Vintage Sleaze

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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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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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.

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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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Amazing Film of Sleazy and Smutty 42nd Street Vintage Sleaze at the Height of Low

2011-12-11T21:04:00.000-08:00

An uncredited and amazing short film showing 42nd Street at the height of low!

Two images from the remarkable film on Youtube posted by raulriveraNYC which is otherwise uncredited, but provides outstanding images of the Deuce. Since it will NEVER come back, anyone following this blog will certainly be inclined to view the 3 minute clip. The film is undated, but one can briefly spot the old sign for Hubert's Museum (which figures prominently in the book Hubert's Freaks: The Rare-Book Dealer, the Times Square Talker and the Lost Photos of Diane Arbus. The museum closed in 1965, but the sign remained for a while. One Marquee pitches the film Viva Max, a 1969 release, so I would date it to 1970. Prime time for shopping for a good share of the material posted on this blog!

I would be happy to print any comments or credits to the original, should anyone know the origin and be inclined to contribute.

POSTED BY RAULRIVERANYC ON YOUTUBE

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Bill Wenzel plays 52 Pick-up with 52 Pin-ups Vintage Sleaze Playing Cards and Dirty Decks

2011-12-10T09:40:00.000-08:00

Why do decks of cards contain jokers? WHO CARES.

Nude playing cards were a staple of the smut industry and probably still are. The advertisements here all come from mail order catalogs published prior to 1970.

My favorite set is not washed-out bazoom girls who always seem to be dealt my way upside down...it is this wonderful set created by girly pin-up artist Bill Wenzel. He even took the time to design the back. Bill's set was printed in 1954. A class act from a gag cartoonist who never worked filthy, only risque. One of his finest works, I believe, appears HERE.

Over the years, many playing card images were stolen and reprinted as increasingly cheaper versions, so eventually all that was left was a little black smudge said to represent a dame. Others were cribbed for "eight pager" and gag cartoon booklets sold from the back of magazines.

Bill Wenzel Playing cards 1954 Frederic Distributors St. Louis Collection Victor Minx

Vintage Sleaze Paperbacks FRUSTRATION the Rare Digests Series #19 Bilbrew Cover

2011-12-09T06:56:00.000-08:00

The Rare Digests entry number 19 is a magnificent book circa 1955 from the house of Eddie Mishkin, minor mobster and major sleaze. Frustration has a striking Gene Bilbrew illustration and a punk esthetic created at the print shop. The title and price in splashed white paint are printed on the cover, not added by a bored shop clerk. The artist turns in one of his typical power women, but the little man was added later...creating much more than a smutty "buy me" cover. Inadvertently or not, the collaboration creates a cover representing man's idolatry of the female form and his pleading indicates frustration on the part of both. One of my favorite book covers, and unfortunately a digest confiscated by the authorities so quickly I doubt ten copies exist today. More about this book in MY forthcoming book.

Frustration No publisher indicated (Edward Mishkin, New York City circa 1955) 144 pages, no illustrations. Digest sized paperback collection Victor Minx

THIS IS NUMBER NINETEEN 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

Vintage Sleaze Saturday Delivery from the Post Office

2011-12-07T10:46:00.000-08:00

I am running a bit slow today, so just pick from the material here, and do it quickly before the post office stops your Saturday delivery.

Mail Order Brochure circa 1960 collection Victor Minx

Vintage Sleaze Paperbacks of Corsair Complete but Intentionally Indecipherable Vintage Sleaze Paperbacks

2011-12-07T09:57:00.000-08:00

Reuben Sturman was a real sleaze. He looks nice enough in the two or three photographs he allowed without a disguise, and there are many delightful stories about his life, loves and prison escape... but he was a creep, crass, criminal and connected. Anytime a Wikipedia profile links externally to the "Gambino Family" we probably have a slight problem, so lets get that out of the way. If you want "good" publishers, I dunno...read McGraw-Hill.

Search up any of the hundred smut periodicals he published and distributed under his WWNC logo. There are interlocking companies, churning printing presses and more "product lines" than one person could begin to figure out, much less show. So here we take a look at just one teeny tiny part of his worldwide bile empire. Like the experts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art who have spent their entire lifetime studying only the pottery produced from A.D. 500 to 600 by the Mayan Tribe of the Campeche Coast (the rattles, not the idiophones) I am only going to try to unearth one tiny specific hunk of the dirt landfill. Where most of these books are today, trust me.

Corsair books. Such a small part of his business he probably hadn't even heard of them. I don't own them and for the most part, never did. One or two here and there...so I am cribbing most the images from the web. Which is good. First of all, they are so offensive I don't want anyone to actually SEE them...I just want to give you a bit of colorful flavor! Plus, my blog is safe for work, it just appears not to be on occasion. So rather than clearly showing the confused insanity of Gene Bilbrew's later work which graced the covers of 13 of them, just use your imagination and trust they are every bit as goofy as they look.

You probably missed Corsair books while shopping for a travel read. That's because you had to enter one of Reuben's emporiums to buy one. That meant driving just outside of town to the abandoned shop turned adult boutique. You would recognize it easily...it had been painted purple, and there was an unmarked police car across the street with a bored cop being punished for losing his gun taking photographs with a telephoto lens. Best circle around and park in back.

While the city mothers were trying to ban Playboy from the shelves downtown, Reuben was doing a brisk business indeed just over the city limits with the real trash.

You won't find a bibliography of these books in the standard reference sources like Graham Holroyd's Paperback Prices and Checklist. Why? Look at them for gawd's sake! (Squint) One of them has some kind of goat man in a throne!

Corsair published 16 books with the typical care of any Sturman product. Which meant little care. They would come out on schedule, one after another, with a splendid if extremely demented Bilbrew illustration, then BAM here comes one with a photograph of some goober's face on it. What the...?

A few more. and then a cover illustration by an unknown milk toast who could as well have been doing beer ads for Life magazine, or the covers of the Dell and Bantam books downtown.

At least the rest are properly glorious and horrendous Bilbrew covers. Some exceptionally so.

The mystery is that one number was apparently never printed! The elusive number 204. Like a formerly thought extinct bird in Brazil some peeper might take a fuzzy photograph of someday. If you have it, have seen it or know what it was, write in.

As for the authors, you'll recognize some of their pseudonyms, and another my research has revealed, but I would never read them anyway. The covers are far more filthy than the contents, and I only read non-fiction. If you REALLY have to see these covers, use your loupe.

