Vintage Sleaze

Greatest Moments in Vintage Sleaze #6 Lenny does Legs, Bilbrew does Drawing

2012-03-05T17:35:00.010-08:00

Leonard Burtman debuts his new slick Leg Show...but unfortunately without a date! I think Lenny hoped the magazine would have "legs" of it's own...that is, to stay on the magazine racks for years looking fresh. Hence, no issue date. "Yah...that one's NEW Mac, it came in just yesterday!"

Additionally, there was no subscription blank, though he hoped it would be bi-monthly.

Circa 1960 - 1963, as it was published by Selbee, the corporation for all things black stocking he formed with Benny Himmel.

Most notable is the illustration shown here, in which African-American fetish cartoonist Gene Bilbrew was apparently commissioned to draw up the perfect target market for the new magazine. A man who lives legs but puffs a smoke.

Only time would tell if the market would support this expensive, sumptuous, glorious hunk of fetishistic smut.

Leg Show is actually quite a story, and does in fact have long legs. Just look up Dian Hanson.

Logo from Leg Show Number one with illustration by Gene Bilbrew No Date Collection Victor Minx

Greatest Moments in Vintage Sleaze is a once in a while entry on Vintage Sleaze HERE by Jim Linderman.

Books and Ebooks From Dull Tool Dim Bulb / Vintage Sleaze HERE at BLURB.COM

Quip by Pip Bettie Page Rear Cover Comedy Digest Humorama 1957

2012-03-05T15:25:00.006-08:00

Humorama used covergirl Bettie Page numerous times (See Issues HERE) but they didn't object to putting her on the back either. As usual, they spell her name wrong and put a "quip" in her mouth making her sound like a gold digger.

Comedy (Humorama Timely Features) July 1957 Unidentified Photographer Collection Jim Linderman.

Previously Unknown Rare Candy Barr Burlesque Film Found VEGAS VIXON 1

2012-03-03T16:56:00.010-08:00

A scarce original 8mm film of Candy Barr, the legendary Texas burlesque queen has been found by Vintage Sleaze the Blog. Turned up in a lot of stag films with what appears to be a hand-stamped title "VEGAS VIXON 1" the pictures here were scanned from the original film.

The film was shot at the same location as the famous, remarkable and now familiar "My Tale is Hot" sequence, but the dancer is wearing white, not black...though very little clothing of any color. Could this, the "white" version, have been a test (or outtake) from the four minute clip available from Something Weird? The film has been dated as circa 1956. The dancer wears pasties and there is no nudity.

Ms. Barr (Juanita Dale Slusher) made one pornographic film, the notorious "Smart Alec" which has circulated under various titles for decades. Far more interesting are her performances in which the performer is revealed as an extraordinary dancer.

Candy Barr's life, which took her from a small Texas town to the Mob in Vegas, with stops along the way with Jack Ruby and a sentence for Marijuana Possession is well-known. As these stag films in the 1950s were not only of questionable legality, there is virtually no documentation of their production, distribution or origin. That this short film uses the same stage (or set) as the far better known film linked below could add quite a bit to the stripper's story.

Other versions of Candy's films have circulated under the titles Boudoir Belle, Delicious, Texas Terror, Big Time Strip and Bitter and Sweet. Whether this film has been anthologized or reissued is unknown at this time, but collectors and scholars are invited to contribute.

More information on Candy Barr, as well as a link to My Tale is Hot is HERE.

Stills from "Vegas Vixon" circa 1956 Stag Film 8mm Collection Victor Minx.

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Additional information on Candy Barr on Vintage Sleaze which details her interview with for the Warren Commission is HERE

Seldom seen Bettie Page Photograph

2012-03-02T15:10:00.006-08:00

Bettie Page in Black Nylons and High Heels Dawson Publishing Co. No Date, No Location Circa 1955 Collection Victor Minx

One of 8 photographs of the model from the digest publication Black Nylons and High Heels, photographer associated with THESE FOLKS, quite possibly. More Later.

Carnival Cootch for a Quarter Pitches, Slum, Prizes and Peek a Boos

2012-03-02T06:36:00.007-08:00

Back when the anatomy of women was a mystery, the cooch show at the carnival was the only place in town (rather, just outside of town) to catch a glimpse...but your quarter was hardly the only rub to keep you rubbing. While the girls disrobed, the pitchman sold his wares. Overpriced novelties and risque pocket pleasures.

At the other end of the sideshow, while mom struggled to get the finger trap off junior, dad would be pulling his finger out of his pocket with more change for a cheap momento. A hot one. His hand was in there anyway, and it had to come out sometime. Might as well bring out an additional dime.

From lenticular keychains with a hootchie-cootchie wiggling for you like you were peeping across the street through vertical blinds to a fake pack of smokes with a smoker inside, anything to pull more coin while you were mesmerized by the dancer. Shown here is a small group of carny come-ons for coin. In the trade, cheap prizes like this were known as "Slum."

Fatima is shown below. Ignore the shouted directive at my confederate to commence filming.

Rubber Fatima collection Victor Minx

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Help Identify the Cartoonist Vintage Sleaze Mystery Pinup Gag Artist

2012-03-01T05:08:00.010-08:00

NOTE: WE HAVE A WINNER! MORE LATER
I'm a guy, I don't ask for directions. I don't listen to an iPhone either, every command tries to send me to an effing Applebees and I hate Applebees. But when I really, really need help I'll throw one out there. Or in this case, I'll throw out five. Can anyone identify this wonderful cartoonist from the late 1940 and early 1950s? He, or she, could draw a rubber face better than anyone. Enlarge the signature, as if that would help. Thanks!

A Tale of Two Tirzas Tirza Sues, Burlesque at the Beach takes a Bath

2012-02-29T16:02:00.007-08:00

Yes, that is the REAL Tirza above. Tirza Du Val. Tirza traveled with a contraption of pipes and pumps full of wine, and the show was a real corker!

Retro- recreators at "Burlesque at the Beach" on Coney Island thought they could replicate the show with no regard to Tirza's rights. As reported in the New York Post of August 13, 2001, a Chicago lawyer representing Tirza sent a "cease and desist" to the folks who were bringing back the wine bath...Tirza retained the rights to the show! Sorry, hipsters! There is only ONE Tirza, and she is testy!

Tempest Storm Turns 84 (!) Bettie Page Helps her Dress for the Party

2012-02-29T10:07:00.005-08:00

Tempest Storm turns 84 today. Pic here is from promotional stills for her Irving Klaw film Teaserama. SEE MORE HERE

Milestone of Smut Vintage Sleaze Reaches 10,000

2012-02-29T07:39:00.001-08:00

Tales dug from the retro grave of vintage smut, Vintage Sleaze the Blog posts a story every day. Mobsters, Pin-up Girls, Speed-Freak Writers, Dirty Shutterbugs, Sleazy Strip Joints, Scratchy Stag Films and most important, Misguided attempts to censor the material by inept politicians, cops, judges and moms! The True Story of Smut in America. Every darn word true. OVER TEN THOUSAND FACEBOOK FOLLOWERS!

Rosa Carlo Rosalyn Drexler Pop Art and Wrestling with a Fetish. Ultra Digest Cribs a Photo of The Mexican Spitfire

2012-02-28T09:08:00.010-08:00

Although it has not been documented as far as I can tell, I suspect the publishing house of "H. Zucca" was Leonard Burtman and friends operating out of an address at 1158 Broadway under the bogus company name of Ultra Sports. They produced two issues of "Ultra" digest. Dated 1957, the books were aimed at a market who liked wrestling women. The subscription form on the back claims "Ultra is the only publication of Girl Wrestling" and they would know. Ten issues was $15.00, but I really don't think it lasted much further than this issue.

Whoever published it, they were confident enough in the potential market to commission a serial cartoon called "Mat Girls" by Gene Bilbrew, who is up to his typical hard-boiled high-heels standards. How one was supposed to believe the wrestlers were able to perform a Half Nelson in stilettos is beyond me, but who am I to judge. Or rather to referee.

Stanton appears too, of course, under his "Savage" pseudonym, and there are a dozen grainy photos of female grunts posing and flexing as well, including this extraordinary picture of Rosa Carlo, the Mexican Spitfire getting ready to pin Mae Young to the mat (!)

Rosa is a story. Rosa is a BIG story, and it is one you would not believe. For starters, to know Warhol did a series of paintings of her in her wrestling duds will suffice for this post. Rosa was Rosalyn Drexler, Pop artist, writer...and on and on and on.

Televised matches showing MEN rolling on the mat had started only a decade earlier, and it wasn't long before the "sport" had as many comic book characters as Marvel. I can't find the first example of a women's wrestling match being broadcast. The fact exists buried under the mat.

There is legit wrestling, even for women. The first Olympic gold medal for Women's wrestling was awarded in 2004, and they will include Women's boxing this year. The less legit Women's wrestling (as in pumped up females who fake it just like pumped up men) may have been a fad...and their pecs were boobs...I think.)

Ultra Digest Number 2 1957 "Zucca" Publishers, New York Doing Business as Ultra Sports 1158 Broadway NYC Collection Victor Minx

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Landing the Big One Royal Magic Helps Women Catch a Fella Vintage Sleaze

2012-02-27T16:25:00.005-08:00

Royal Magic Novelty Company provides some hooked bait for the tired old "reel in a fella" gag, 1949.
Adult "Bait for Male Fish" Novelty Gag, Royal Magic Novelty Company 1949 Collection Victor Minx

When William Wenzel Was Working as PICO the Pinup Artist Bill Wenzel Gag Cartoons Pseudonym Vintage Sleaze

2012-02-26T09:41:00.004-08:00

When Wenzel was Pico

Why did Bill Wenzel publish some of his early work signed by PICO? No one knows including me. I will offer a guess though. Too much exposure?

Even as early as 1948, which is when Wenzel works such as these date...the artist was on fire. Hundreds, nay THOUSANDS of cartoons! I have even seen "PICO" works in the same magazine as some signed Wenzel.

Even if all I can do is hazard a guess, it is nice to add to comic lore...Yes, Wenzel worked under a pseudonym and it was Pico. Another early work by Wenzel which predates his glob of work for Humorama is HERE.

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The Good Times Roll Samuel Roth Prison Time Vintage Sleaze THE RARE DIGESTS #24

2012-02-25T05:48:00.009-08:00

An issue of Good Times, 1955, edited by convicted publisher of redeeming social value Samuel Roth. Roth's resume follows:

• 1928: 3 months in New York "workhouse" for possessing indecent materials with intent to sell

• 1929: 6 months imprisonment in "Detention Headquarters, NYC" for violation of parole: occurred after NY Society for the Suppression of Vice raided Roth's warehouse and found copies of Lady Chatterley's Lover, Ulysses, Fanny Hill, other titles and pictures

• 1930: 2 months in Moyemensing Prison, remanded after serving time in New York for selling obscene books (including Ulysses) in Philadelphia

• 1934: $100 fine (otherwise 20 days in jail) • 1957-1961: incarceration at Lewisburg penitentiary

Oh...and 1957-1961: incarceration at Lewisburg penitentiary

The Samuel Roth papers, which detail the extraordinary lengths to which your tax dollars were used to prevent him from publishing books you can now find in any library are HERE at Columbia University.

More information about Roth is HERE which details his case before the Supreme Court.

Good Times Volume 2, Number 17 1955 "New York Issue" Edited by Samuel Roth Picadilly Press NYC Collection Victor Minx

THIS IS NUMBER TWENTY FOUR IN THE SERIES 'THE RARE DIGESTS' Small essays on hopelessly obscure and scarce soft-core publications of the 1950s. Enjoy them All!

Books by Jim Linderman HERE

Glanzman the Lensman has his Assets Froze Bettie Page the Post Office and Mail Order Madness Vintage Sleaze

2012-02-23T18:22:00.016-08:00

Name the photographer who put Bettie Page in a motion picture wearing an Indian headdress and had his finances frozen like a despot for doing it!

Willliam Glanzman, famous photographer and sleaze.

Glanzman photographed Ms. Page several times. They are among the least seen and least familiar photographs of the icon and many are in color. Not only that, he produced and sold a short stag film of the actress back in 1955.

While Glanzman's work was goofy, putting the model among fake palm fronds and giving her stupid props, they were tasteful...although topless, there is no full frontal nudity and no implied bondage. (You know...the things other photographers were paying the model for.)

While Ms. Page (who was spelled "Paige" on his reel of film) was not Glanzman's only model, she was his best. Ganzman also shot, and sold, slides and photographs of Gypsy Palmer, Tamar Benamy, Judy O'Neil and others. Again, no hardcore. Figure studies.

Still, Ganzman was prosecuted. The brochure above is what got him in trouble. Doing business as "Bowery Enterprises" he mailed them with less discretion than he should have. At least the New York postmaster thought so. They decided to put a freeze on all money orders and ordered all his mail returned to the sender! Why? Because he was selling, (quoting from the legal jargon used to deny him making a living off Bettie's bangs ) "obscene, lewd, lascivious, indecent, filthy... vile article(s), matter, thing, device, or substance..."

