just as the god Tezcatlipoca permeated the original How to Kill a Superhero series in the 2010s.

A Shift Away from Superheroes

Torres acknowledges that saying goodbye to the superhero genre in 2021 was a significant shift. “I have already said and written everything I needed to say about superhero fetish in How to Kill a Superhero. Since the release of that series, I have come out as non-binary and probed deeper into my own identity. In other words, I have moved on to explore my own kinks in a deeper way.” This evolution is evident in the novel’s departure from cape, tights and comics, and now Torres is venturing into the realms of hardcore leather, body modification, D/S dynamics, lingerie, muscle fantasies, pantyhose, bondage, and body modification—along with a few more surprises.

A New Chapter Begins

This new novel will begin releasing for free next week as a serial on Torres’s new Patreon site, Our Lord of the Flowers. Once the serial is complete, it will be available as a paperback and e-book. The book’s chapters will be accessible for free on Patreon, and subscribers can upgrade to a paid subscription for bonus material such as podcasts, fetish pinup photos, and more.

Launch

The first chapter of Our Lord of the Flowers drops on Patreon next week on November 11, 2024. In the meantime, you can reach out to the author on Instagram and X. Please feel free to join the Patreon as a free member, and if you want to seek more value, you can always upgrade later. Enjoy the book.

The Problem with Patreon, and Why I am Leaving their Platform

Today I am writing to you to alert you to cumulative problems that have been developing on the platform Patreon over the past three years. I have been a client of the Patreon platform since 2017. Over the years, I tolerated many of those issues because I needed to make money as an artist to survive, and back then, the company seemed to have  benign intentions. But the problems have become more frequent and chronic, just as the Patreon platform has also transformed into a corporate entity that is moving away from being a grass roots organization. Patreon has raised $90 million from investors, and it is valued at $1.2 billion. They have raised $255 million as of September 2020. Back in 2019, CEO Jack Conte told CNBC that the company’s business model would have difficulties maintaining a profitable business model unless it made changes. In 2019, Tech Crunch analyzed this challenge, and also forecast that an IPO could be part of Patreon’s future. Fast forward to 2021: the company is said to be planning to go public later this year, and the forecast of what will happen to independent artists and content creators like me is grim.

The future of the company promises to be very corporate. And historically, corporate greed and the arts have never mixed all that well, unless exploitation was factored into the relationship.

Here are a few of my personal issues with Patreon as it relates to my content and personal platform:

• They claim to be a content-creation platform, but they are in a bit of an identity crisis. Sure, they provide tools for posting and sharing content, but what they are truly best at is being a payment processor. They are not very transparent about this.

• When the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in 2020, Patreon gave content creators no significant resources to optimize their efforts to survive the crisis or the economic recession that has followed. I made my own decision to re-brand, optimize my offerings and pricing models, but I did it all by myself. Patreon gave us nothing that we could use as guidelines or even tutorials to survive.

• Patreon has rolled out billing changes that affected my Patreon subscribers negatively. These changes include sudden new changes in fees and billing cycles. The burden was placed on us, the content creators, to relay that info to them, and thus Patreon absolved themselves of the responsibility for that change, even though they are the payment processor in these transactions. Sure, they gave creators templated content for us to distribute to Patrons, but I am appalled that they also wouldn’t message the subscribers directly to back up the messaging from individual content creators.

• Patreon staff discriminated against me inside their Discord, marking my own show-and-tell content as NSFW, while describing straight creators’ show-and-tells of a similar visual style as absolutely appropriate for the corresponding channel. In other words, they told me to take my queer content to the back of the bus when it comes to peer-to-peer interactions on their Discord.

That brings us to changes that are happening today that I want to bring to your attention. This week, Patreon announced internally to creators a new billing cycle that will move away from billing you, my Patrons, on the first day of the month, and instead move to a new cadence where you are charged based on the day you join. You can read this Reddit AMA with Patreon CEO Jack Conte here, but please take a read through the comments from content creators. They show a palpable sense of concern that is only met with corporate platitudes from Conte as a result. Patreon has not confirmed if and when this change will roll out, but the community of Patreon content creators has spoken out about how this will negatively impact many creators, and more importantly, how this could also impact the most important folks in the equation: the Patreon subscribers. 

Jack Conte will be hosting a town hall meeting tomorrow, February 4 to discuss these new changes, and I will attend. But at this point, I am only attending because I want to stay informed.

On my end, I am taking accountability for myself and my readers and fans, and making a big decision: I am leaving the Patreon platform this month.

My biggest concerns about Patreon are their lack of transparency, disingenuous messaging to their clients (us content creators), and the dark forecast of what will come when they align themselves with corporate interests if they go public. When they have to answer to shareholders and Wall Street investors in the near future, there will only be one priority for the Patreon platform: profit. That will put small creators like myself in the crosshairs of their expansion. What’s more, creators who make NSFW and erotic content will surely be marginalized further than they already are by Patreon’s management team. Erotic content makes up a huge part of Patreon’s content-creator base, and I honestly don’t see how they will answer to questions about censorship and freedom of speech, when they are tracking toward an IPO. I do not have any confidence that their platform will act on our behalf.

And for that reason, I am getting out now, before I run into more challenges with the mediocrity that I experience day by day on their platform.

Luckily, I plan to keep making content and making a living as an artist through the e-commerce of my own web sites howtokillasuperhero.net and LEDQueens.com. I only ever signed up for Patreon as a way to augment my income as an artist when I started making YouTube content in 2017 to market my books, and it’s time now to migrate my efforts to my own platform, where I don’t have a middleman who is more aligned with Wall Street than with novelists, filmmakers and other content creators.

So please come with me in my journey, by frequenting my two web sites: howtokillasuperhero.net and LEDQueens.com, where I am the owner and designer of LED Queens Fitness Apparel. Sign up for our email newsletters, and help spread the word that I am making unforgettable art.

I hope that in writing this post you are able to look deeper at the factors surrounding the evolution of the Patreon platform, and make your own sound decisions based on the evidence you collect. Corporations are not inherently malignant, but unfortunately, many corporations slide into corrupt and exploitative practices motivated by greed. Critical thinking is of the utmost importance right now, and this is my time to put into effect my exit strategy from Patreon so I can continue reaching my audience through my own personal business channel. I wish you the best of luck, encourage you to read widely, and to make strong choices.

Cesar Torres