COMPLETE LIST OF CORSAIR VINTAGE SLEAZE PAPERBACK LINE
201 FLESH PARADE by Jack Wood (Unknown Illustrator)
202 THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE by Bob Markham (Bilbrew)
203 SEX IMPOSTER by Russ Trainer (Bilbrew)
204 Missing in Action or Never Printed
205 RUBBER GODDESS by Lana Preston (Bilbrew)
206 HOT PLEASURES by Wolf Larkin (Bilbrew)
207 INFERNAL AFFAIR by Dan Powers (Bilbrew)
208 CARNAL CLINIC by James N Berwyn (Unknown Illustrator)
209 THE HOT ONES by Don King (Bilbrew)
210 SEX HOSTAGE by Ken Gardner (Bilbrew)
211 NO MIDDLE WAY by Rick Dalton (Cover photograph)
212 LOVE LOTTERY CLUB by Lana Preston (Bilbrew)
213 PASSION BEACH by Reggie Carr (Bilbrew)
214 SWASTIKA SEX CULT by David W Gordon (Bilbrew)
215 LEATHERED LASS by Lana Preston (Bilbrew)
216 SWAPPING SOCIETY by Jack Woods (Bilbrew)
217 NEIGHBORLY LOVE by Frank Eaton (Bilbrew)

Brandy French by Kevin Blake Sleazy Spy in Thigh-High Paperback Vintage Sleaze from Reuben Sturman

2011-12-06T07:18:00.000-08:00

A hot trend during the 1960s (and later) was taking JFK's favorite spy James Bond and putting him in skirts or thigh-high leather boots. Honey West was probably the most successful, and Emma Peel the most kinky, but here we have Brandy French, hot ball-kicking, whip-lashing agent of S.C.R.E.W (Special Center for Retaliation, Espionage & Warfare)

I still sleep better at night knowing Brandy is knocking the spectacles off some Ruskie. Just for the record, Brandy worked with super spy Peter Dick, and among her considerable espionage skills was her "beautifully turned rump."

Noted author Kevin Blake is actually not noted, but his spicy secret agent was distributed by Eros Goldstripe. one of the dozen imprints the shady gangster Reuben Sturman used in the early 1970s to entertain the masses.

Vintage Sleaze approaches 2,000 Facebook Followers and 2 Million Hits

2011-12-05T09:43:00.001-08:00

As we grow to 2000 Facebook followers (and 2 million hits) I thought to restate the purpose and scope of Vintage Sleaze with the new year. I wrote the following when starting the site. Thanks all! Share with friends!

Vintage Sleaze the daily blog discovers forgotten artists of the past who worked in the somewhat dicey but hilarious early smut market. Colorful, funny and often touching, writer, collector (and Grammy™ nominee) Jim Linderman writes the text using the vintage cartoon gag, limp-core smut and risque novelty collection of Victor Minx as a starting point for examinations into the sexy and sexist days of girlie magazines, gag digests, back page scams and sideshow midnight rambles. Early strippers, models, illustrators, artists, photographers, mob-connected publishers hire amphetamine driven writers (many posing under pseudonyms) and all mingle together in an amazing orgy of the funny and often fetishistic follies of the fifties. Linderman is able to balance the line between the profane and the profound easily, as the backyard erotica of the time was tame compared to today. Tease and trash your ancestors refused to admit existed (but bought in huge piles anyway.) From Tijuana Bibles and inept snapshot salesmen to party toys and risque postcards, the site shows it all with delicate and affectionate respect and humor. A entire generation of artistic smut was rightly eliminated by the women’s movement but there was a glimmer of merit in the dark corners. Linderman aims to find it and makes no apologies, and in fact many of the followers of his site are women. Like a reporter, he digs it up and shares without judging. He frequently receives mail from relatives of those he profiles and most seem happy to have had the work of their ancestors found again and appreciated. Vintage Sleaze runs daily until he runs out!

There is a Saturday night, Sunday morning logic to Linderman’s madness…his first project was the Grammy™ nominated Take Me to the Water: Immersion Baptism in Vintage Music and Photography, a collection of antique photographs and gospel recordings of the religious ceremony (with Dust to Digital and the original photographs donated to a major museum) and Camera Club Girls which published over 100 never before seen hand-painted photographs of Bettie Page and her friends taken by previously unknown New York amateur photographer Rudolph Rossi. With a talent for finding the obscure and bringing it back, Vintage Sleaze shows the possibility of the blog as an art form while bringing attention to an entire generation of lost and neglected artists who worked in the underbelly of culture.

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Shy Shamed Secret Shadowed Hidden Vernacular Erotic Photography Book on SugarCut NSFW

2011-12-04T15:11:00.000-08:00

A decidedly Not Safe for Work article on my book SHY SHAMED SECRET SHADOWED HIDDEN is HERE on the incredible website SUGARCUT. SSSSH! is now available as a $5.99 iPad download ebook.

Rogue ROGUE The Magazine for Men vintage sleaze

2011-12-04T11:36:00.000-08:00

If the former governor of Alaska really does go rogue, remind me not to buy the issue. Aside from the really creepy little ferret they used as a mascot (oh...it's a FOX! A wolf?) it was a pretty good rag. Of course, the cover byline naming WAY gay Tab Hunter the "Rogue of Distinction" is problematic, but I am sure the studio loved having the story planted. Rogue ran quite a while.

Comes a time in every blogger's life when he must defer to the master. Earl Kemp. If you need to know anything about Rogue, it is HERE.

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Bill Ward Goes Black (!) 1957 Greatest Moments in Vintage Sleaze #5

2011-12-02T09:20:00.000-08:00

How did big basoom artist Bill Ward come to create his busty babes in black for the first issue of Duke Magazine, the only African-American Pin Up magazine of note from the 1950s? Well, first of all, he drew them under his pseudonym "McCartney" which was probably a good move, as the same year, 1957, African-American children were being denied the right to attend white schools in Little Rock and at least one parent of the children had a Ku Klux Klan cross burned on his front yard.

To Bill Ward's credits, we can now officially add civil rights advocate! And you thought he was just a pervy cartooner. Guess what? It appears African-Americans are just like us, at least as far as sleazy big boob jokes go. Thanks Bill, for being so far ahead of your time you could have been jailed in the South! (And for showing us all is equal when it comes to sexist cartoon gags.)

Great stuff here from the premier issue of Duke Magazine, which I have discussed before HERE.

Also of interest is the book SECRET HISTORY OF THE BLACK PIN UP which is now available as a $5.99 download for iPad and IPhone HERE

Greatest Moments in Vintage Sleaze is a once in a while entry on Vintage Sleaze HERE by Jim Linderman. The first entry documents Candy Barr's visit to the Warren Commission.

First Issue of Duke Magazine June 1957 collection Victor Minx

Honey Bee ees beezy making feelms. (Espanish Implants) Vintage Sleaze

2011-12-02T06:21:00.000-08:00

CLICK TO ENLARGE HONEY BEE'S BOOBS EVEN MORE

Honey Bee speaks offensive fake Spanish to introduce her new fake breasts, at the time one of the first enlargement procedures in history. True. No one knows her real name, but the word they were implants got out pretty quick. In the vintage sleaze internet underground rumors whether a layout is "pre" or "post" occupy nostalgic wankers. I think only Dow Corning knows.

I have "profiled" Honey Bee before...not only because she starred in at least one of the most prominent stag movies of the 1950s, but also, I'll admit, that I just want to take her in my arms and say "Honey Bee? What the hell is your real name?"