Personally, I am of the opinion that Bettie Page was not obscene. She was obscenely beautiful...but obscene?

It was 1955...I might agree if some cub scout's mom received this brochure because Glanzman swiped the Boy's Life mailing list she might have been a bit upset. I'll grant you that, postal forces who know better than I what I should see...but you will never get me to admit she was a vile article.

Did the fellow who so anxiously checked his mailbox everyday before his wife came home receive his film and pictures ordered above? I hope so, but I don't think so. As he dated his note, the order clearly fell within the window when Glanzman's money was being returned to sender. A shame. How many poor saps out there with $16.00 to blow on smut had to make do with the Sears catalog? We will never know.

Read Ganzman's tale of woe HERE. So I don't suffer Glanzman's fate, I've blanked out the parts of Ms. Page which presumably offended the post office.

Original Brochure from William Glanzman and "Bowery Enterprises" 1955. Original note from purchaser handwritten on one side. Collection Victor Minx

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Bill Ward Wheely Nutz Nixon Era Knockers

2012-02-23T06:58:00.000-08:00

A sleaze comic publication purportedly about sexy cartoons with an automotive theme, the editors ran out of car gags halfway through and started throwing in public domain clip art and wheezy old film stills to which they provided their own "hilarious" captions. Typical of the crud foisted on the humor-deprived American public during the constitutional lawless Nixon reign. (Shudder...how anyone can aspire or claim to being a republican after Nixon is truly, truly beyond me...but I try to avoid political controversy here unless it involves some pinheads trying to censor what you choose to spend your 75 cents on... MEESE!)

Anyway, this appears to be a one-shot grab for the coin. It says "August" but I've never seen another, and the only indication of a publisher is the tiny "CC" near the price. It does contain a dozen or so quite remarkable Bill Ward drawings (as well as one the cover) but unless you go for "headlights" jokes I'd say pass.

Wheely Nutz August No Year Circa 1970? Collection Victor Minx

For other Bill Ward Gag Cartoons, look at ANY Men's Magazine from 1965 to 1980.

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Vintage Sleaze the Blog Author Profiled in the New York Times

2012-02-22T10:47:00.000-08:00

PHOTO BY ADAM BIRD FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
CLICK HERE TO VIEW SLIDESHOW from "Mining the Margins of Pop Culture" profile article by John Strausbaugh from the New York Times February 12, 2012

5 Years in Leavenworth for Selling Boob McNutt (Ira O'Neal, Black Man convicted) History of Eight-Pagers # 25

2012-02-22T07:43:00.001-08:00

Ira O'Neal was a "colored" man, according to the Chicago Tribune in 1932, a former policeman...and he goes down in history as being the only person sentenced to 5 years in Leavenworth prison for selling Tijuana Bibles. He called them "carts (short for Cartoon books) and he was actually convicted not for selling them, but for mailing a letter OFFERING to sell them. 5 years.

Ouch. I wonder if the fact that he was using the pseudonym "Balzac" had anything to do with it?

The Chicago Tribune report ("Ex-Policeman Gets Five Years on Smut Charge" February 21, 1932) not only mentions Ira's race, but reports Ira's wife Viola was given a year for helping.

Actually, Mr. O'Neal was offering more than 8-pagers, but as this entry is for the Tijuana Bible series here on Vintage sleaze, that shall be our concern. (Among the other items being offered were "The most beautiful Photos in the world of Girls and Men together, posed in Action, and boy are they a Wow at $5.00 per dozen" and "Single Photos post card size of girls alone, $3.00 per dozen, Beautiful." but as these were 1932 post cards, I don't think they would cause too much concern today.

But back to the comics!

Quoting from Ira's original letter, once a pitch, now evidence: "Last but not least, `Carts' Short for Cartoon Books. I have Tillie and Mac, Jiggs, Boob, Moon, Dumb Dora and others. These Books are put up and longer and contain more than usual. Also larger and they are not the cheap variety. Price $1.00 each; $10.00 per dozen."

Not cheap indeed. A buck each? Pfffft!

The "Boob" which Mr. O'Neal refers to is shown above. It satirized the Rube Goldberg character. In the filthy little book, we learn why the word "Jazz" has a sexual connotation while Boob learns quite a bit more. Um...do they know that up at Lincoln Center? We also see an early reference to "Shag"...I always thought Austin Powers made up that word.

I was alerted to this story by none other than the slightly pig-faced conservative author James J. Kilpatrick, failed talking head (briefly, for 60 minutes...) and segregationist. What? No WONDER he was pissed at Ira's dirty comics! He was a racist buffoon, but at least he provided good footnotes in his book "The Smut Peddlers" which is not on kindle yet.

Those of you who have read this far and would like to see the transcript putting Ira O'Neal into jail can go HERE.

The Tijuana Bible History Series by Jim Linderman Runs once a week or so...make sure to bookmark to enjoy future (and past) posts. Some groundbreaking original research, government documents and rare examples.

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Sextra Spicy Search Strategy Sleazy Cocktail Napkins Vintage Sleaze

2012-02-21T08:36:00.000-08:00

Google wants to be your restaurant finder more than your guide to vintage sexist sleaze, so if you search these cocktail napkins up in the image search, it will correct you and provide EXTRA spicy. Thanks, but I can find my own heartburn. Although Bill Wenzel is on the box cover, only one napkin inside is by the master of the curvy cutie...the rest are by a B-list bunch of cartoonists more appropriate for wiping up spills. Interestingly, each napkin has an artist's palette covering the cartoon. And I thought I was the only one who considered these guys artists!

Sextra Spicy Cocktail Napkins 1956 "Magic Wand" Novelty company Pasadena, CA
Collection Victor Minx

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Shameless Torso Twisting Thrusts of Abandon Vintage Sleaze

2012-02-20T16:14:00.000-08:00

Whipped into an uncontrollable lust crazed frenzy of lewd spasms and primal sexual gyrations, a smut-crazed stripper, name withheld, abandons all modesty and leaps from the stage bathed in a burning white hot heat of abandon and passion.

Original Snapshot circa 1965 Collection Victor Minx

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Crow Editions Vintage Sleaze Paperbacks As the Canadian Crow Flies

2012-02-19T14:52:00.000-08:00

Crow Editions was a cheap, lousy Canadian imprint consisting of cropped and chopped bastardized versions of earlier novels which were reprinted, sometimes with entire chapters missing. I don't care, I don't read them. But I love primitive, lurid covers...and in at least one case, Crow actually used a painter to render an even MORE primitive copy of the same cover! Great Stuff!

Crow also used the cheapest of cheap Canadian paper, both inside and out. One read creased the cover for good, and after it was passed around the cabin a few times, they took on the look of a worn leather wallet...as you see on my copies here. You CAN find mint ones, but I'd rather not spend the money. They are lovely though, and certainly off the radar. It is about time someone helps add them to the canon of collectible vintage sleaze, even if they were Canadian. Bring your passport and be prepared to get wet feet...as you can see my copies must have been soaking on the floor of the cabin for decades.

Harmon Bellamy may have been the best known writer in the bunch. He did some detective pulp fiction, and his books have turned up with numerous publishers. He was a friend of Jack Woodford and worked in Hollywood. He also used the names H. I. Bloom or Herman Bloom as well as William E. Gordon. A real old- timer, he had work published in Boy's Life back in 1935.

Likewise James Clayford, a prolific writer with many pulps under his/her belt. James was one Peggy Gaddis, among others, there are tons of books by her. I mean tons. Peggy Gaddis was Peggy Dern and more, but the real name was Erolie Pearly Gaddis Dern.

So here is my modest and musty collection of Crow Editions. In all, I believe there were 24 of them and all were published from 1949 to 1950. "Sideshow Girl" is probably the cover seen most often (which shows the Coney Island Odditorium(!) and "Desirable" has a great use of space...I would have bought either from a revolving rack if I were traveling in the Canadian winter in the 1950s, but I would not have stuck my tongue to the metal. All are fairly slight little things....the 12 copies I have create a stack only four inches tall!

What little is known about Crow Editions of Canada has been painstakingly learned and shared by "Bowdler" at Fly - By - Night, a quiet but outstanding site which attacks the pulp novels of Canada with precision. I collect them, but Bowdler studies them.

Group of Crow Editions Paperbacks, 1949-1950 Collection Victor Minx
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Gene Bilbrew Draws a Bettie Page Wig 1963

2012-02-19T06:11:00.000-08:00

When did Leonard Burtman's more mundane cheesecake magazines (which I believe began far earlier than most published accounts, starting with a slew of standard "girly" digests with fairly bland, routine black and white photographs of burlesque dancers, camera club girls and buxom bosomy beauties) start to appeal to MEN dressing as cheescake? Certainly by 1963, when High Heels magazine published this drawing by Gene Bilbrew of a Bettie Page wig, some shapely gams and a curious corset? There is no indication this was a Halloween issue.

Burtman had been in business some ten years when this issue was published.

Gene Bilbrew illustration from High Heels Magazine 1963 (Volume 2 Number 6) Collection Victor Minx

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Wee Hours Vintage Sleaze Paperback Anomalies 1968 End of the Line

2012-02-18T20:34:00.000-08:00

At some point in their short and slightly illegal lifetime, the Wee Hours line of paperbacks produced by Stanley Malkin and Edward Mishkin underwent a transformation. Gone were the now familiar, vibrant and goofy covers done by Eric Stanton, Gene Bilbrew, Bill Alexander and Bill Ward. They were replaced by these trippy, acid-induced line drawings with nightmare dungeon themes and shadow blobs. What happened? Where's the fun? Maybe the times, I guess...Bad psychedelics. Gone also was AMD the original distributor, replaced by EMD. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. They still claimed to be out of Buffalo, New York, but the earlier address in the Prudential Building was now the Market Arcade on Main Street. I don't know what happened...but the series petered out in 1968.

Three later (1968) " Wee Hours Special" and "Original" Wee Hours Books # 565, #570, #572 Collection Victor Minx

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Bill Ward Gag Pinup Cartoons African American Duke Magazine 1957 #2

2012-02-17T05:17:00.000-08:00

In 1957, Bill Ward, master of the risque gag comic did a series of drawings for Duke Magazine, a short-lived upscale magazine aimed at the African-American market. Duke was the creation of Dan Burley, profiled HERE. Ward drew his gags exactly as he did for dozens of men's magazines for the dominant Caucasian market, but the "Black Bills" were different. Not much different, as the over-developed women he drew differed only by the use of a slightly darker color shade, but his contribution was noteworthy and noble nonetheless.

Drawn under the pseudonym "McCartney" a few are shown here from the October 1957 issue of Duke. Other work for the magazine is shown HERE.

Bill Ward cartoons for Duke 1957

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Vintage Sleaze Paperbacks CORSAIR #204 Turns Up! The Missing Sleazy Novel Cover Gene Bilbrew by Raven Hughes and Reuben Sturman the Hollywood Biopic

2012-02-16T07:14:00.001-08:00

Mystery Solved! My "complete" bibliography and checklist of Reuben Sturman's despicable line of soft-core (better make that medium-core) paperbacks with Gene Bilbrew illustrations is now MORE complete! The elusive Number 204 has turned up and it is a doozy. No doubt the "teenage" thing made the discovery difficult...let's say you were going through Dad's stuff and came across this...would YOU put it in a mylar bag and take it to the next booksale? Is this the only senior citizen Bilbrew drew?

See original article on Corsair books HERE on an earlier post and add the missing trash appropriately.

Which gets me to thinking...how is that major Hollywood biopic on publisher Reuben Sturman doing? Hold on while I check. Hmm. Seems to be stalled. Check out the hype HERE on AVN.

Peep Show Machines and Midget Movies in Chicago Second City Smut

2012-02-16T04:16:00.000-08:00

CLICK TO ENLARGE CHIEF PAUL'S HAUL OF ELECTRIC SMUT

Chicago citizens will sleep better knowing the pin-up peep shows have been unplugged by Chief Investigator Paul Newey. Since there was no other crime in the second city on this day in 1959, Chief Paul invited the press over to see his collection of confiscated coin-op smut. Paul's pursuit of the peep shows was crime-bustin' action of the highest order. To celebrate (and convince the public Newey was on top of the situation) he flicks his ashes on the filthy coin slot in distain!

Special Crossover event! (posted on Dull Tool Dim Bulb as well) Other Chicago Smut HERE

Original Press Photograph (8" x 13") Unknown Chicago Paper 1959 Collection Jim Linderman

Books and Downloads by Jim Linderman Available HERE

Leonard Burtman's Biggest Hair Lisa Reed Big on Top Beehive Bombshell Bouffant

2012-02-14T17:00:00.000-08:00

CLICK TO ENLARGE LISA'S POOF

I think Lenny might have called the agency and asked for a model "big on top" for this cover. With a lacquered cone of honey colored cotton candy, Lisa Reed makes love to Leonard Burtman's camera in Aqua Net splendor. Truly a thing of wonder...and what I wonder is if John Waters was subscribing.

