Overview
The book is an autobiographical story about Brown's obsession with the Playmates in Playboy magazine. Brown's character obsessively masturbates in secret, terrified of being found out, but unable to resist the urge to masturbate. Afterwards, he feels guilty, sometimes getting rid of the magazine(s), only to come back to them again later, sometimes years later buying copies again of issues he had guiltily discarded.
The story happens mostly during Brown's adolescence, but winds up at the time of the book's creation. Along the way we see how Brown's Playboy obsession affects his ability to relate to women. The narrator of the story is a winged, not-quite-angelic version of Brown himself, who often talks to the Chester Brown character. Brown never acknowledges the narrator, though, who appears to be visible only to the reader. The "angel" talks about Brown in the third person in the adolescent parts of the story, but as the story comes to Brown's adult self, the "angel" begins to speak of him in the first person.
Brown depicted actual Playmates and issues of Playboy throughout the book. The book also touches on Brown's prejudices, as in his disgust at seeing a black Playmate.
Read more about this topic: The Playboy