Actually, as discussed here, Honey Bee went all the way to the Supreme Court and that "Eees no Joke"

Here she is with the worst, most offensive, stereotypical "eenglish" flair as bad as Krusty the Clown's imitation of a Chinese man apologizing. Honey would write me, I KNOW...but she is "Beezy" making the "feelms" and one day "she weel."

Stag Film Brochure Circa 1960 (No apologies for the condition...it's probably the only one left) Collection Victor Minx

Have a Nice Knight, Sir! Vintage Sleaze

2011-11-30T19:16:00.000-08:00

Subscribe to Knight Magazine! Not only will you receive a luxurious heavy art paper nude photograph of Parisian movie star Silvia Sorrente, if you are willing to list two of your men friends on separate pieces of paper they'll send each of them a free nude photo!

Clearly subscribing to Knight was the only way to go, as listening to a check-out cashier say "Have a nice KNIGHT" while winking would be embarrassing. There was earlier a SIR Knight magazine...and at least then the clerk would have said "Have a nice Knight, SIR!"

As for Silvia, a partial list of her film credits follows.
Bikini Paradise
Castle of Blood
I know I only listed the good ones, sorry.

Subscription order form Knight Magazine collection Victor Minx

Bilbrew Original Drawing for Stocking Parade Magazine Eugene Bilbrew ENEG

2011-11-28T19:28:00.000-08:00

Very few original drawings by Eugene Bilbrew remain. Initially as prolific as his friend Eric Stanton, Bilbrew had by far the shorter career and he left little, if anything behind. This piece survived, but only through a most fortuitous set of circumstances.

Earlier Bilbrew had created quirky bondage serial drawings for Irving Klaw, which he sold along with photographs of Bettie Page and many other models in still shocking poses. It has been widely reported Klaw was pressured into destroying his bondage negatives and accounts estimate as much as 80 percent of the material was burned. Whether the original serial story panels Bilbrew drew for Klaw were destroyed at the same time is unknown.

This piece was done for the cover of Lenny Burtman's slick and glossy Stocking Parade in 1965. The issue is peppered with Bilbrew's and Stanton's work, as well as a full-size centerfold, in color, of Anita Ventura and Darlene Darcel. It is also not known how many color illustrations Bilbrew created, but the Exotique covers, also published by Burtman, were painted like this piece.

The original drawing is slightly larger than 8" x 10" and is signed prominently. The signature appeared on the cover as well which might indicate the artist had acquired a good following by then.

To show the artist's technique (as many of the followers here are illustrators and cartoonists) some enlargements are here, but I've watermarked them. Sorry. If you are going to share them I'm at least going to make you lift them off. Won't take long.

Original untitled drawing by Eugene Bilbrew, circa 1965 and Stocking Parade magazine Volume one, Number one Collection Victor Minx

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Vintage Sleaze contribution to Cyber Monday Smut by Mail $5.99

2011-11-28T06:19:00.000-08:00

As my modest contribution to Cyber Monday, I have finished converting the book SMUT BY MAIL: VINTAGE GRAPHICS FROM THE GOLDEN AGE OF OBSCENITY to an ebook for iPad or iPhone for only $5.99.

Previously only available as an expensive Hardcover or Paperback (which it is still) you can now download it for the cost of a latte.

Smut by Mail: Vintage Graphics from the Golden Age of Obscenity collects 160 pages (!) of catalogs, brochures and inserts which were mailed (often against postal regulations) in the 1950s and 1960s to households all over the land. Not simply ads from the back of magazines, actual smut by mail! Illustrations from over 50 years ago from the most prominent purveyors of postal pulch from rare and virtually non-existent erotic ephemera. Stag Films, 3-D viewers, Photographs, Novelties and more.

Now comes in an invisible digital plain brown wrapper!

Click the links to be taken to the order form, Pick book or download. Contains an essay on censorship, hypocrisy and the post office, which once actually delivered things to your house!

FREE PREVIEW HERE (MAKE SURE TO CLICK THE ENLARGE BUTTON)

SMUT BY MAIL by JIM LINDERMAN | Make Your Own Book

Misogyny Photography Glamour Photography Magazine Packs a Trailer and Takes a Trip Vintage Sleaze

2011-11-27T08:47:00.001-08:00

There were only five issues of Glamour Photography, but I am not sure if I should be grateful or not. Number one was from Fall 1954, back when, apparently, goons would drive around while photogenic opportunities literally fell from the trees or came stacked like cord wood in a trailer.

"Glamour Studio on Wheels" was an early incarnation of the "man with van" theme, and sure enough, in one issue photographers Duane Tasker, Harvey Turtz and Ben Willard embark on a cross country hunt with gear and gals stowed in a primitive U-Haul. Advice for photographers includes "The Art of Picking up Female Hitchhikers" and "Shoot me Tender" along with a map showing a route across the country.

California here we come!

The remarkable paintings were done by R. Pesoto, and as you can see, based (sorta) on reality. They are crammed in there like a Tokyo subway! Click to enlarge and give them some breathing space!

Models participating in the magazine were Jayne Mansfield, Mamie van Doren, Anita Ekberg (the usual suspects) and one Corky Silver.

Glamour Photography number three reprises the "beauty by the roadside" scenario, but adds a particularly brutal and misogynistic "Strange Case of the Dead Model" layout for those who might find that glamorous. Another issue is notable for having a model standing on her head (with the byline "Why Girls Flip for Photographers" and adding "Teenage Beauties" on the rear cover in "Tyco Label Maker" text just like the shutterbug would use on his shoebox of negatives.

Glamour GIRL Photography quickly filled the vacuum a year later with the cover story "How to Stalk Pretty Picknickers" as though they were game. Lasting only two issues, it was published by "Dingbat Publications" (!) on the West Coast, so maybe the photographers stayed out there after the drive?

There ARE some beautiful and striking photographs contained in these issues, but I do not think I have to go out of my way to "be fair" given the super sleazy editorial slant. Jeez...I hate to say it, (shudder) but Andrea Dworkin may have been right!

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Eric Stanton Dreams of Winning the Lottery Exotica number 3

2011-11-26T04:42:00.000-08:00

Eric Stanton dreams big in an illustration from the correspondence digest EXOTICA number 3. Not to be confused with Exotique, but coming from the same publisher Lenny Burtman, Exotica purported to print letters from kinky fans of fetish wear. The soft-cover publication is undated but was printed in 1954, the year before Exotique appeared. Burtman published the short lived digest under the name B. Leonard

Saber Books a Pseudonym and Ground Zero for Censorship vintage sleaze Super Scroll of Saber Paperbacks

2011-11-24T09:10:00.000-08:00

A super scroll of Saber Sleaze!

Smut is endless, and so is this blog. Do I have trouble coming up with stories? Nope! Every one of these is a story, and there were literally THREE HUNDRED of them. Saber Books, the most prominent and notorious of which I discussed here, churned them out like a conveyor belt with too much grease. You would think the state which produced Henry Ford would appreciate the quantity if not the quality.