Interestingly, Hair Spray was invented in Broadview Illinois! True. View this broad while I continue.

Nothing is known, at least by me, about Lisa Reed. Lenny is scarce in his copy as well...noting only that she is "warm and witty" and an avid reader. We know that ourselves as the "Satanic Siren" clearly affects a bespeckled look while perusing Lenny's book collection. You know, the intellectual type. Not many bright women I know enjoy browsing my shelves in their garter belt, but they are welcome. As Lisa was reading topless, I have had to edit out the title in her hand, and a later shot in which Lenny's bookshelves help prop up the hair.

Satana had the employ of young Eric Stanton as Art Director for this issue. At the time, Lenny Burtman was publishing as "Selbee Associates" and working out of an address on West 56th Street.

This issue is from 1963...and so is the decor. Mid-century retro-modern throughout!

Now I have been pretty hard on Ms. Reed only because I can't find any good material on her...it's her own fault for using a pseudonym. But if I wanted to be really mean, I would point out the cover price has been reduced for clearance.

Satana Magazine Volume 1 Number 6 Selbee Associates, New York. 1963 Collection Victor Minx

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Smut Shop Shut Empty Shelves of Vintage Sleaze

2012-02-14T05:17:00.001-08:00

Shut down by angry mothers, urban renewal, the law or replaced by the web, the outcome for all adult book stores eventually.

Anonymous Polaroid Photograph, undated Collection Victor Minx

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Bilbrew Illustration in the New York Times (Profile of Vintage Sleaze the Blog Author)

2012-02-13T14:38:00.000-08:00

Yours truly is thrilled to have been the subject of a full-page profile in the February 12, 2012 issue of the New York Times HERE. The article is likely the first time one of the digests included in the series The Rare Digests was illustrated in a mainstream publication, not to mention the paper of record.

African-American artist Eugene Bilbrew did the cover of Eyewitness by Justin Kent. Justin Kent was the pseudonym of Kenneth Johnson, a struggling writer who sold soft-core smut to minor mobster Edward Mishkin in New York City during the early 1950s. Some ten of his novels were published under the pseudonym. I have been working on a book which will be called "Times Square Smut" and tell the story.

Eyewitness by Justin Kent (Kenneth Johnson) 142 Pages, New York. No publisher or date indicated (circa 1955) Collection Victor Minx

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Gertrude Goldberg??? Trudy Wayne! Vintage Sleaze Burlesque Snapshot

2012-02-12T20:46:00.001-08:00

A backstage snapshot of Gertrude Goldberg. Not much of a stripper name, so let's call her Trudy Wayne. Trudy posed for Irving Klaw, the pin-up king...and was featured in a film you may have missed titled "Buxom Beautease" in 1956. Get it? Beau-tease?

Original Snapshot Trudy Wayne, early 1950s, Collection Victor Minx

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Sam Menning, Bettie Page, Samuel Roth and Senator Kefauver Gets Egg On His Face Greatest Moments in Vintage Sleaze #7

2012-02-12T04:57:00.000-08:00

Gargoyle Sales Corp. ad Sir Magazine 1955

Sam Menning was much more than a photographer, but he took the photo above. He was best known as a cranky character actor you might recognize from film and television, but you can wiki him up yourself. He is a good story, had a long life and is to be found in many places. Sam is a book waiting to happen.

Sam Menning is notable for our purposes as the man who took Bettie Page photographs for Leonard Burtman. In fact, many of the photos attributed to Burtman were Menning shots.

Menning eventually became the "house" photographer of sorts for Gargoyle, a distributor of 4 x 5 nude photos with a fetish bent. Mind you, they were 1950's photos of a fetish bent...which meant play-acting with rather dim and confused models being asked to look tough...dramatic to this day, but little more than lingerie ads with the models in black. Not MY cup of tea, but someone's.

The Kefauver commission investigating Samuel Roth confronted him in their public investigation, accusing him of publishing these fetish photos. The inept legal investigators were wrong. Roth had nothing to do with Gargoyle the fetish folks. Enjoy this passage as your tax dollars evaporate in futile censorship efforts:

Mr. Chumbris. You stated a while ago that you are connected with
Gargoyle Sales Corp.

Mr. Roth. That's right.

Mr. Chumbris. I hereby show you an exhibit of advertisement of
girls being whipped, or what is known as fetish and bondage pictures, which is a type of photograph and material sent out by another company here in New York City. I would like for you to look at that [handing to witness].

Chairman Kefauver. Will you identify that as being some of the
literature that your company has sent out?

Mr. Roth. Oh, no. That's an entirely different company; it has
nothing to do with me.

Mr. Chumbris. You just stated that Gargoyle Sales

Mr. Roth. I had a company called Gargoyle Books. This is Gar-
goyle Sales Corp. It hasn't the remotest connection with me. And
I would like to see all the others that you think are like my business.[returning to Mr. Chumbris].

Mr. Chumbris. I read you the name of Gargoyle Sales Corp., and
you said it was your company.

Mr. Roth. One thing to answer as honestly as I could, and hearing "Gargoyle," which is a part of the name — I never heard of this company.

Mr. Chumbris. This particular company is not one of your com-
panies?

Mr. Roth. I never heard of the name before.

One can imagine Kefauver giving a big stink eye to his crack "investigators" as his vision of a campaign issue sinks. Kefauver got his Sams and his Gargoyles confused! The highly choreographed expose falls apart like pulled-pork. Later, with the dramatic confrontation deflated, Kefauver has to refer to "...this gargoyle thing" as he introduces a witness brought in to help fry Roth with pseudo-scientific testimony about his damaging photos which he never took, never published and never saw.

They they didn't find Sam...after taking pictures of Bettie Page with a whip and white leather boots, he hit the road for Hollywood.

Bettie Page by Samuel Menning, circa 1955

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Zee Zee Martine Bombshell Burlesque and Pioneer Publisher of Pitchbooks Vintage Sleaze

2012-02-10T05:58:00.000-08:00

Published from St. Marks Place in the East Village in 1959, ground zero for hipsters from beatniks to hippies to punk rockers to suited Starbucks sippers who by comparison hardly matter, here are a few issues of amazing burlesque clip-art published by Zee Zee Martine!

Each a "Zee Zee" publication, the digests served as pitches for exotic dancers on the runway route. Zee Zee Martine was a bomb...a wicked beautiful dancer who had more than stuff to shake. How many women publishers can you name from 1959?

It is quite possible the auteur amazon also took some of the pictures, though a few photographers of the opposite gender were identified. Zee Zee enlisted the help of Evelyn West, AKA "The Hubba-Hubba Girl" as editor, and together the dancing dames profiled their women friends, took ads for lingerie and dished the dice on who was bouncing around where. Each some 50 pages.

They sold 4 x 5 photo sets, cribbed naughty cartoons from wherever and ran more pastie covered photos of their runway girlfriends than you can imagine. I suspect the girls were allowed to sell these in clubs, there was no subscription offer really...and as such they are for the most part lost. Relics from 50 years ago, when a dancer packed her costume in a trunk and hit the road.

Collection of Zee Zee Martine Pitch booklets (Flame, Fever, Wolf Bait and Blush) 1958 - 1959 Collection Jim Linderman

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ZOWIE Risque Adult Comic Digests of Youthful Magazines and Comics

2012-02-09T09:59:00.001-08:00

Zowie! marks a transition period for adult gag magazines. Not the miniature "Kind Men Like" cartoon books sold in the back of men's magazines, nor quite yet the slightly more raunchy and revealing Humorama line of gag digests of the late 1950s. Zowie! had sexy women but no lingerie and little cleavage. They were intended for the newsstand and they were published with a regular schedule by real comic book publishers. No Pinups and no unhealthy smut...only sexist humor.

Zowie! was published by Youthful Magazines in St. Louis, a name known well to comic book collectors, even if most lists from the community omit the digests completely. Zowie was not the only title. As the ad here shows, there were others. Since the material was slightly risque, aimed at adults and not the same size as children's comic books, maybe the comic collectors have overlooked them. Yet they provided a place for a generation of artists who learned to doodle in foxholes during the big one and outlet as they developed their style. Bill Wenzel, Stanley Rayon, "Haggalund" who went on to sell to Humorama and a dozen more.

Zowie! seems to have used Bill Wenzel on the cover for all issues. Certainly one of the most prolific cover artists of all time, he had not quite developed the zaftig, busty curves for which he is best known but he was getting there. Also shown here is a cover of Jackpot which may or may not have been actually published. It is printed by mistake in the inside of a Zowie issue here.

Youthful Magazines ran only from 1949 to 1954. They published Western, Science Fiction and Romance titles in addition to the digest-sized adult humor magazines here.

Zowie Magazines, 1951 Collection Victor Minx

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Beehive Burlesque in Cicero Unlikely Hero Anita Lopushok Fethema Vintage Sleaze

2012-02-08T06:31:00.001-08:00

Unlikely hero Anita Lopushok (who performed under the name Fathema) prepares to testify before a Senate Investigations subcommittee in 1962. More about Fathema later...suffice to say she was a stripper who was not treated well. Before awarding Anita the credit she deserves, let's look at the climate in which she performed.

Cicero, Illinois was named for a noble Roman statesman, but they have hardly lived up to their name ever since Al Capone moved there to avoid arrest. Cicero was a pit of hell.

A UPI story from June 15, 1962 reports the investigator for the Cook County state's attorney's office, Roswell T. Spencer, told the U.S. Senate that clubs like those of Joseph "Doves" Aiuppa, a reputed mobster who owned the Magic Lounge, the Cermak Club, the Frolics Lounge, the Turf Lounge and the Towne Hotel, ALL in Cicero, treated their customers like mud. "...Cheating, robbing and gouging them... taking their money from them by any means necessary, from exorbitant prices and B-drinking to jack-rolling and knock-out drugs." says Spencer.

I have to say the last thing I'm looking for on a night out is a Jack-rolling.

Bad enough? According to the Encyclopedia of Chicago, Martin Luther King didn't dare protest in Cicero! King had courage which certainly exceeded that of most men, but in the 1960s, a few years after Ms. Lopushok above was testifying, King and his organization wanted to march for civil rights and open housing in Cicero, but the King was hit by a rock there on a visit. There was additional violence when a local Cicero high school tried to integrate. But this post is not about equality under the law...it's about strippers!

Cicero was a perfect place for strip joints.

Owner Aiuppa showed up at the Senate hearings, I assume, because he was asked...but he had nothing to say in his defense. The Fifth Amendment. So Subcommitte chairman John McClellan had a few words for the businessman. "You are a cheap racketeer, a parasite, living off the flesh and blood of human beings." Senator McClellan could call them with accuracy.

The brave beehived Lopushok also testified, and on a bigger stage than the dank mob-run slime pits where she was employed. The 22 year old exotic dancer may have had not the most noble profession to admit to in 1962, but she did. Lopushok, in public, in the nation's capitol, with cameras rolling, told about being forced to hustle the sale of overpriced drinks to patrons. About being forced to continuing dancing after her costume was torn off her body and then being told "now finish." by a club owner. Finally, about being tricked into giving up her own 1-year old daughter for adoption (a ring which was being investigated...I guess the mob wanted to sell babies along with over-priced drinks) and being threatened with "crime syndicate violence" when she tried to get her own child back.

Here is a nice little picture of Joey "Doves" Aiuppa, who acquired his mob-name by being arrested with 563 frozen doves in the trunk of his car. It was hunting season, but the limit was 24.

Photograph of Anita Lopushok Original Press Photo "Daily News Sat. Arrow" Property of Newspaper Divison June 1962, cropped. (Original AP Wire Photo) Collection Jim Linderman.

Photo of Joey "Doves" from Wikipedia.

Coppola Shoots Some 3-D Inserts The Bellboy and the Playgirls 1962 Vintage Sleaze

2012-02-06T10:15:00.000-08:00

I seldom write about motion pictures on this site as they take too long to watch. With a book, I can scan. With a film, I am stuck there, and as you can imagine, one does NOT want to be stuck anywhere the kind of films eligible for this site would show.

However, a 3-D 1962 film starring June "The Body" Wilkinson and directed by FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA is too good to pass up. Is this news to anyone? Has Mr. Coppola told his lovely and talented daughter Sofia about this?

The Bellboy and the Playgirls was apparently only partially directed by Coppola. On Amazon, the copy for the thing (currently ranking #379,068 on the best sellers scale) reads "When he was 23 years old, Francis Ford Coppola was hired to insert 3-D nudie scenes into an already existing German black-and-white film."

Okay...he can leave it off his resume. Coppola's part must have been to put Wilkinson's parts into your lap through 3-D technology, and we all have to start somewhere.

As you can see in the still above, the film "leans towards" lowbrow.

June Wilkinson two years earlier made a voodoo flick titled "Macumba Love" which promoted the film with her measurements, but I do not have the space to report them here.

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Disappearing Drawings of "Davy" Dave Berg Early Gag Digest Work

2012-02-05T08:09:00.000-08:00

Dave Berg is one of the best known artists who worked for Mad Magazine, joining the idiots in 1956 and staying forever. A Brooklyn boy, he studied at the Pratt Institute when only twelve years old (!) and later attended Cooper Union. He was soon a staple anywhere a comic was stapled, but the work he did in the late 1950s signed as "DAVY" for gag digests is not as well known, and it is leaving fast. Produced for acid-rich pulp digests, soon they will be dust...and even laying them on the scanner encourages chips of paper to fall. All the gag cartoons here are from ONE issue of Pepper Humor Magazine January 1957.

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Bill Ward Original Vintage Sleaze Paperback Cover Painting For Sale on Ebay

2012-02-04T11:09:00.000-08:00

Well, here is something you don't see everyday. For historical purposes, here is what purports to be the Original painting by Bill Ward used on the cover of Just Friends by Peter Willow, Wee Hours #511. It is being offered on Ebay with a stratospheric starting bid. It looks good to me, but if I were spending the opening bid, I'd want to see it in person, including the edges and the reverse out of the frame (which Ward could hardly have imagined!) Before YOUR peter willows, note the seller is accepting offers!

Just Friends was, of course, a book from Stanley Malkin's line of sleaze which included Gene Bilbrew, Eric Stanton and Bill Alexander illustrations along with Ward's. It was just one offshoot of Satellite Publications, which also included After Hours, First Niter, Nitey Nite and Unique Books.

The auction listing has a few mistakes. One, "This is the only Original Color 1950's paperback cover....that has survived" Well, that isn't true at all, as the book was published in the 1960s. But he DOES have some great looking things up for auction, and I have no reason to doubt the authenticity of the piece.

We know Some of the original Eric Stanton covers done for the same publisher have survived, as a good group of them were on sale at Danceteria nightclub HERE.

"Peter Willow" may have been Gil Fox, who used the name a few times. If the name achieved "house" status, it could have been used by anyone else, including even (possibly) Ward HIMSELF who was known to write some of them.

The seller is smart...he angled the image so as to prevent that jerk low-life who is stealing things from this blog without my permission OR any copyright holders to make and sell useless trinkets
like cigarette cases won't be able to bootleg the painting. Just for the record, if the SOPA bill really wants to combat copyright fraud, they should start with ebay.

If the seller, bidder or anyone with an interest in this work, including a possible buyer would like my post here buried, I can do, just let me know. I put in MY offer! I am sure it can't be rejected fast enough.

YEP! There it Is! DECLINED faster than my proofreading of the paragraph above!

"We're sorry, but preduction has declined your best offer for US $250.00. You still have time to make another offer. The listing ends in 11 days 16 hours"

If the post draws attention to the auction, fine. But shop with care. I am not endorsing this piece in any way, I am not acting as a shill either.

Reverend Braxton B. Sawyer Fights Evelyn West and the Battle Creek Sunshine Lovers Greatest Moments in Vintage Sleaze #6

2012-02-03T19:09:00.000-08:00

PHOTO ED LANGE 1954 MODERN SUNBATHING MAGAZINE

When the world's biggest publicity whore (with doctor-certified and insured $50,000.00 breasts) Evelyn West travels to a Michigan Nudist colony and encounters an equally self-promoting, but divinely inspired radio evangelist and fruity pebble who hates the naked body, you have the makings of a legendary battle. And to think it took place right outside of cereal city. Battle Creek, home of Sugar Pops and fiber-enriched healthy, sun-worshiping proto-hedonists.

Braxton B. Sawyer is a perfect subject for the old-time-religion blog, as he built his religious empire by becoming the anti-nudist preacher. He CLEARLY took the fig leaf thing seriously, broadcasting anti-naked screeds on his radio show and distributing anti-nudist literature to his followers, even attempting to influence "don't dare go bare" legislation in the four states his radio station could reach.

In 1954, upon hearing of a nudist convention at Sunshine Gardens, a modest retreat (on Sunshine Lane) in Battle Creek, Michigan Reverend Braxton saw opportunity...to raise ratings and clothe the poor (nudists!) The colony was on the farm of Elmer and Lucille Adams, and the good folk of Battle Creek not only tolerated them, they welcomed the private and secluded sunbathers.

Across the country, Famous stripper and busty boobette Evelyn West saw opportunity as well. No practicing nudist, but one who made her living playing one...Evelyn immediately planned a trip to Michigan to confront the preacher, hopefully with press cameras rolling, and agreed to deliver the keynote address.

Sunshine Lane was composed of freedom loving folks who did no one no harm, and they were even nice enough to invite the preacher, but they had an ace in their non-existent sleeves! Sawyer was welcome, but he had to enter through the gate nude.

His "expose" of the exposed thwarted by his own modesty, the preacher camped at the gate, his camera rolling, as he waiting for the bombshell to arrive. While notable nudist guests pulled up, there was a scuffle when the preacher was informed no body was allowed to film anyone at a nudist camp without their personal permission. A fight ensued, and as hard as it is to anger a nudist, the preacher feel to the ground in the scuffle!

Meanwhile, the publicity hungry Evelyn arrived, and the preacher, having dusted himself off and had a scraped knee tended to, rushed towards the stripper with camera again grinding. Evelyn certainly welcomed the camera, but even burlesque babes have to follow camp rules...and Sawyer was forced to turn over his film.

A day later the Battle Creek Newspaper criticized the preacher and published the following "There has been no report of immoral or illegal activities at Sunshine Gardens--which is more than can be said of many a well-clothed community...The sunbathers stay out of the others' way...indeed one must go out their way to find them." and implied that the zealot had cast the first stone. The colony had several years earlier made the press for their anti-smoking stance.

For the famous and lovely Ms. West, it was just another day to thrust herself and her talent towards the camera. As for the preacher, he announced at first his plans to attack a nudist colony in Indiana, but withdrew his pledge when informed again his camera was not welcome. That two wire services picked up (and made fun of the anti-nudist preacher) may have had something to do with his change in plans.

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500 Characters (and every one nervous) Hollywood Call House Madam Vintage Sleaze

2012-02-02T15:19:00.001-08:00

NO LONGER BANNED! Hmm...how come I never see this title during the big banned books week? Actually, there was a case involving this title and the illegal freight shipment of same, but the California Supreme Court refused to hear it. There WAS another case involving Call House Madam, one Lee Francis and "12 John Does" which is probably a good story, but not good enough for me to go to the library and look it up.

Hype copy on a (far) later paperback version claims "over 400,000 sold" which is not hard to believe, as I expect there were a few hundred thousand fellows in Hollywood who bought it to see if they were named in it. I hope there was an index, or plenty of nervous johns on the West coast would have had to read all "446 pages and 150,000 words." (The ad copy takes advantage of this fear by stressing the book contains "500 CHARACTERS" to insure at least that many sales.)

The cover to the first edition here indicates most of the Madam's clients looked like Dick Tracy mugs. I am going to guess all the subsequent editions were spaced out over the years to capitalize on each NEW call house madam causing nervous headlines.

Ad copy for Call House Madam from Flame Magazine (No Date)

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Girls with Claws (In Progress) Vintage Sleaze

2012-02-01T10:56:00.000-08:00

A tease from something I am putting together, but I used up all my limited gumption today on something else...so all you get is a wonderful graphic to put on your t-shirt or name your punk group. Click to enlarge "girl" with "claw" consisting of a high-heel shoe.

"Girls with Claws" by Mad Oberon, 1959

Burlesque Strip Joint Clip Joint Sunburned Vintage Sleaze

2012-01-31T09:04:00.000-08:00

INSERT TWENTY DOLLARS AND CLICK TO ENLARGE

A nice vintage photograph of burlesque theater (strip joint)...open all night and all day. This would date well before the days of lap-dancers who have learned to squirm twenty dollar bills right out of your pocket while whispering absolutely sweet nothings into your ear.

Astoundingly, some collective group of demented, obsessed, likely "regular" participants at a modern day strip joint or two have together written a Wikipedia article on them with TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN FOOTNOTES! That would figure to about a dollar a footnote, given the average loss you would probably experience at a club today.

Save your money dudes...stay home and verify more quotes!

I have only been to one strip club and it was when I was a kid. It was in St. Augustine, Florida, it was late in the drizzling afternoon, off season and I was the only patron. There was one stripper there teaching a future stripper how to strip, and the lessons were conducted with Fleetwood Mac's Rumors Lp on a cassette recorder. I drank three beers and went back to my hotel in the rain. A rite of passage. It rained my whole trip except for the last day, when I burned so bad I drove back north with a wet towel over my charred calves.

I have three book recommendations, so screw the wiki article. The first two are by Herb Pastor, both refreshingly honest, frank and hilarious accounts by the self-named "Strip Joint Millionaire" whose extraordinary website is HERE. What a guy! Just browse the pictures and you will be typing his name into your kindle faster than a sawbuck disappears into a pair of sweaty panties.

The other book is one of the most unusual, curious and frightening books I have ever seen or read. Seriously...and if you know me, you know I do not generally read "best-sellers." It is "Headless Man In Topless Bar" and it is illustrated below. The subtitle says it all. "STUDIES OF 725 CASES OF STRIP CLUB RELATED HOMICIDES" I mean really! The book is authored by T. A. Kevlin.

Truly, the only thing more amazing about the mere existence of this title is the fact that I read it and enjoyed it! You can put it down and pick up the next day without loosing continuity, as each case is only a page or two long, but believe me, the author's research is commendable. As the jacket reads "Every case of strip club related homicide since 1964, which the author was able to locate in newspaper files, appellate court decisions, has been included." Now THAT is a serious obsession. Bravo!

Original Photograph of a Burlesque Club (Undated, Anonymous) taken from a slide Collection Victor Minx

What's New Black Pussycat? A Calendar with a Women of Color on the Cover

2012-01-30T05:41:00.000-08:00

A scarcity, but at one time I am sure a welcome addition to many struggling barbershops and gas stations across the country. I hate to credit Reuben Sturman, sleaze magnate and all around bad guy with anything positive, but this calendar, published two years before James Brown's "Say it Loud: I'm Black and Proud" was one of the first indications (I am serious here) that Black women were beautiful enough to be on the wall anywhere. Can you imagine what that meant to the race?

To see "Sepia Stunners" in a calendar?

I am sure this was not uplifting to a major part of the community, but it was a landmark of sorts anyway.

Do not consider me a racist for pointing this out...it was the dominant white culture with a problem. A problem which unfortunately persists even today among certain folks, and bless the current generation to whom color matters not.

The anonymous model was used around the same time (shown below) by Leonard Burtman, but by 1966 he was having financial problems, both personally and with his distributor. Partly as a result of censorship which today seems foolish (and it was) but also because producing his high quality smut magazines was expensive. Up stepped the King of Porn, Reuben Sturman. That is his logo at top (no...not the pussycat, the tiny WWNC globe, which depicts his company initials literally covering the world with slime.

If there was a buck to be made, Sturman didn't care if the model was purple or orange, he'd take the green. So he "helped out" by taking over the product for a while.

As unseemly as this calendar might seem today, it was a breakthrough in racial consciousness, and a mere THIRTY YEARS LATER Sports Illustrated was shooting the sisters for their swimsuit issue. So who is the pioneer here? Tyra Banks wasn't even born yet when this calendar came out. Like Jazz, the races got along better in the sleaze business.

Uhura didn't make out with Captain Kirk on Star Trek until two years later, Same with Diahann Carroll and Julia, the first sitcom with an African-American woman as a lead character. 1968.

As I have written before, and as my modest book SECRET HISTORY OF THE BLACK PIN UP indicates, women of color didn't become wall candy until LONG after their Caucasian sisters, for better or worse...but this is one of the first examples. Were there Black Pin ups? Yes, but not until decades after their white sisters.

1966 Pussycat Calendar "Featuring Twelve Exciting Sepia Stunners All In Exotic Color" 1966 (1965) Collection Victor Minx .

Lost Robert Bonfils Illustration Vintage Sleaze Paperbacks King of Illustrators Bonfils

2012-01-29T09:04:00.000-08:00

CLICK TO ENLARGE

A 1959 Robert Bonfils illustration lost for fifty years, this inside cover for Fling Festival Magazine Volume one Number one 1959 (Collectors Annual issue) As you can see the eyes don't quite match up right...the issue is so old and the cover is loose...Since early smut like this is fugitive literature of a sort, I guess we are lucky to have it at all.

Robert Bonfils is generally considered the finest illustrator who worked on vintage sleaze paperbacks, but that wasn't his whole career. He did lunch boxes! He did record covers. He did them all well with a very unusual, unique style usually far exceeding the esthetic quality he was providing a package for.