There has to be a payoff for showing all these titles, and it is this. I am ashamed to admit that not only was Saber Publisher Sandord Aday convicted for obscenity a mere 25 miles west from where I sit, the SAME DAY 30 miles north a town banned the reading of the Pulitzer Prize winning civil war novel Andersonville! You can find the AP Wire Stories both from December 13, 1963, one in Grand Rapids MI and the other in Whitehall, MI. I could drive from one city to the other with a gallon of gas.

I am in the ground zero of censorship! And you wonder why I use a pseudonym from time to time?

Come on guys! Let the market decide! I mean please...Saber published three hundred of these, SOMEONE must have been buying them!

Keep going!

More below!

Vintage Sleaze

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Girl Gangs Max Padell and Pulps Peppered with Poon Vintage Sleaze Scam of the Literary Kind

2011-11-23T16:19:00.000-08:00

A rip-off from New York City proto-sleaze publisher Max Padell. At one time having an inventory of hundreds of titles, Padell specialized in publishing great lurid covers with nothing inside. A step up from vanity publishers, but a step down for anyone who shelled out the dough to buy one. On occasion, Padell published a mistake, like the Kenneth Patchen "See You in the Morning" book but by far his trade consisted of enticing covers which could as well have been filled with air.

Padell peppered the pulps with come-on ads at a time when the glimpse of a thigh was good for a week of self-abuse. He capitalized on men with little money but much curiosity...men who hoped the book would arrive Saturday when they were home to grab the mail before the wife looked up and asked "is that the mailman?"

Padell also supplied resellers...folks like "Denmark Imports" who hoped to trick the buyer into thinking this was hot stuff from across the pond. It may have been imported from the printer in Queens to a vendor in Brooklyn by way of car trunk, but it was clearly not from Denmark and certainly shows no "compromising positions"..in fact there are no illustrations at all.

Denmark Imports also doubled the price for their spicy ad here. Who cares...the fellow who was tricked into buying it got exactly what he deserved. By the way? If I came across the "girl fight" shown in the ad here, I'd stop and watch too.

Girl Gangs : The Shocking Problem of Teenage Delinquency by William Allen Brooks Padell Books 1952 Collection Victor Minx
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Times Square Photograph 1960s versus 1970s The Shapely Sex versus Anita Nymphet Vintage Sleaze

2011-11-22T11:33:00.000-08:00

PLAYLAND ENVIRONS CIRCA 1960 anonymous photographer Vice Squad magazine 1961

Nights of Shame? Nothing special, except that the plot revolved around French prosties, hence, worthy of the deuce in the 1950s. The Shapely Sex? Now THAT is another story! Except that I can't find it. However, I am sure "every second scorches the screen" and that it is "girlesque as you like it!"

Both grinders are now just an excuse to show a picture of Times Square from the era anyway. Pictures of the seedier center of Manhattan from the late 1950s and early 1960s are fairly hard to come by. If you were a tourist, you were too scared to stop and snap the shutter. If you had business there, you certainly weren't going to waste time lining up a shot.

By the time I showed up, the deuce was pretty druggy. Gawd, the number of times I walked around one of those marquees as a dolt was placing the letters with his giant shuffleboard stick. For some reason, the person doing it always had to climb down and get some distance to see if he spelled the smut right.

Playland lasted a long time. In Marty's flick, this same angle is shown briefly, but the marquee reads "Anita Nymphet"... a Swedish sexer and a perfect porn name.

Playland was LOUD. I used to take visitors in just to feel the din.

Everyone exaggerates about the area. A million people passed through every day and very few had trouble. Those lingering were, however, likely selling fake drugs or furtive sex.

Jim Linderman

NOTE: I AM SEEKING ORIGINAL SNAPSHOTS OF 42nd Street and Times Square Bookstores and Magazine Shops during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Please forward images you may have? J.Winkel4@gmail.com

"Now Showing| The Shapely Sex

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MARTY'S MASTERPIECE TAXI DRIVER STILL 1973 Vintage Sleaze

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Mail Order Malarky Don't Judge Smut by the Fake Book Cover Vintage Sleaze 1962

2011-11-21T17:20:00.001-08:00

A mail-order pariah stimulates interest (and money orders) by adding sexy pictures of Bettie Page and fetish drawings by Gene Bilbrew to his moldy potboiler catalog offerings.

Smut Mail Order brochure 1962 collection Victor Minx

SEE ALSO "SMUT BY MAIL: VINTAGE GRAPHICS from the GOLDEN AGE OF OBSCENITY

Tijuana Bibles and Mr. Bobo (reprinted from Chiseler)

2011-11-21T16:13:00.001-08:00

TODAY'S VINTAGE SLEAZE POST is an article I was invited to contribute to CHISELER.org a bright, smart site which is recommended. I was happy to participate! Some of the content may already be familiar to folks who have followed the History of Tijuana Bible Series on this site.

Tijuana Bibles didn’t come from Tijuana…they came from small-time organized crime figures who wouldn’t even qualify as buffoons in a Jimmy Breslin book. Think smaller and north of the border. We know this because Senator Estes Kefauver and his legal eagle Mr. Bobo made it public record in the 1950s.

In this story, the good guys are no smarter than the bad guys. Not only is Bobo’s name appropriate, Kefauver is the politition who hated comic books so bad he nearly put them out of business. What kind of fellow investigates Comic Books? Never mind he was actually right..It turns out later plenty of the artists creating those degenerate “pre-code” comic books WERE drawing smut on the side, but that is beside the point.

As for Bobo, he was later chastised for stealing stag films from the senate investigative collection and screening them for fraternities in Georgia.

Here is the setup: A senate hearing room, Kefauver presiding, as his legal minions prepare to grill a major player in the Tijuana Bible business. Your tax dollar steno errors intact.

Mr. BoBo. When you speak of “Maggie and Jiggs” books, Mr. Chumbris, I think you should explain what a “Maggie and Jiggs” book is.

Mr. Chumbris. Yes. I mentioned earlier, when I was explaining the different types of pornography, the “Maggie and Jiggs” books are two- by- fours, they are books 2 inches by 4 inches; they are also known as 8 pages, because it contained 8 thin pages. They are caricatures they are cartoons. They usually take people from the comic strips or famous movie stars, and they portray them in very lewd, perverted acts…Not only Maggie and Jiggs, but almost every known legal comic strip in the business, their characters are being stolen and placed into these filthy lewd books.”

I couldn’t describe them better. Except I would use the phrase Tijuana Bible or 8-pager, as no one younger than Estes Kefauver knows who the hell “Maggie and Jiggs” were. They were famous enough to be satirized in a filthy little book, many times and in every imaginable position, and that’s all we need to know.

Clarence Meade Barnes is a 42 year old Pittsburg, PA worker for the Westinghouse Electric Corporation. His garage was raided. Clarence had been asked by Lew Saxton to store some of his stuff while went to the Vet hospital (or the “Graybar Hotel”…it isn’t quite clear and it appears Saxton spent time in both.)

Okay, Mr. Bobo? Bring in Mr. Barnes.