Bonfils was usually on the outside of the book, but this illustration was the inside front cover (with an unusual bleed over to the title page of the novelette in black and white.) As you can see, the cover here has slipped a bit, but then I don't think too many of these issues are still around. A striking work by a striking vintage sleaze artist, and from a place not too many folks would have seen it.

Bonfils site is HERE and it is recommended!

"Fling Festival" Collector's Annual Volume one Number one 1959 Collection Victor Minx

Bettie Page Leonard Burtman writes A Resume Vintage Sleaze Burmel 1955 THE RARE DIGESTS #24 SERIES

2012-01-28T15:15:00.000-08:00

Leonard Burtman provides Bettie Page with a resume, circa 1955 PRESENTING BETTIE PAGE Burmel Digest

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THIS IS NUMBER TWENTY FOUR IN THE SERIES 'THE RARE DIGESTS' Small essays on hopelessly obscure and scarce soft-core publications of the 1950s. Enjoy them all!

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Rose's are Red Violet's are Blue Showing Possession Correctly With Apostrophes Vintage Sleaze

2012-01-28T10:31:00.000-08:00

Gag Gift by Fishlove cheats on the apostrophes on the front of the box in order to make his gag work. If you intend to show possession (of panties or anything else) use the correct grammar, Fishlove.

Fishlove Company Gag Gift 1947 Collection Victor Minx

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Spiderman Eric Stanton Steve Ditko The Missing Link? Who Invented Spiderman?

2012-01-26T18:32:00.001-08:00

For some eight years, from 1958 to 1966, Spiderman co-creator Steve Ditko shared a studio in Hell's Kitchen at 43rd Street and Eighth Avenue with Fetish illustrator Eric Stanton. Earlier the two had attended art school at the forerunner of the School of Visual Arts, then known as The Cartoonists and Illustrators School.

Did they help each other with their drawings? Duh.

Did Stanton help invent Spiderman?

Stanton has been quoted on the subject. "Eric Stanton drew his pictures in indian ink and they were then hand-coloured by Ditko" according to Eric Stanton: For the Man Who Knows His Place (Taschen 1997.) In 1988 Stanton addressed the issue of Spiderman directly in The Steve Ditko Reader (Pure Imagination, Brooklyn, NY, 2002.) He minimizes his work on Ditko's pieces, yet says they "worked on storyboards together and I added a few ideas. But the whole thing was created by Steve on his own... I think I added the business about the webs coming out of his hands"

The illustration above (spider logo, spider webs and big dames!) is credited to Stanton and appeared in Diabolique Magazine, issue number 3. Diabolique was published by Leonard Burtman and appeared in 1962...1963 at the latest. The publication has no date, but it comes from Selbee, the corporate name Lenny was using at the time. Burtman published Stanton's work regularly during the time period, and I believe the artist was even credited as Art Director on some of the Selbee publications.

Spiderman made his debut in Amazing Fantasy in 1962, quite likely the exact same year this Stanton illustration appeared in Diabolique, while the two young artists were sharing a studio.

A number of writers and comic historians have both documented and speculated on the artistic relationship between the two cartoonists, some approaching from the comic book side of things, others from fetish art... but to my knowledge this is the first time since the original publication of Diabolique the illustrations above have been shown...webs and all.

Illustrations from "Black Widow Sorority" by Stanton, inside back cover Diabloique Magazine Number 3, circa 1960-1963 (No Date in Publication) Selbee Associates, New York. Collection Victor Minx

Don Pendleton Vintage Sleaze Paperbacks ? David Zentner The Executioner and Stephan (Y) Gregory Pseudonym

2012-01-25T18:33:00.000-08:00

Did Don Pendleton, mega-huge author of the line of formula tough guy crap "The Executioner" write this blasphemous looking book?

I think so! But as a woman.

David Zentner, one time publisher of such quality magazines as "Keyhole, Bare" and the slightly more upscale "Escapade" was once involved in a convoluted lawsuit over the Executioner novels (Read it HERE) Zentner is best known as president and/or CEO of Bee-Line, one of the most persistent paperback sleaze publishers. It lasted forever! There were hundreds, and what started as your typical soft-core, goofy paperbacks eventually morphed into more hardcore goofy cover paperbacks with models instead of paintings.

Anyway, in the court document cited above, one (me) finds a curious little tidbit, to wit: "Among the authors writing for Bee-Line was Donald Pendleton, who wrote six or seven erotic books which were published by Bee-Line in 1966 and 1967." A good lead...and one which pays off.

The official, I guess, website for the writer HERE casually mentions his earliest works, written as by one Stephan Gregory, a series of novels featuring the character Stewart Mann, one of which is titled The Sexy Saints. Except that it appears to have been published as by STEPHANY Gregory. Looks like Don was mistakingly a dame for one book!

I do not know the relationship between "Rapture" books (so lovingly indicated by lipstick on the cover) but Don did write a few other books which, at least from the titles, appear might also fit into a vintage sleaze paperback collection, including:

The Insatiables
The Sex Goddess
Madame Murder
The Hot One
All the Trimmings
The Huntress
Color Her Adultress

(Spelling of above courtesy of Wiki, who also lists "The Sexy Saints" but as by Stephan Gregory)

Worth looking into, I think...that is if you read these things.

"Bee-line" still going strong years later

SEE JIM LINDERMAN BOOKS AND EBOOKS HERE

Spin the Bottle Grows Up Sex Party Games 1974 Vintage Sleaze

2012-01-25T08:42:00.000-08:00

A cheap "get rich quick" one-page folded over "book" for a buck. "Published" in 1974, I suppose at the height of the hippie, birth control, experimental, swapping, hedonistic, swing-club, find yourself, go crazy, no rules apply era. It's disgusting, ridiculous and I wish I had thought of it.

Why there is a jester with slippers and a stocking cap is a complete mystery...I don't want to play no games with this clown. Wouldn't a clip-art dame have sold more copies?

Anyway, the games inside, (of which there are only four and they are all incredibly stupid, not to say in one case MOST unsanitary...) would not liven up a party even if the fool who paid a buck could line up any guests. Just imagine the faces of the bridge club as Harvey pulled this out "as a joke" and attempted to liven up the place. Silence. Cringe. Looser.

The modern day version of Spin the Bottle? You REALLY, REALLY do not want to know.

Sex Party Games 1974 "Majestic" Distributors. One folded page (for one folded dollar) collection Victor Minx

Mimi Springs Into Action Vintage Sleaze Risque Novelty

2012-01-23T15:01:00.001-08:00

Mimi the Snappy Bubble Dancer is for Men Only and she has been around a long time. Pull her legs and a still working spring-operated slapper smacks you in the finger.

Mimi the Snappy Bubble Dancer No Manufacturer noted. Circa 1930? Collection Victor Minx
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Super Bowl of Vintage Sleaze 12 Minutes, No Time Out HUGE Cone Bra

2012-01-23T07:21:00.000-08:00

I'll be watching the Super Bowl, but only to see Madonna perform for an audience of approximately 100 million people. If she brings the dancers, it should be the most gay half time show ever, and it will certainly have the most gay viewers for any sporting event in history. How could anyone miss it? Plus, it's a big, big venue. She'll have to wear a cone bra 6 feet long to be seen in the cheap seats. (Which started at $600 but are now over $5,000 according to "CNN MONEY" so it must be true.

The game? Eh. For those of you betting, which is the primary reason for professional sports (think I'm kidding? I'm not in the least) here is the inside scoop. (Don't share it as the odds are currently in our favor.) One team will win, the other won't. And why? As the talking heads will assure you immediately after the game, "It all came down to ball-handling" so there you go. You can go to bed after halftime.

Madonna has twelve minutes to play with, but with the fathead, overpaid "color" guys trying to squeeze in their inane comments, you'll be lucky to hear one complete song. It COULD be the greatest halftime show ever, but she has to perform better than Elvis Presto (real name Alex Cole, "Solid Gold" dancer) who wowed us all in 1989.

So is it really true that "blowing your wad" the night before hurts performance? Hard to say, as every website I try to find the answer on has so many pop-up ads for crap, I'm tired of clicking through them.

Vintage Sleaze / Dull Tool Dim Bulb Book Catalog HERE

Fishlove again! For Dirty old Men Vintage Sleaze Novelty

2012-01-22T12:16:00.001-08:00

Fishlove steps in to clean a Dirty Mind Novelty Risque Toy Fishlove #409 (Collect them All) with washcloth, miniature Ivory soap Bar and graphic representation of a mind needing cleaning. 1973 Collection Victor Minx

Stuff from the Three Dollar Sex Dictionary Vintage Sleaze

2012-01-22T07:36:00.000-08:00

One entry from the mail order $3 Sex Dictionary (One sheet folded brochure, no date circa 1960?) Collection Victor Minx

Rudolph Rossi Untitled circa 1950 "Camera Club Girl"

2012-01-22T06:58:00.000-08:00

The "dressed" version of an anonymous, but apparently prosperous camera club model taken by Rudolph Rossi in New York city circa 1950. The undressed version appears HERE on the (adult) site created for the book Camera Club Girls: Bettie Page and her Friends The Work of Rudolph Rossi and subsequent exhibitions. Thirty of the original, hand-tinted Rossi photographs are on display in Santa Fe at Au Boudoir Gallery until February 2012.

Untitled (one of two) 8 x 10 Original circa 1950 photograph taken and hand-tinted by Rudolph Rossi. Collection Jim Linderman

Bilbrew Burmel Beat Vintage Sleaze Back Cover 1959

2012-01-21T07:49:00.000-08:00

Back cover of Domination, Discipline and Desire by Brian Hayle 1959 Burmel Publishing Company, New York NY Illustration Gene Bilbrew Collection Victor Minx

Bettie Page Sir! Sir Magazine Cover Art 1955

2012-01-20T19:19:00.001-08:00

I love Sir! magazine. In fact I would award them the prestigious vintage sleaze posthumous pulitzer if I could, but the award doesn't exist. I did, however, profile one of their goofiest cover artists on the other blog a while ago, the unusual talent of Mark Schneider. I'd have to say, however, much as I like Mark, I'd have to enter this one into competition.

Bettie Page twirls on the cover of SIR! Magazine, 1955 Collection Victor Minx

SEE ALSO VINTAGE SLEAZE BOOKS AND EBOOKS HERE

Big Galoot with a Pea-Green Coupe Five Publishers on One Book Vintage Sleaze Paperbacks

2012-01-20T09:16:00.000-08:00

Vintage Sleaze Paperbacks seldom get any better than this, so enjoy! Check out THIS galoot! His name is Al but the ladies refer to him as "big boy" in the novel. On the cover here, rendered in primitive skill which makes Grandma Moses look like a master of perspective, Al opens the door like a gentleman. I don't think the women are looking for etiquette...obviously they are interested in more than polite chatter over a spot of tea.

I hate to dispel a myth ladies (or in this case, barflies) but there is no relationship between body size and wanger size. Nor, in this case, intelligence. But Al will drive you anywhere you need to go. Step right into his pea-soup coupe!

The publisher, who obviously could not afford an illustrator who went to art school, had several names. "IN books" "In LIbrary books" "Newstand Library" "Neva Paperbacks" AND "UG" on the spine(which refers to the distributor United Graphics according to the lovely and talented Brittany Daley) ALL IN THE SAME BOOK!

They also couldn't afford a proof reader. I'm no genius either, but I try to spell the words right on the COVER! "Desireble" appears on the back cover.

The publisher location is indicated as Las Vegas. 1968. After reading it, let's go see Frankie at the Sands!

Changeover by Duane Davis (cover artist unknown, at least to me) 1968 Collection Victor Minx

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Voluptuous Vixens Candy Stripes in a Blue Field The Rare Digests #23 in the Series Vintage Sleaze

2012-01-19T04:25:00.001-08:00

Dante Publishing Company peddles some Voluptuous Vixens as figure models for artists when in fact they were hot naked chicks. As you can see, Miss Candy Stripe was doctored up and placed at the beach on the back cover. An early example of isolating a "figure model" from the pack...the camera club session may have been crowded and some shutterbugs trying to get close may have appeared in the photo, but at any rate the Vixen was lifted out of the crowd, put in lovely stripes and dropped back against a blue screen like your local weatherman on TV.

Still, a lovely little relic of the days when naked women appeared only as "studies" rather than hot babes with no clothes.

Note the retail shop would negotiate a bulk price, then set their own on the cover, in this case a one dollar price in grease pen.

Voluptuous Vixens Dante Publishing (No date, No publishers location) with airbrushed photographs by Albert Wasson, Michael Denning, Joseph Steffek. Circa 1950 Collection Victor Minx

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THIS IS NUMBER TWENTY THREE IN THE SERIES 'THE RARE DIGESTS' Small essays on hopelessly obscure and scarce soft-core publications of the 1950s. Enjoy them all!

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A Giant George Troop Full Page sleaze centerfold by George Troop comic cartoonist

2012-01-18T14:35:00.000-08:00

CLICK IT
George Troop comics don't get seen much today, and there should be more information on Troop given his productivity. Here, in a full spread gag cartoon the Texan, a gravity defying catch runs around the room like a gazelle on the African savanna. Troop is better known for his 1970's work in Sex to Sexty, this two-pager is from Cartoon Jamboree way back in 1957, and the styles on the women in the door makes it look even older. Even two pages hardly contain the chase. Sexist, silly and typical of the woman chaser motif.

SUPER OLD Vintage Sleaze The Naughty Girls of Paris Gay Burlesquers Midnight Ramble Girly Show

2012-01-17T08:28:00.000-08:00

CLICK TO ENLARGE AND SEE SOME SEXY ANKLES

Naughty Girls of Paris Gay Burlesque (Night Dancers) They clearly aren't showing much here for free. I'm guessing 1880 or so, quite a photo at the time and still. "GAS" on the banner means the tent had gas lighting inside (a selling point as you would be able to see EVERY racy hot detail) but I would have made sure I could crawl under the tent stakes in case of fire. The promoter is presenting the girls with a wave of the hand. I guess one would crawl into the show through the white drape under the painted ladies.

Original Girly Show Burlesque Tent "Naughty Girls of Paris" circa 1880 Collection Victor Minx

72 Year Old Eleazner Smith and Sweeter Than Life by Mark Tryon The Book He Didn't Read Vixen Press Convicted of Obscene Literature

2012-01-15T20:05:00.000-08:00

See this book? Ever read it?

Neither did Eleazar Smith, a 72 year old owner of a bookstore in Los Angeles. The book is Sweeter Than Life by Mark Tryon, not his real name, but then there is no Mark Twain either. I've written about Mr. Tryon's publisher, Vixen, before. But this post is about Eleazar.

Eleazar had the bad luck to sell a copy of Sweeter Than Life to an undercover cop in Los Angeles in 1956. Why the cop went to a bookstore to purchase a book of fiction which had lesbian characters is beyond me, but we can assume he didn't just happen in and like the cover. Gee...maybe there was no crime in Los Angeles that day.

Smith, who had instructed employees in the shop not to sell books from that section of the store to minors, was nonetheless convicted in 1958 of possessing an obscene novel, a conviction which was upheld by a second LA court. He was sentenced to 30 days in Jail. Not for selling, by the way, but simply because he had the book in his store.

Three years later Eleazar's lawyer argued before the United States Supreme Court that Mr. Smith could hardly be held responsible (or jailed) for having the book in his store as he had not even read it. Thank God the Supreme Court agreed and reversed the conviction, because I don't think the clerks in the Barnes and Noble a few miles from here have read everything in there.

This post is just to dispel any notion that what I am writing about on this blog is just boob jokes.

Is Sweeter Than Life dangerous? I don't know, I've never read it...but there are 4 copies currently available on Amazon, used...and the price starts at $2.75. Maybe the cop sold his copy or traded it for a violent murder book.

Read the Supreme Court Decision prompted by old man Smith HERE. Don't worry...I won't hold you responsible if you don't.

Bookstores Which Are STILL OPEN (Not even In Bankruptcy Proceedings) Vintage Sleaze

2012-01-15T12:27:00.003-08:00

Like famous sleuths of the past, I have taken matchbooks to solve a crime...the missing bookstore! All three above are still open... and as far as I know, not trying to spin-off a profitable Ebook division to save their bottom line! Like with all tour guides, call before visiting.

Three Adult Bookstore (OPEN!) Matchbooks. Collection Victor Minx

Roger Brand Obscure Obscene Seldom Seen Comics for Candid Press 1969 Vintage Sleaze

2012-01-14T10:46:00.000-08:00

Roger Brand appears to have been one underground cartoonist who should have smoked weed instead of drink booze. He passed away at the age of 42 leaving behind a large body of work, but work which I do not believe has been anthologized. If I am wrong, you can let me know hippie guys.

One thing I do know is that little, if any, of Brand's work for Candid Press in 1969 has appeared on the web. Brand did a continuing series titled "Camille." One week it might be "Modern Fun With Camille On The Planet CumQuat!" and the next "Camille vs. The Grand Empodent!" It was a sci-fi nudie sometimes, little more than an excuse to draw some breasts other times. I'm providing just a few of the panels Brand created for the series.

Jay Lynch had this to say on the Headcomix bulletin board: "But the hardest underground era collectors items to come by are back issues of CANDID PRESS, a Chicago shock & scandal weekly tabloid newspaper that Robert's brother-in-law Marty Pahls edited for the same people that published THE NATIONAL TATTLER. This paper is all stories that were made up out of thin air." Well, that's good to read, as I have a pile of them.

The best information, and a tribute, to Roger Brand appears HERE on the Comics Reporter in an article by Kim Deitch
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The Sound of One Man Clapping Burlesque Stripper Nightclub Original Photo

2012-01-13T09:52:00.000-08:00

I really don't know why the photographs of burlesque dancers (okay, let's be real...strippers) I find so often have one pervy guy watching. Well..put a game face atop your gams and get out there girl! You never know, lonely guy here might have a loaded wallet, even if he is on the clock and the matinee show is the only one he can make without the wife finding out. Don't pick up a pack of the club matchbooks, dude.

To see another dancer, likely of THIS decade, entertaining one solitary wanker, see HERE As in the previous post, I've isolated the fellow with my high-optic technology so you can more easily make fun of him, and you can see his two-drink minimum is about done.

Original Anonymous Snapshot, circa 1950, collection Victor Minx

Fun with Monkeys Black Mass Minx Library of Congress and a Pink Slip for Vintage Sleaze Paperback Illustrators

2012-01-12T10:15:00.001-08:00

I am used to researching vintage sleaze books which have no copyright. My favorite publishers didn't like rules. So it seems funny to see the Library of Congress copyright entry for Black Mass Minx by J. X. Williams. They DO say on the cover "A Late Hour LIBRARY Book" after all, but I really don't think it was on any of the Library Journal recommendation lists.

Anyway, here it is. Right between Black Market Medicine and Black Muslim Affiliation. THIS post will get me on some lists I'm not sure I want to be on...Anyway. smack dab in the 1967 index, just when you would expect it.

1967. On the cusp of the tail end of the last legs of the long-dragged out life of the vintage sleaze paperback illustrator. A year or two later, most publishers would use actual photographs to sell the goods. Photographs of of pasty, unattractive, down on their luck drug addicts and hippies for the most part. A shame. Not only are the ones published after the Supremes threw up their hands ugly, I can't show them on my blog. Believe me, if you are doing your photo model hunts on 42nd Street in 1967, you were going to need photoshop, and it wasn't invented yet. MORE PANCAKE!

J.X. Williams was the pseudonym for more than one writer...a "house" name as it were. So says paperback guru Lynn Munroe on his website. Additionally, it might have been a name used by Ed Wood Jr!

The orange here is the brightest color known to man...that's why they use it on highway traffic construction sites. The orangutan is a mystery...but halfway through the book you might read "GET THIS APE OFF ME!" It can't be King Kong, as Kong's face took up more of the window. Faye (or Jessica) here seems uncomfortable, but not enough to get dressed.

Late Hour Library was an offshoot of a publishing endeavor larger than Time-Warner before they sold off all the book lines. A long convoluted history I'll leave to the experts. I just want to have fun with monkeys!

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Lost and Forgotten Gag Comics of Erik Christensen "Victor Borge of the Easel" Vintage Sleaze Danish Cartoonist

2012-01-11T11:15:00.000-08:00

Forgotten and lost Danish cartoonist Erik Christensen had one brief moment of fame here in the states, but it was unfortunately under his pseudonym alone... "CHRIS" and I had to translate some Danish to identify him now over 50 years later. He also worked under the name ECHRI and over the course of a long and interesting career worked in animation, advertising and comic strips.

Christensen may have created a character known as "Beatnik Bob" He would today be in his eighties, but researchers at cartoon museums in Denmark have had no luck tracking him down. He may also have been something of a Beatnik himself, as there seem to be Danish words like "unreliable" and "lazy" in his sparse biography. Seems kinda rude to me.

The images here were shown in a 1958 issue of Fling Magazine, published as a special little insert called the "Fling Folio" which profiled artists and photographers. At the time, he was apparently known as "Victor Borge of the Easel" as he was also a piano player.

Erik? If you are around, scholars at the Cartoon Museum in Denmark are looking for you

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Bandit in High Heels (and the REAL Bandit in High Heels) The Rare Digests #23 Life Imitates "A New Photo" FICTION

2012-01-10T10:37:00.000-08:00

The staggering Tana Louise towers over her fake victim in a Burmel masterpiece of curious proclivities in the classic but scarce Bandit in High Heels digest from Leonard Burtman and his lovely wife. An Exotique "one shot" if you will, though the luger pistol is probably fake. We can hope anyway.

I am afraid the cover of my copy is beat, so just the title is shown, but you do get interior shots. Whoever owned this treated it worse than Tana treats her pal...but I only paid a few pennies for it.

Meanwhile, in this special America's Most Wanted entry of Vintage Sleaze, presented here, some 60 years after this digest was published, here is the REAL Bandit in High Heels and you can help the cops in Burbank track her down! She will be lugging a huge bag of coins, is armed and dangerous, and may have abandoned the heels after a few curbs. If you have any leads, follow the link above.

Lenny called this volume "A new type of photo-fiction" and as you can see from the order form here, he was on a roll. Subscribe and you would receive an autographed photo of Ms. Louise (make that Miss Exotique) and a discount on drawings. Drawings? I always wondered where those went.

Today Lenny's mail drop on Broadway is a Jamba Juice and a Currency Exchange.

Bandit in High Heels "An Exotique Publication" Burmel Publishing 1957? Collection Victor Minx

THIS IS NUMBER TWENTY THREE IN THE SERIES 'THE RARE DIGESTS' Small essays on hopelessly obscure and scarce soft-core publications of the 1950s. Enjoy them All!

Dull Tool Dim Bulb Books and Ebooks Catalog HERE

Good Advice from Vintage Sleaze Never Get Tough with a Nymph

2012-01-10T05:34:00.000-08:00

In scientific terms (which we adhere to on Vintage Sleaze) a "nymph" is the middle stage of the life cycle of lice, coming between the "nit" stage and adult louse life. How the term came to represent a come-hither beehive blond on a patterned bed sheet is beyond me.

Nymph Magazine 1963

Bawdy Jokes Americana Style Smoker Stories and Strip Tease Stories

2012-01-09T19:39:00.000-08:00

A trio of pure American bawdiness from the 1940s and master of risque hilarity Joe "Miller" Murray. Hot stuff, I tell you. When I was growing up, learning to smoke, play pool, drink and, um...grind, my school was the bowling alley a short walk from home. I got good enough at the pool tables to put a buck down once in a while, but the real attraction was a man named John Purdy who gave out ball racks, rang up the table total, looked away when I bought smokes from the machine and told the best jokes in the world. Mr. Purdy once told me "there are no new Jokes, every joke is an old joke." These books prove it.

Joe "Miller" Murray Joke Books, Americana Press, Hollywood. Each 4" x 6" circa 1940.

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Femdom Literature of the Fifties Leonard Burtman and Exotique Vintage Sleaze and the Definition of Obscenity The Rare Digests #22

2012-01-08T07:51:00.000-08:00

The Rare Digests entry number 22. A scarce early article criticizing the publications of Leonard Burtman in one of the few printed examples of underground fetish material entering the mainstream press, May 1956. The article by Tom Regis tries to explain why photographs in the booklets, no more "revealing" by commonly understood definitions than the Sears catalog, are obscene. "..the shocking truth is that this is a special kind of gutter literature." The same issues Kefauver and the courts dealt with. How to define particular fetishistic material as obscene when it fails to meet the visual, voyeuristic and photographic definitions uniformly understood as nipples and pudenda. A tough call...and one which eventually led one justice to exclaim "I know it when I see it."

Behind The Scene Magazine 1956 Collection Victor Minx

THIS IS NUMBER TWENTY TWO IN THE SERIES 'THE RARE DIGESTS' Small essays on hopelessly obscure and scarce soft-core publications of the 1950s. Enjoy them All!

Dull Tool Dim Bulb Books and Ebooks Catalog HERE

Eric Stanton Boots by the Bed Friendly Visitor Wee Hours Vintage Sleaze Paperback

2012-01-07T16:06:00.001-08:00

Blondie violates the first rule of cheating, and one which most men know...she took her boots off. I suspect hubby is as straight as the lines on his jacket. A typical outstanding Eric Stanton illustration on the cover of a Vintage Sleaze Paperback from Wee Hours, the line of crud from Stanley Malkin, 1967.

Friendly Visitor Wee Hours #529 1967 Sylvia Higgers (pseudonym) Collection Victor Minx

Al Wiseman Long Leggy Cartoons Long before Dennis the Menace Vintage Sleaze

2012-01-06T17:42:00.000-08:00

It is curious that Al Wiseman's pinup girls are so long and leggy, as he is best known for drawing the stubby short legs of Dennis the Menace. He was known to have done some of the lovely covers for Charley Jones (See Here) but I don't find any of his girl gags online.