Q. Then did you go to the veteran’s hospital to see him?
A. Twice.
Q. Explain your conversation there, and what he asked you to do in regards to this material.
A. He asked me to take it into my home and keep it there until he was released by the police. Also, to manufacture novelty named “Maggie and Jiggs” with no price given on manufacture. He said he would take care of me. That was the first visit, and on the second visit, he wanted me to manufacture French Ticklers, still no price given.
Q. Did you agree to do this?
A. Yeah.

There you go. Purveyors of perversion caught with the goods THAT CLOSE to turning the nation’s children into deviants. By the way, French Ticklers didn’t come from France either.

Later the committee goes on to discuss sums of money changing hands over the Saxton/Barnes transactions which amounted to $12.00 for one payment and the transfer of $40.00 for another.

These Senate hearings were about $52.00? The committee hearings cost me more than the entire Saxton/Barnes transaction!

Little books, little figures, and just one true story from the annals of smut.

Tijuana Bibles are filthy. Too filthy to show here or even on my blog Vintage Sleaze, so you know they have to be bad. We are talking cartoon mouths stuffed with penises and cartoon pudendas with the same. All rendered in primitive drawings which depict our most famous actors, sports figures, funny page characters and politicians. (Including in one case a randy Mahatma Ghandi…and he clearly seems to have had enough protein to participate.) See? Filthy. Even reading my not quite clinical description makes one cringe.

Eight-pagers were popular from the 1930s to the 1950s. They were passed from hand to hand anywhere men and boys congregated.

Remember Bazooka Joe bubble gum? The little comics inside were drawn by Wesley Morse and so was the World’s Fair “fast ride” eight-pager shown here. Most of the artists remain anonymous. A shame, as so many men learned tricks from them. Almost as many men learned satire from them.

There is a young artist in the Midwest bringing them back. Cre Hunter draws them exactly like the real thing but even filthier. Do not search them up unless you are an adult wearing goggles and gloves. The targets are now contemporary blowhards. To date the artist has not drawn Ghandi.

The illustrations here come from the Victor Minx collection. Selected are particularly grungy copies, as it illustrates their long life…passed from hand to hand much longer than the sanctioned “share” period on your Kindle.

by Jim Linderman

Jim Linderman of DULL TOOL DIM BULB is a Grammy-nominated collector, writer and historian. He also writes about smut on Vintage Sleaze the blog. His forthcoming book “HEROES OF VINTAGE SLEAZE” will tell the untold history of smut in America.

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The Art of Anonymous Vintage Erotic Photography Shy Shamed Secret Shadowed Hidden

2011-11-20T17:45:00.000-08:00

Just a quick note to announce Shy Shamed Secret Shadowed Hidden, the Victor Minx historic collection of erotic vernacular photography is now available as a download for the iPad and iPhone for $5.99. Simply go to the Blurb Site HERE to purchase the download. (Click at upper right once there) A collection of over 100 original, one of a kind vintage photographs of women hiding themselves for various reasons... with an essay on women, erotica and the role of shame in photographic art by Jim Linderman.

Michael Michels A Figure Study for Artists Vintage Sleaze

2011-11-19T20:56:00.000-08:00

Those "figure" study books from the Fifties and Sixties are nothing new, but I have to say this is certainly one of the most dramatic. Listed on eBay and I am passing. I'd like to say I've seen it all, but obviously I haven't. Would YOU buy this from under the counter in a Times Square shop around 1962?

Where is Candy? Candy Samples Tour and Newsletter Candy Gram Issue One Vintage Sleaze

2011-11-19T10:41:00.000-08:00

CLICK TO SEE WHERE CANDY IS APPEARING!

I am just learning it, but my GAWD there is a ton of porn on the web. Sheesh! Being lost in a time warp here which ends around the same time censors gave up trying to stomp out the human dance, it always comes as a shock when I research a more contemporary artiste.

Like one from the 1970s.

Like Candy Samples. Don't look her up! Candy was born in 1940 and used the following handles: Vivian Andresen, Mary Gavin, Lydia Chase, Mary Garvin and Mary Wendover. I do not know her real name.

Here are two partial scans of Candy Gram Number One! The premier issue of the Candy Samples newsletter. The Candy Gram is a two page "broadside" fan club mailing.

Candy obviously used the same editor as I.

Candy spent her spring season hitting spots from Baltimore, Maryland to Breslau, Ontario. At each stop, it appears Candy had her handler set up a card table with:
A. Cassette Tapes of Candy whispering in your ear.
B. Special Limited Edition Candy Posters
C. Regular 8 or Super 8 film "Sweet Dreams of Candy"
D. Candy's "HOT INTERVIEW" color video cassette.
E. Custom "Eye Popping" Polaroids of Candy, each signed "anyway you like"

You may also order through the included coupon, but Candy does NOT accept checks. Money Orders and Cash only, and allow 30 days for delivery. Candy is on tour.

Candy Gram Number One circa 1972? Collection Victor Minx

Eyewitness to Bilbrew ! Charles Keating Presents The Rare Digests #18

2011-11-17T08:51:00.001-08:00

Even sleazier than sleaze, the legendary book burner, censor and "more moral than you" millionaire Charles Keating pans over one of Eugene Bilbrew's best book covers ever in an enticing lead from the super scary and offensive propaganda film "Perversion for Profit" he produced in 1965.

Thanks Mr. Keating...I already have it!

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

Gay Power Phrase Origin ? First Use of Gay Power as a Book Title ? Help Date this Vintage Sleaze Relic

2011-11-16T10:27:00.000-08:00

The first use of the phrase "Gay Power" as a book title? Or just one more sleazy attempt at marketing crud to a sexual minority?

Remember the slogan "Gay Power" at all? It didn't last too long, but it did resonate. Long before ACT-UP and LGBT, it was a good chant but without legs. Generally, the origin of the phrase dates to around 1968 or 1969, and of course had "Black Power" as an influence.

I came across this smutty book recently, and got to wondering if I could identify the origin of the phrase. Know what? I'm no expert on sexual politics, but I think I have found what might well be one of the first, if not THE first, uses of Gay Power in print...and it appears in this soft-core sex digest pretending to present lesbian activity.

The problem is a lack of date in the publication. Marquis, the publisher, obviously didn't care much for their publishing legacy. There were two "Marquis" sleaze publishers. The one on the West coast is better known..as if that says anything. They were obscure too, but they printed magazine-sized, bright color smut. The East coast Marquis Publications here is undocumented. The origins of that company? A regional upstart? Maybe it came out of the mob-run gay bars of the time, another organized-crime attempt at cashing in.

Certainly the passages I have scanned here indicates "Gay Power" was a new concept at the time. Never mind that the text, uncredited, is probably written to appeal to a straight male...and of course the models were indifferent and hardly aware they were making a political statement.

Stonewall was in 1969 and the subtle and tactful New York Daily News reported the story with "Homo Nest Raided, Queen Bees are Stinging Mad" the next day.

The first genuine newspaper with the title "Gay Power" came in 1969 and is attributed to August of that year by bookseller John Benjamins. Other sources say September 1969.

We will have to try the time-tested method of dating the photographs by their attire, and that will be a chore.