Time to remedy!

Giants of womanhood! It looks like Al was paying attention to the inadvertent Amazonians of Jefferson Machamer...square shouldered slender sirens but long as the highway. And drawn with such a soft, delicate hand. Even his signature is a light pencil. Al was into his thirties when he did these, so it is hardly an artist exploring.

UPDATE MORE FROM VIXEN PRESS THE JIM LINDERMAN BIBLIOGRAPHY OF VIXEN Mark Tryon Kim Savage Rick Lucas Books

2012-01-06T11:43:00.001-08:00

I was fortunate to come across another Vixen Press Book for the Bibliography I published HERE, Moon Kissed by Barry Devlin. So I dug around a bit hoping to fill in the list. We're getting there!

Vixen, still mysterious 50 years and more after publication, remain splendid examples of undervalued and under-rated obscurities from the early sexual underground being created below 14th street around that time. The books, and the incredible story of their production, was partially told in my first post on the publisher. Locating the physical book objects is difficult for two reasons. One, the paper covers are unfortunately better than the book, which were hardbound...so you should only look for those with the covers. The other is that the "action" in the collector's market is for paperback only books...though many of these were later reprinted in pocket form. Vixen was a most interesting small press from the Village at a most interesting time, and hopefully missing gaps will come in one day.

List previously published follows:

Helena's House Kim Savage 1960

Madame Big Barry Devlin 1953

Chains of Silk Barry Devlin 1954

Golf Widow ? 1953

Boss Lady Rick Lucas 1954

No Holds Barred Barry Devlin

Carnal Cargo Barry Devlin 1952

Baby Makes Three Kim Savage (Gil Fox?) 1953

Desolate Sands Michael Norday 1955

The Sinning Lens Mark Tryon 1953

Joanne Scott Stone 1955

Mask of Night Michael Norday 1954

Dreamboat Rick Lucas 1955

Lazylegs Kim Savage 1953

Gold-plated Sin Barry Devlin 1953

Fire & Ice Barry Devlin 1952

Complex Mother Rick Lucas 1955

Take It Off! Mark Tryon 1953

Fast Curve Justin Kent 1953

Bent to Evil Kim Savage 1952

Weekend Kim Savage 1952

Rogues and Riches Rick Lucas 1954

Blaze Scott Stone 1954

Sweet and Twenty Don Morro 1955

The Fire that Burns Mark Tryon 1954

Devil's Web Scott Stone 1955

Other Loves Barry Devlin 1955

Countess Margo Scott Stone 1955

This Paris Barry Devlin 1955

Sweeter than Life Mark Tryon

Acapulco Nocturne Barry Devlin 1952

Mavis Justin Kent 1953

Dark Magic Michael Norday 1954

Strange Journey Rick Lucas 1954

On with the Dance Michael Norday 1954

Gold-plated Sin Barry Devlin 1953

Lovers and Madmen Barry Devlin 1953

Hellion Kim Savage 1951

Moon-kissed Barry Devlin 1953

Flashy Fists Michael Norday

Stage Struck Mark Tryon 1954

Shadow in Scarlet Scott Stone 1954

Stage for Fools Michael Norday 1955

Girls Dorm Kim Savage 1952

Joanne Scott Stone 1955

For earlier covers, see original post HERE

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Gene Bilbrew Hard at Work Vintage Sleaze

2012-01-05T20:04:00.000-08:00

Eugene Bilbrew works up a sweat at Lenny Burtman's factory.

Elvgren and Ellen the Unsexy Letter Opener Vintage Sleaze

2012-01-04T18:23:00.000-08:00

I haven't made fun of pinup artist Elvgren yet, that artist who was so good he was bad. As I have explained before, this blog is not about glamour, or to be more correct, fake glamour... and if I EVER put anything on here which would be appropriate on a Coca-Cola bottle, (or a Serta mattress, for gawd's sake) please slap me awake. Elvgren was master of the smiling "Good Girl Art" pinup, but bad art.

Brown and Bigelow licensed the Elvgren Letter Opener here. Elvgren SCULPTS! The plastic leggy lady was also manufactured in brass. I guess she is holding the globe in her hands, but B&B would print anything you wanted on there, in this case BLOOM photography in Chicago, who I am going to guess was interested in the serving the amateur camera club market. You know...the guys who couldn't paint, but would dream of an Elvgren model while shopping for a new lens? The letter opener was an inventory item for two years, from 1958 to 1960. As you can see, she has a name "Ellen the Eye Opener" and she is there when "there is a service to perform."

I am afraid mine does not have the original packaging, which was just inoffensive enough...it also came in a special Christmas version. It isn't that I don't like Elvgren because they are too beautiful...I don't like them because they are too EASY. Hell, you can't avoid them, and he's been dead over 30 years. Piles of the prints, and I mean PILES of them, appear at flea markets and antique shows. Maybe I would feel different about the work if I ever saw an actual painting...I mean, he could render...but the gloss, glitz, idealized and perfect "risque" element just leaves me cold.

I love women, and I don't see too many with, well...teeth as white as the ones in his paintings, you know what I mean? (and yes, Elvgren did advertise toothpaste) At least Driben could be hot and filthy if he wanted to. Elvgren women aren't sexy in the least. They are exactly as sexy as the product they are advertising...and that isn't sexy at all. Elvgren did beer ads...and if beer was sexy, they wouldn't have to sexy up the beer ad with sex.

I just entered "ELVGREN" into my favorite local search engine and although there were easily 300 paintings, not a one had a cloud or a raindrop. Someone should have told Elvgren women are lovely when it rains too.

Elvgren was a commercial artist, not a fine artist. If Norman Rockwell's women wore stockings and their skirts hiked up (or they "caught" it on a fence while climbing towards you with a picnic basket and black stockings "oops") you could hardly tell them apart. Good is good, but it sure is boring.

His original paintings are approaching the $200,000 mark at auction, so I am afraid my letter opener, which I can only use now for bills, will be the only one I ever own.

Elvgren letter opener, circa 1958 "Ellen the Eye Opener" collection Victor Minx

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Paul Murry Pepper Preserved Acid Pulp Paper and Good Girl Pinups

2012-01-04T05:58:00.000-08:00

These splendid pin up drawings by Paul Murry are beautiful, but they are so brittle unless someone scans them, they'll be gone soon. Unfortunate, as Paul Murry was an important cartoonist who worked with Disney and drew some of the earliest Micky Mouse images! So here you go. Wonderful, but the paper contains so much acid they won't be around much longer. All from Pepper magazine February 1950.

Pepper magazine began as "A Pocketful of Pepper" in 1942. Maybe H.K. Publications thought the world needed a few laughs at the time. I also assume a good many of the readers were lonely servicemen on a train to their basic training. If so, it is a good bet they were passed around until they wore out in their OWN time, that any remain at all almost 75 years later is pretty remarkable, though they will be dust in a few more years.

Pepper lasted a long time...I have an issue as late at 1957. H-K Publications was Joseph J. Hardie and Raymond J, Kelly. More about them later. This post is for Paul Murray.

Bill Ward Cartoons Yet ANOTHER Pseudonym Monier Pin Up Cartoons

2012-01-03T10:45:00.000-08:00

Yet another Bill Ward pseudonym "Monier" signed on a cartoon published in Hi Lite Magazine in 1962. He had been doing his girlie gag cartoons for a decade by this time, and I have no idea why he dreamed up the Monier moniker. I have previously posted about his use of the name
McCartney HERE.

You can see he drew his M the same as his W.

Pack O Fun Magna Wolf Dearfield Nifty Zip Wham Comics Bill Wenzel and his Recurring Character Packy Phunn Vintage Sleaze Gag Cartoons

2012-01-01T10:27:00.000-08:00

Wenzel was as prolific as Picasso, but I don't think too many folks know about his recurring character "Packy Phunn" the resident wolf of Magna Publications Pack O' Fun digest from the early 1950s.

That is Magna, NOT Manga, thank you Google. I can type for myself.

Magna was also also known as Wolf Publications (and Dearfield Publishing) and had a line of digests each with a star...a resident character. Packy Phunn was the most fortunate, to be sure, as Wenzel was a cartoonist of considerable style. The covers he did for Pack O' Fun were pretty good.

As for Wolf, or Magna, or whatever they called the business that day, they all came out of the same address on 42nd Street...just follow the guys with artist's board under their arms and ink on their hands, you'll find it.

Zip magazine had Zippy, Nifty magazine had Nifty Nick (drawn by Gerald Green who I will profile in a future post) and Wham (a FULL COLOR digest magazine...sorta) had Touring Tesse, who I profiled HERE .

Magna was a low rent Humorama, if you can imagine that. Far fewer "stars " of cartooning and no cheesecake photographs of leggy models...just the cartoon gags. Consequently, no one bought it, "used" it or saved it. Unfortunately, you will not find Bettie Page in an issue of Pack O' Fun, though she was, I am sure, fun and packed.

I'll try to discuss these curious little relics of girly pinups in the future. For now, suffice to see a few antics of Packy Phunn

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Sizzle Magazine Too Hot to stay in One Place? Vintage Sleaze

2011-12-31T11:35:00.000-08:00

Sizzle was published by Spice Publications. At least initially...by the seventh issue here their name had been hastily changed to Smash Publications, and from the "hurried up dropped in" typeset here, it must been done quickly. Get this...that was the THIRD name they used in just seven issues. Number six was published by Tri-S publications.

Talk about a shoestring operation. Were you guys trying to hide something? Some payments due? They also moved from West 25th Place to Santa Monica Blvd.

"Yea, Dis is big Santos....uh...you got a listing for Spice publications? I got a present for dem." "No? dey moved AGAIN!"

The editor remained through "the major shake-up" though, one Curt Wilson. So there we have it. Epitomizing the fly-by-night of the smut business AND exhibiting what I would define as one of the most perfect, most sublime magazine covers ever. Unfettered with clutter...just one busty model trying to hold herself up like a turkey whose breast had been hormone-gorged for the Holidays. No offense, but that forlorn pose hardly presents a "I just got PAID" look.

I will have more to say about Slippery Sizzle in an upcoming post. Until then, enjoy this pure, primitive representation of what Vintage Sleaze is all about. Simple, goofy and likely unpaid.

VINTAGE SLEAZE / DULL TOOL DIM BULB BOOKS 2012 AND EBOOKS FOR SALE HERE

Bulco Comic Books and Padell Pulp Mail Order Gyps in Cahoots Vintage Sleaze

2011-12-30T15:10:00.000-08:00

A 1952 full page ad for Bulco, a mail-order money maker for many years. Bulco specialized in tiny little cartoon and gag books with no humor at all. Tired old jokes copied from master plates which had worn out decades before, and reduced to the size of a coin. Padell, the folks who published Facts about Nudism and Dance Hall White Slavery did just about as much, but at least their books had text...moldy old text with little merit and all come-on. Both distributed their junk in Times Square shops and through the mail. As you can see, Bulco, along with a dozen other companies distributed Padell product.

Pixie Pert Poses Pretty in Proto-Porn Pistachio Vintage Sleaze The Rare Digests #21 in the Series

2011-12-29T09:15:00.000-08:00

Pretty Pixie Pert hovers in a field of Pistachio mint green in this "proto-porn" figure study digest from 1955 or so. There is no date, but I can tell you it was one in a series of six of bogus guides for the photographer. Curiously available not at your local camera store, but from a mail-order address which changed frequently and had at least six publisher imprints. As this is a general audience website, It is not possible to post the interior photos, but I can assure you "pert" refers to Pixie's nose.
THIS IS NUMBER TWENTY ONE IN THE SERIES 'THE RARE DIGESTS' Small essays on hopelessly obscure and scarce soft-core publications of the 1950s. Enjoy them All!

Dull Tool Dim Bulb Books and Ebooks Catalog HERE

It Pays to Advertise with Sex Subliminal and Overt Sex in Advertising Vintage Sleaze and Famous Slogans

2011-12-27T07:40:00.000-08:00

In 1973, after seeing the word SEX spelled out on a ritz cracker in a magazine advertisement, nut job Wilson Bryan Key published the landmark study "Subliminal Seduction." Secret, intentionally placed sexual signals were being used by marketers to trick us into loading up on products we didn't need.

Preposterous! What kind of marketer would use sex to sell a product?

Umm...well. It might be more overt today then subliminal, but I don't think one would have much quibble about his basic concept. Subliminal or not, I think it fair to say today that sex IS advertising and vice versa. If you hid your face during the mushy stuff today, you would miss the whole show.

Or is it just me that wants to peer up the billowy Summer skirt of the Verizon woman every time I see her on the screen? I am getting darn tired of rushing up to the box to try.