Interestingly, this booklet contains the photograph I posted earlier with the LP Satan in High Heels, the Leonard Burtman film and soundtrack created at the dawn of alternative sexual expression, 1961. I can't see any reason for the models to be holding the record if it had been in the cut-out bin already. On the other hand, maybe the photos were taken years before being merged with the text. The model holding it is wearing bell bottoms, so this could be as early as 1967. Additionally, there is modest exposure (no below the waist shots)...so this likely dates prior to the various landmark decisions which opened the doors (and legs) also around 1967. If it came after, I would be cropping out more than remained.

Continuing to use fashion to date this, a "companion" volume by the same publisher titled "Twosome" contains a ridiculous essay claiming the "mini-skirt" was a "symbol of lesbianism." and quotes from Caprio's Variations of Sexual Behavior which came out in 1955. I don't know if Caprio said anything about skirt length, but the nut job who wrote Twosome did. Mini-skirts were newsworthy as early as 1965, and I suppose faded like denim around 1972.

The notable Redrup decision in 1967 determined virtually anything was fine unless it was "foisted on an unwilling audience" and I do not think anyone seeing this in the window of a village bookstore would have been misled..but it is still decidedly un-pornographic. Soft-core is seldom so accurately applied. There isn't much here you won't see in a Sears catalog, but at the time, whatever the date, this was pretty spicy.

I am sure there is a scholar who has done more research on the phrase and the publisher here, but until they contribute a comment, I am going to suspect this is one important little relic.

For the record, the good scholars of Wiki say "By late 1967, a New York group called the Homophile Youth Movement in Neighborhoods (HYMN), essentially a one-man operation on the part of Craig Rodwell, was already espousing the slogans "Gay Power" and "Gay is Good" in its publication HYMNAL" but that isn't as a book title.

Any thoughts "out" there?

Gay Power Smut Digest Marquis Publishers New York, NY (No Date) Circa 1965-1970?) Collection Victor Minx
MARTY'S MASTERPIECE TAXI DRIVER STILL 1973 Vintage Sleaze

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The Bare Facts of Bill Wenzel Off Limits Funny Bone Couch Cases

2011-11-15T16:33:00.001-08:00

Missing from the world wide brain is any mention of this Bill Wenzel obscurity. Since the cartoonist was as prolific as Picasso, it comes as no surprise that his books keep rising to the surface. This one rose from the mold of a "lot" of girlie magazines.

The Bare Facts: Fun on a Psychiatrist's Couch consists entirely of jokes about shrinks. Now it will be "shrink" wrapped in a plastic bag.

The Bare Facts seems to have come from a planned "House of Wenzel" which probably floundered in the smut rush following World War Two. It has a 1952 date.

W. J. Smith is the publisher, and the "series" is, or was, to have been published under the "Off Limits Cartoon Series" umbrella. From the ad on the back cover, it seems Smith had plans for another Wenzel collection in the "Funny Bone" series. this one devoted to Wine Women and Wit. Great little logos, but I suspect little sales.

8 x 11 overall, with a two page Wenzel "centerfold" gag. It also has a load of Madison Avenue Benzedrine copy so common back then..."LAUGHTER ON THE LUSH WITH A BIT OF SEX AS A CHASER" and "ATTITUDES TOWARDS SEX RESULTING FROM THE INFLUENCE OF PSYCHIATRIC HUGGER-MUGGER, THE LUDICROUSLY LOOSE LINGO OF FRUSTRATION-INHIBITION-EGO-ID-NEUROSES..."

Horizontal crazy dames with Wenzel cheeks on a couch? How could it fail?

Bill Wenzel The Bare Facts: Fun on a Psychiatrist's Couch 1952 Collection Victor Minx

Stretching the Babes Budget Robin Bliss Blondes Brunettes Redheads and Tri-S Publications

2011-11-14T17:17:00.000-08:00

Growing up, I was certainly given a warped view of women as it seemed any one of them would drop their blouse at the drop of a hat. How could I think otherwise? The top row downtown had 50 titles, each jam-packed with Girls Girls Girls! A few years later I learned there were actually only a few who posed over and over and over...and their names changed as often as the rags they appeared in changed titles.

Witness the comely Robin Bliss leaning towards the camera on the covers of two different magazines...BOTH FROM THE SAME PUBLISHER! Cheapskates. She does look good as a blonde, and I suppose had been "market tested" for Sizzle, since Blondes Brunettes Redheads came two years earlier. By then editor Curt Wilson probably thought the buying public would forget a face. Face? Yes. Bliss? No. 1960 and 1962.

Here is Miss Bliss as a brunette. Versatile!

Tri-S was among the earliest of a blight of smut producers in Hollywood. One would think Curt had plenty of aspiring starlets to give hair makeovers right outside his office on Santa Monica.

Miss Bliss made at least one stag film in black and white, so her hair color might not have mattered much, except that she apparently didn't shave her armpits the day she filmed it. At least so says the fellow who reviewed a later compilation DVD which includes the short...she must have been playing a brunette then.

Playboy should have more class, but they resurrected the title Blondes Brunettes Redheads title in 1985 and have published an issue as a "special edition" every few years since.

Blondes Brunettes Redheads 1960 Collection Victor Minx

Bettie Page Covers of Humorama Cover Girl for Gags Vintage Sleaze

2011-11-12T17:00:00.000-08:00

Did I get them all? Nah. I don't think so. I don't even think the Library of Congress has them all, but I'll bet some civil servant way down in the basement has looked. To my knowledge, no one has yet compiled anywhere near a complete archive of Humorama covers, much less the issue contents. It will happen, but those last second bidders can kill you. Comic book guy? Get ON it.

They appear all to be Bunny Yeager shots to me without doing much research, though I think one here is a Camera Club shot.

Lot of Bettie Page Covers on the line of Humorama Digest Magazines

STOP! But Come IN We're OPEN Smut Shop Plays the Medical Card Vintage Sleaze

2011-11-12T07:26:00.000-08:00

Mobsters were no smarter than average folks, and usually dumber. Here, a Pennsylvania Smut Shop tries to fend off censorship with the "Educational and Medical Information of a Sexual Nature" ploy. I don't think it ever worked much...except to bring in MORE customers. The reflection in the window seems to reveal a residential neighborhood across the street as well. Dumb move number two, you beacons of expression.

Adult Bookstore Original Press Photograph, cropped. No Date (Circa 1970?) Collection Victor Minx

Dale Koby Campus Sexpot and Lust on Wheels Moving the Story Along Vintage Sleaze Paperbacks

2011-11-11T07:12:00.000-08:00

As we rip the headlines here over sport coaches and molestation, it might be time to revisit Dale Koby. He might have, he might not have, and since I enjoy a good story, the least I can do is move the story along a bit.

Many vintage sleaze paperback writers used pseudonyms to pay the rent and feed the family. One fairly prolific writer who did not use a fake name was Dale Koby, a big mistake. He may not have written well, but he wrote...and writing got him in some big trouble.

Let's first make clear than Koby did not write pornography. He wrote sleaze...hard-boiled crud in which participants dress and undress over and over and over, but they were all tease...with little sleaze. The covers sold the books and told dirtier tales than the author.

Secondly, I think anyway, that Koby may not have done what he was subsequently accused of, but maybe he did.

Life is full of mysteries and Koby is a good one. Koby also holds the distinction of being the only smut hack who was later inspiration for a an experimental non-fiction book, and yet we STILL know less about him than many of his peers.

Considering Dale Koby was accused of molesting high school students and run out of town you would think his paper trail would be extensive. Not really. And if it were not for the book written by David Carkeet titled Campus Sexpot: A Memoir we would know even less about him.

My aim here is not to retread the tire tracks uncovered by Carkeet, only to move the story along a bit. One, by collecting a few of the man's novels in one place. Two, by linking to the information subsequently added to the story by his own sons. (One of whom remembers his parents packing up in haste and leaving town under cover of night!) Another son reveals they are doing all they can to locate and destroy their father's work, that being his last request. That could also have something to do with the empty trails and dead end leads. Scroll down at the link above to the comments section to see their notes.

It is a good story, and I am drawn to good stories. I am also drawn to bright, lurid paperback covers...so here you go.

I can tell you Koby went off to do many things...including editing a journal also under his own name. He didn't learn! The Magazine of Modern Sex shown here.

For the time being, I have no more to add. But there is much more to be found.

He was apparently writing for a recreational vehicle magazine when killed by a drunk driver in 1979...

DULL TOOL DIM BULB AND VINTAGE SLEAZE BOOK AND EBOOK CATALOG HERE

Fake Beatniks Lawrence Lipton and Kinky Beatnik Sex The Erotic Revolution Vintage Sleaze

2011-11-10T09:05:00.000-08:00

Lawrence Lipton. An fake beatnik and father to tedious film critic James Lipton. Lawrence Lipton insulted all with his book "Holy Barbarians" and a year later tried to position himself as the real deal...literally the KING of beatniks. A fraud and sham in beat garb. You can see Lawrence ham it up as a sunny, west coast version of a beat in the legendary stinker "The Hypnotic Eye" one of the worst movies in movie history...and a good deal of the well-earned reputation directly traceable to the ridiculous, offensive performance of Lipton.

Other than one or two really smart folks like Ferlinghetti and Gary Snyder, there WERE no beatniks on the west coast. Just bongo bashing beret wearing Hollywood stereotypes like Maynard G. Krebs, Hot-Rod painters like Big Daddy Roth, Tiki-God collector Big Daddy Nord and a few finger-snapping, jazz loving method actors drinking coffee while emoting. Oh...and some black turtleneck wearing dames who immigrated from Iowa.

In fact, there were no beatniks AT ALL! A few writers, like Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs, who happened to know each other, wrote good stuff, but Life magazine and the LA Times needed a hook to sensationalize a non-existent "scene" so the beatnik was invented. In LA, they literally held a "Miss Beatnik of 1959" contest. I'm not kidding. Look it up.

You can see Lipton at left here among as many "beatnik" things as would fit in the picture, including some porker with sunburned cheeks (likely acquired by trying to surf) and a brand new beard holding Lipton's book the Holy Barbarians. Do they look anguished by the unholy atomic bomb? Nah. They just look silly.

But it is the vintage sleaze aspect of Larry we are interested in here.

In the mid 1960s there was a huge interest in things kinky among those who wanted to be kinky. Or were actually kinky but didn't dare participate. Or who thought they could make a career out of helping the squares to understand kinky...whether there were any FACTS about kinky or not. A bunch of writers like Carlson Wade and Edward Podolsky...fake beatniks, fake scientists, fake sexual rebels and more. Charlatan-quality claptrap posing as scientific research to get around the censors.

Lawrence Lipton's contribution to this was The Erotic Revolution. Since Larry already "owned " the beats from Holy Barbarians, I guess he thought he could "own" sex too! Lipton even became a contributing editor of the silly "Magazine of Modern Sex" which aspired to legitimate, scholarly "peer review" status but never made it. More about the fake science journal later.

In The Erotic Revolution, Lipton did make a few legitimate points...like wife-swapping was good and that the "negrification" of American morals through Jazz could jazz up our libidos.

What a goon.

Dull Tool Dim Bulb / Vintage Sleaze Book and eBook Catalog HERE

Fishlove Sex Appeal Chart 1952 Vintage Sleaze Risque Gag Adult Novelty

2011-11-09T16:28:00.000-08:00

A cheap and sleazy post today, as I'm working on something else. Thankfully, I can always have a cheap and sleazy novelty gag fill the spot! Taste maker H. Fishlove presents their inventory item number 642. The Ladies Sex Appeal Chart! Other Fishlove easy posts HERE

H. Fishlove novelty gag gift 1952. Cardboard box with molded plastic insert sheet. Collection Victor Minx

Bartlett and King Burlesque Gorilla and the Lady Beauty and the Beast Maiden and the Monster (and Miles de Russy!) Vintage Sleaze

2011-11-08T18:23:00.000-08:00

One of the most unusual acts in show business! Bartlett and King were so sure of their act, they hired legendary New Orleans photographer "Myles de Pussy" for their publicity shots. Oh, wait. It's "Myles de RUSSY" Excuse me. I had to get out my loupe.

The show, which I have tracked all the way north to Youngstown, Ohio in 1957, featured two numbers. One titled "Gorilla and the Lady" and the other "Beauty and the Beast!" Now that would suffice for a post on ANY blog, but wait, there's more.

Five years earlier they made a MOVIE! (Oh GOOD!) titled "Maiden and the Monster" which is described as a burlesque short, by Broadway Roadshow Productions. I have a few minutes of the flick posted below. Enjoy!

From the little photo below, it appears to me Miss Bartlett (or Miss King...I'm not quite sure which is the beauty) could have made it on her own. So I'm going to guess the show biz pimp in the Frankenstein mask was her jealous hubby. At least they stayed together. Should either still be hoofing, don't sue me...I'm GUESSING here.

Publicity Photographs circa 1955 by Myles de Russy Collection Victor Minx

Film clip Something Weird Video

The Snake Bitten Stripper Princess Naja Killed by her own Co-Star 1955 Frieda Hoxter Vintage Sleaze

2011-11-08T11:01:00.001-08:00

On March 7, 1955 German born stripper Frieda Hoxter (also reported as Hoxer) died of a snake bite obtained while performing under the stage name of Princess Naja.

Princess Naja used three snakes in her act, one of whom was a murderer. Or the person who sold her the snake without removing the venom was, but only the snake was charged...taken to the Baltimore Municipal Zoo after the attack. Captain Elmer Bowen of the Baltimore police declared the reptile a "public menace" and ordered it confined.

Naja was only 25 at the time. I hate to judge her, but how stupid do you have to be to dance around undressed with a poisonous snake? Certainly as stupid as those snake handlers in Appalachia who take the biblical passage "They shall take up serpents" literally (a few of them have died as well) if not more so.