The vodka gimlet on his book cover doesn't give me a chubby, but maybe I'm not concentrating. Or maybe the gag reflex from that night in high school I vomited for two days after slugging down a pint in a teenage rite of passage is still blinding my perception. WAIT! Did that ice cube just shift and turn into Scarlet Johansson's hacked cellphone picture?

It Pays to Advertise is some 75 pages of stock pin up models from the Silver Studios with hundreds of circa 1955 advertising slogans superimposed over them. Why? No idea. I suspect some Madison Avenue suit, anticipating the day when a television program about his profession would bring back secretaries wearing garters thought it up. The only statement he makes (assuming it is a he...there is no "author" credited, nor is the intern who clipped the slogans from the agency files for him) anticipated a best-seller. All he got was one of the most sexist uses of pin up girls ever. Isn't it odd that the prevailing business culture was even more sexist than the very smut moral defenders were trying to stamp out?

Wilson Bryan Key went on to testify against heavy metal band Judas Priest for subliminally causing a troubled youth to kill himself as a paid witness.

Dull Tool Dim Bulb / Vintage Sleaze Book and Ebook catalog HERE

First Niter Vintage Sleaze Paperbacks Star Light Starbright, First Niter I See Tonight Sleaze

2011-12-25T11:15:00.000-08:00

Were bus stations and cigar stores open on Christmas? Heck yea! So is Vintage Sleaze the blog. But only to maintain the excellent consistent track record. No documentation or true tales from the front wars of smut today...just some swell somewhat obscure First Niter paperbacks I hope a few loyal readers found in their stockings this morning.

MUCH ADO in the Vintage Sleaze / Dull Tool Dim Bulb conglomerate in 2012. Stay Tuned.
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BROWSE AND ORDER DULL TOOL DIM BULB AND VINTAGE SLEAZE BLURB BOOKS AND DOWNLOADS HERE

Kayo Harris Missing in Action

2011-12-23T16:17:00.001-08:00

Not much out there on Kayo Harris. Fun Packed Rib Tickling Fun with Female Belly Laughs! I believe Harris was based here in Oregon, but ended up in Florida (don't they all?) He advertised his drawings and postcards in Billboard Magazine for a while, and here in an Adam Book of Adult Stag Humor in 1968, so there should be something (or someone) out there who knows his work. If so, get in touch? You can look for it under "Sexsational" I guess.

The Playboy's Handbook by William Allan Brooks NO STARS Vintage Sleaze

2011-12-22T07:24:00.000-08:00

Aw RIGHT! Time to put on my top hat, white gloves and go chase some poon!

I can usually tell if a book sucks if the only hits I find on google are booksellers trying to dump a copy. Such is the case with William Allan Brooks Playboy's Handbook. Including no less than 76 copies on Alibris, the source of more wood pulp than Canada. Bare with me while I scroll down all these hits and find some bio information. And yes, "bare" with me is the proper expression as that is my goal. Not a large furry animal which hibernates.

Well, let's see. Came out with a blue cover too. Hah! Someone is asking $85.00 for one! Good luck dude. It only cost a dollar NEW! Check it out...in the ad our playboy is a sultan and he has a harem!

Oh oh...the contents. Benjamin Franklin's classic "Advice to a Young Man on the Choice of a Maiden" What? Screw that, it's freaking 300 years old. "The Greeks Had a Yen for It" Greeks? Like in the Aristotle Logicians? I'm looking for advice on picking up chicks, not circular arguments on the meaning of reality. Let's see what else. A James Thurber piece. Limericks on Parade. Pfft.

Brooks turns out to be the editor, but he contributed two of his own super racy essays. 'Stag Lines: A Repertoire of Anecdotes Which Will Make you the Life of the Party" and "Have Fun with your Clothes On" ON!

Wait a Minute! This clown wrote Girl Gangs, the steamy potboiler I wrote about a few weeks ago! It turns out Brooks had good taste in cover art, but little else. Save your dollar. Or 85 dollars. NO stars.

Blurb books and iPad downloads by Jim Linderman HERE

Santa has a Love Bag full of Christmas Stags Vintage Sleaze

2011-12-21T14:08:00.000-08:00

Filmfare brochure for the holiday special on stag films 1958 Collection Victor Minx

See also Smut by Mail: Vintage Graphics from the Golden Age of Obscenity from Blurb Books.
Purchase as IPAD down load ($5.99) or in book form. Huge collection of 1950-1970 mail order brochures, catalogs and come-ons (UNCROPPED) which helped keep Gramps sane HERE

Hookers at the Drive-In Theater ? Drive-In Hustler Prostitute Fact and Bad Fiction Vintage Sleaze Paperbacks

2011-12-20T19:50:00.000-08:00

Nice cover, and also quite a concept! She seems to be on the way to the hot-dog stand, but what's with the hand motion? "Toni Wray" also wrote Latent Lesbian published a year earlier. Publishers Export Company, or PEC as it is known, was a California imprint. I guess California had plenty of drive-ins. But were there really working girls on the grounds of the now extinct drive-in?

When I was young, the screen would tell us to roll up our windows when the mosquito fogger came through. I hope she had a client, that DDT was sprayed around thick enough to obscure the movie. And it was toxic...Blondie here may have offered a freebie just to get inside!

Everyone learned how to make-out at the drive-in, but I sure don't remember anyone on the stroll. X-rated films being screened at the local drive-in was fairly common. They just waited until the kids fell asleep, that's why there was a playground under the screen. The kids wore themselves out and fell asleep during the second moldy cartoon, then it was showtime.

An essay by David L. Lewis titled "Sex and the Automobile: From Rumble Seats to Rockin' Vans" in the wonderful book "The Automobile and American Culture" reports "management occasionally helped matters along, hiring "ushers" who served as "auto pimps" and providing prostitutes to make "car calls."

A whole chain of X-rated drive-in theaters in Indiana and Ohio were owned by mobster Burt Gorelick which were so profitable he was convicted of skimming half a million dollars from the operation. I wouldn't be surprised if he had a few strutting on the grounds, but I certainly have no proof. So don't come looking for me.

Blurb Vintage Sleaze / Dull Tool Dim Bulb Book Catalog HERE

Fling Magazine Coupons! Cut Them Out, Earn Fabulous Gifts Vintage Sleaze

2011-12-19T20:50:00.000-08:00

One of the most lovely sleaze magazines ever, oxymoron intended. Fling started as an odd sized digest, and here is issue number one. Beat to hell, I know. I could have jazzed it up with a black magic marker, but then for the rest of my life I'd look at it and only see the touch-ups. Repairs don't happen here.

Later, under the wide open lens of Russ Meyer, who became something of house photographer for a while, the magazine turned into a big boob thing. How much later? ISSUE TWO. In fact, Russ did a layout in number one, and he'd somehow convinced the editors to "go big" for real with the second one. Soon after, the magazine grew accordingly. Despite these covers, a full-size magazine was required to contain Meyer's dames...and sell more on the stand.

Most notable, other than the wonderful covers..are the FLING COUPONS! Yep, the Groupon™ of smut!

Feel free to cut these out and use them for your NEXT fling. Actually, all they were good for was crap on the back page. Folding binoculars, a golf-club ashtray and musical cufflinks! Still, you pay 50 cents for a fling, you want the extras.

Fling Magazine Number One 1957 Collection Victor Minx
Other covers cribbed from the web.

BLURB BOOK DOWNLOADS AND ORDERS HERE

Vixen on the Loose Eric Stanton THE RARE DIGESTS #20 in the Series Vintage Sleaze

2011-12-18T14:50:00.000-08:00

Whoa! Eric Stanton had the the mojo in 1957, didn't he?

I am going to guess this would have sold quite well in certain bookstores...if the cops had left it on the stand long enough. Vixen on the Loose was published by one "TL Publishing Co." A Lenny Burtman operation for only one year, and Lenny was being arrested quite regularly those days. We can assume TL stood for Tana Louise. Some pretty rich stuff here.

As indicated on the back cover "A violent, blood-stirring novel of a forceful and dominant red-head who handles her admirers like puppets on a string." Flipping through it, the admirers seem to include the hapless bellboy...LOOK OUT! Too late, and NO tip.

As with all Burtman's material of the late 1950s, most of the "action" is women trying to squeeze various parts of anatomy into very tight clothes and shoes. Not even a swear word in the thing. Nor is there an illustration showing anything not put on the big screen today, and usually in giant screen 3-D because Hollywood is afraid you'll stay home and play with violent video games instead of going out to the pictures. Yet certainly a challenge for censors. It was 1957. What the hell do you call this stuff anyway? It was material like this which lead to "I know it when I see it" as a legal definition, and yet it could be pinned to the wall at F.I.T without more than a second glance today. Let's call it vanilla with dark topping.

Vixen on the Loose 1957 by Carlson Wade Cover and 5 illustrations by Eric Stanton. 1957. 96 pages. Collection Victor Minx

THIS IS NUMBER TWENTY IN THE SERIES 'THE RARE DIGESTS' Small essays on hopelessly obscure and scarce soft-core publications of the 1950s. Enjoy them All!

Dull Tool Dim Bulb Books and Ebooks Catalog HERE

Russ Meyer Magazine Cover Photography (How to Sell Product) Vintage Sleaze

2011-12-17T08:50:00.000-08:00

Research for yet another forthcoming book forces me to pour over magazine covers taken by Russ Meyer, master of all things in pairs. Meyer WAS a master photographer and director, though to call him a director is inadequate, I'd call him auteur, but more than anything, a film EDITOR. He did have an eye for the casting too, though his eyes dropped about a foot from the faces when appraising talent.

All these covers were selected by sleazy magazine editors who were lucky enough to have their choice of Meyer's work to sell product. You may click to enlarge, but stand back. An earlier tribute to Meyer's early still work is HERE.

Selection of Russ Meyer magazine covers shot by Russ Meyer in color. With thanks to the Book Big Bosoms and Square Jaws by Jimmy McDonough.

BLURB. COM books by Jim Linderman available as iPad and iPhone downloads HERE

Burlesque Balance See Me Dance so Straight and Tall Vintage Sleaze

2011-12-16T20:03:00.000-08:00

A well-balanced burlesque act circa 1970. Original Photograph collection Victor Minx

Earl Moran Paints for Bank Bags and Marilyn Monroe Vintage Sleaze

2011-12-15T11:05:00.000-08:00

Here is Earl Steffa Moran taking some time from throwing fabulous parties in the San Fernando Valley and arranging for his work to be shown in prestigious journals of art such as Flirt, Wink and Giggles. Having his paintings licensed for use on advertising cards for Rifkin's Bank Bags and Safety Sacs was also not quite what he had in mind when he was studying at the Art Student's League in Manhattan (a place I once wandered into after shopping at the now closed Coliseum Books on West 57th Street and encountered two nude models chatting near the admissions office) Moran is probably the most prolific pin-up artist of all time. He also discovered and as seen here, painted one Norma Jean Dougherty who later went on to seduce a baseball player and a president. After years of partying and painting, Moran decided to concentrate on his work and began painting more seriously. His subject? I kid you not...Nudes.

Four Advertising price list cards, c. 1945. Collection Jim Linderman

Have a REALLY Merry Christmas with US Vintage Sleaze Christmas Card 2011

2011-12-13T07:09:00.001-08:00

Elmer Batters Legs Pink Slip Walking Papers Man's Favorite Pastime Fires Elmer Batters Leg Watchers Unite Royal Order of the Garter

2011-12-12T18:23:00.000-08:00

ELMER FORMS A CLUB !
CLICK TO ENLARGE

Man's Favorite Pastime was Elmer Batters first magazine, though he had been photographing beautiful woman for a while. You'll often see his work, uncredited, in Humorama gag magazines and other cheesecake from the early 1950s. Man's Favorite Pastime was to be his entry in to the grown-up glossy world.

He only lasted there a few issues, and it went on without him. How can you get fired from your own magazine after a few issues?

Man's Favorite Pastime had an angle. "No fiction, no abstract drawings, and no cartoons." A bold move, as the facade of editorial material kept a few publishers out of jail. You know...judge the work of art as a whole? They must have been hesitant with their convictions, as you can see they added considerable overlay grill work to the model on the cover of issue one!

Elmer was a leg man. Exclusively. Unless you count feet as a separate category, in which case he was also a foot man. It is as if the camera lens was too heavy for him to hold horizontal. Elmer liked to shoot the calves and below. So I am going to guess Elmer was let go for shooting only the stockings.

Nick Tosches wrote a nice profile of Mr. Batters which appears in The Nick Tosches Reader. He quotes Elmer describing how after he left, Man's Favorite Pastime "deteriorated into a bosom book" with distain.

So it wasn't long before Elmer had to use his OWN legs and walk to a new job.

Elmer must have remained bitter, as he later founded an organization called "The Royal Order of the Garter" in which he claimed "You can still enjoy Man's FAVORITE PASTIME..." He used the auspices of this exclusive club to peddle his long legged stag films.

Man's Favorite Pastime Issue Number 2 collection Victor Minx

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