Princess Naja was bitten on her left arm during a performance, then completed the show. Or you could say said she "finished shedding" (sorry) and put the snake back in a box before asking for help. Big mistake. The eight minute delay contributed to her death. A death, I might add, in an iron lung machine not long after. Not a glamorous death, but then lugging dirty laundry and three snakes from joint to joint isn't too great either.

This wasn't even the first run-in for the snake. Several months earlier, the cobra had escaped from Princess Naja's bag in her room and police were called to track it down. The snake, a five-footer, caused 13 people to be evacuated from the apartment building where "Menagerie Naja" was holed up. Whether those evacuated enjoyed the performance is not reported. Maybe the Captain should have confiscated the snake then.

"Snake Strip" is the show biz term for a performer who peels off her clothes while manipulating a snake. According to Cabaret Magazine in June 1955, the "snake-strip" was catching on in "off-beat spots" and most dancers obtained their snakes from "The Snake King" in Brownsville Texas. Literally, "Snake King", as that was his last name. William Abraham King. A wild animal importer, he supplied carnivals and sideshows. I do not know where Princess Naja obtained her animals.

There was another Princess Naja, this one from Ballston Spa, New York performing for Bill McGary's Side Show and Glamour Girl Revue in the 1940s, but she might not have been as stupid as Frieda, as I can find no record of her being fanged to death by her own co-star.

Naja used two cobras and a python in her act. If she had only used the python, she might be dancing today.

Snake dancers go way back...in fact here is a group of turn of the century "snakeologists" I used to own but donated to the ICP museum for a forthcoming show on the photographer Frank Wendt.

VINTAGE SLEAZE BOOK AND DOWNLOAD CATALOG HERE

Shell Scott Vintage Paperback Albino Sleaze Richard S. Prather and the Buzzcut Dick

2011-11-06T18:00:00.000-08:00

See update following post!

Shell Scott! This shamus would stand out like an albino at a nudist camp. Wait, that's the plot of his book Strip for Murder! See?

"Shell Scott gets hired to find a killer in a nudist camp--and he'll look pretty damned silly wearing nothing but his gun!" reads the copy. Well, I hate to tell the editors at Gold Medal, but Shell looks pretty funny anyway, white pubes or not.

Check out the cover with Shell's ruddy cheeks delighting in reddening the cheeks of a blond in the relaunch of "Pattern for Murder" now updated to "The Scrambled Yeggs." What?

Author Richard S. Prather was sorta like John McDonald, whose character Travis Mcgee had a color in each book title...but Shell Scott was void of color! Zip Pigment! Like Andy Warhol, his hair was white at an early age. He did have blue eyes to go with his white buzzy...and tooled around in a yellow convertible trying to score to cure his relentless, persistent case of horny. Never having read one, I hope not to hear from any angry fans here, but I'm sorry..."The crew-cut private eye equally smitten by dames and sudden death, in the middle of a gang war--and nearly getting ground up for breakfast sausage?"

Author Richard Prather returned from the dead to publish The Death Gods just last month! In October 2011, five years after Richard dropped his pen...an unfinished novel, I guess, which was patched up for his MILLIONS of loyal fans, NONE of whom have taken the time to say if it's any good on Amazon for either the Kindle edition OR the hardcover.

I was pleased to receive the following note/correction from Linda Pendleton, who among other things is the publisher of the final Richard Prather novel:

"As the publisher of Richard S. Prather's final novel, The Death Gods, I wanted to correct your comment about an "unfinished novel." The novel was complete long before Richard died. It was not patched up, but thinned out, and every word in the story was written by Richard Prather, except for 12 words (which I added)." Just the facts. Thanks for the mention, though.
My best, Linda Pendleton

More information on the book is available HERE on Ms. Pendleton's site. which I should have linked to earlier.

VINTAGE SLEAZE BOOKS AND DOWNLOADS HERE

Vintage Sleaze for those who have EVERYTHING Unisex Gag Gift!

2011-11-06T05:20:00.000-08:00

Post 'light" today as I'm working on a project, but an interesting post still. A gag gift which (unusual for the times) is pitched at both men and women! The phrase "For the MAN who has everything" has been changed to "For THOSE who have everything, and one of each panels refers to a gender, each living the American Dream! (The phrase we used to say before "living large" became more common) A Unisex Sexist Gag Gift! Makes sense...why limit your market for bad taste?

Great, great cover. So does it really matter what was inside? A tiny brush for the lint in your navel.

Gag Gift from Magic Wand company Pasadena California 1956 Collection Victor Minx

BOOK AND E-BOOK catalog HERE

HOOSEGOW Ann Landers Solves the Smut Mail Problem! 1962 Greatest Moments in Vintage Sleaze #4

2011-11-04T16:15:00.000-07:00

Ann Landers clearly had the answer to smut peddlers. A nice long stretch in the hoosegow. HOOSEGOW! My new favorite word. First use 1909, from the spanish "Juzgado" meaning to judge. In fact, that is my new solution to everything. Give them a stretch in the hoosegow, dammit!

Ann, who was really Ruth Crowley for a while, then was Eppie Lederer for 56 years was a mink-coat wearing etiquette expert. Connie Chancelor was also Ann Landers, but only for a few months while they looked for one with legs. I'm not going to criticize Eppie one bit. She favored legalization of prostitution, was pro-choice and after receiving so many letters from gay people she eventually came to support their rights as well. I don't know how many hookers wrote her, but there you have it. Support for the working woman and the letter-writing gay.

Although it has nothing to do with the post here, Eppie also invented the big halloween scare which claimed poisons and razor blades were being put in your children's sacks...something which persists yet there has never been an example found. I remember one year someone was offering to run your kids candy through a metal detector before they ate it.

Eppie also had an identical twin sister, which is freaky enough, but she also went into the newspaper column game. However, unlike Eppie, her nickname was "Popo" and her pen name, lifted from the Bible somehow, was Abigail Van Buren. Some say the two sisters hated each other. I dunno...it's all water over the dam hoosegow now anyway. Eppie's column was so popular, when she gave it up there was a power struggle which would shock even the Kremlin. Newspaper chains were given no less than THREE knockoffs to choose from. "Classic Ann Landers, Annie's Mailbox, and Dear Prudence" just like Coca-cola.

But back to the hoosegow. Eppie received a letter from a worried parent, whose child had received a scandalous circular from a smut distributor. Her advice was to report the mail to the Post Office. Something I wanted to do with the smut I received from my deceitful Republican senator yesterday, which contained more offensive material than any dirty magazine, all of it designed to trick the electorate into thinking he was acting in their interests. Now THAT is obscene.

Ann Landers solution called for a stretch in the hoosegow, but also said to lug the stuff down to the local post office. Presumably in a plain brown paper sack.

Greatest Moments in Vintage Sleaze is a once in a while entry on Vintage Sleaze HERE by Jim Linderman. The first entry documents Candy Barr's visit to the Warren Commission, and after that read the true story of Honey Bee.

DULL TOOL DIM BULB BOOK CATALOG HERE