New Series on Vintage Sleaze the Blog CONTEMPORARY VINTAGE SLEAZE Comic Artists and Cartoonists

Are contemporary artists and cartoonists influenced by vintage sleaze? Of course they are! Contemporary artists and cartoonists are influenced by everything! And as long as one person is attracted to (or repelled by) another, there will be situations requiring a piece of work or a gag. In this spirit, Vintage Sleaze (Brother and Sister blog to this site) is proud to announce a new series: CONTEMPORARY VINTAGE SLEAZE

Select artists of TODAY influenced by pinup and risque gag artists of the past are celebrated here with a unique work they have created especially for Vintage Sleaze the Blog! A showcase for (and a tribute to) talented artists who draw today. (Who may just draw upon the drawings of past Sleazy Cheesecake Pinup Masters) PLEASE also take the time to follow links to the individual artist sites! Not only will you see some outstanding work, you might be compelled to purchase, commission or follow the artist. Each and every site is a delight.

Submissions are welcome but we can not post everything. If you draw and enjoy Vintage Sleaze please participate!

We begin the series with the work of Lena H. Chandhok. Other notables are participating including Gary Panter, Vanessa Davis, Paul Swartz and many others. The series will run weekly on Vintage Sleaze. Make sure to follow and share!
Tweet

Best of Comic Art on Art Matters 12/19/2010 Jim Linderman Articles

Today EIGHT articles by Jim Linderman appear on the Art Matters BEST OF COMIC ART site! Shazam. The page is floating, so they might not be there tommorow. Links to the original articles follow. All appeared on my sister Vintage Sleaze site, so if material of a slightly risque manner scares you...pass. I believe the expression is "Not Safe for Work" but none will scar you permanently and none are anywhere near x-rated.

Stanley Rayon Cartoonist
http://vintagesleaze.blogspot.com/2010/08/stanley-rayon-vintage-sleaze-cartoonist.html

Jim Linderman Interview
http://vintagesleaze.blogspot.com/2010/09/jim-linderman-interview-on-collecting.html

Kopeefun Copies
http://vintagesleaze.blogspot.com/2010/08/copy-comic-cuties-with-kopeefun-vintage.html

Lost Art of Tattoo Comics
http://vintagesleaze.blogspot.com/2010/09/vintage-sleaze-tattoo-art-and-artists.html

Satan Press Bibliography and History
http://vintagesleaze.blogspot.com/2010/12/satan-press-paperback-books-vintage.html

The Expert Man who was a Dame
http://vintagesleaze.blogspot.com/2010/08/vintage-sleaze-sex-expert-walter-s.html

Who is the Girl Next Door
http://vintagesleaze.blogspot.com/2010/09/vintage-sleaze-girl-next-door-experts.html

Penny Smith
http://vintagesleaze.blogspot.com/2010/08/vintage-sleaze-inglesita-penny-smith-in.html

Bill Alexander African-American Artist of Vintage Sleaze (Part One)

Bill Alexander was an African-American illustrator about whom virtually nothing is known. He did have some famous friends, I hope to write more about them later. A new CD release from the wonderful Acrobat label in the UK offers scarce images of his work in "Roy Milton's Miltone Records Story." I had known Alexander for his striking, colorful but inept fetish paintings done for the covers of vintage sleaze paperbacks (five from my collection shown here) after he moved from LA to NYC in the late 1950's or early 1960's. These books were published in 1967 and contain not a swear word, much less any graphic sex. Vintage Sleaze paperbacks are a wonderful, affordable hobby. They LOOK filthy, that was the idea after all, to attract consumers with lurid, tease covers, but the actual sex was no more graphic than in any romance novel. However, I had only seen a few of his drawings done for Miltone. The incredible new CD comes with a small 34 page book illustrating many of the illustrations Alexander produced for early 78 rpm "Picture Discs." Like the music, they were hip, urban, swinging, rocking and raunchy. Acrobat releases tend to sell out quickly, so get on your friendly provider's website and purchase soon. They have a wonderful back catalog and have been documenting many small independent R&B labels, all worthy and all beautiful. But this one, while offering no more information about the illustrator I love, does provide great illustrations which fit the music to a T. A great package and a wonderful introduction to an unsung Black Artist who deserves more research. I intended to link to the Acrobat website but seems to be a broken for now, and I read a recent blog posting which says the label may be in financial duress. They may continue as a download company only. If so, too bad. In the meantime, search your suppliers for this and all their previous releases!

Five"Vintage Sleaze" Paperback books Illustrated by Bill Alexander c.1967 (Private Pose, Pen Pals, Fair Choice, Be My Guest, Bath House Peeper) Collection Jim Linderman

Dull Tool Dim Bulb The Newsletter 2013

 

Total hit count for the Dull Tool Dim Bulb series of blogs is now well over three million.  Go figure.  Read on...

 
First of all, a BIG thank you to Grand Rapids Magazine, May 2013 for a nice profile and several photos of what they called my virtual museum.  Pics here are tiny as the May 2013 issue is on the newsstand now…go buy it.   Grand Rapids Magazine is the model of a regional publication.  Grand Rapids, 30 miles from my beach town, recently made big news for their growing economy,  job opportunities and flood.  Grand Rapids, still the "Furniture City" in my mind is being rebranded as an art center as well with the nationally recognized Art Prize.  West Michigan rules!  (9 months out of the year.)

Other recent Dull Tool Dim Bulb press includes some international attention!   "Los calaberos las preferian negras" in El Pais (The largest Spanish daily newspaper with 13 million readers) and Pop Culture Miner in The Bund, a large circulation paper in China.  Iantique reprinted portions of the New York Times profile.  The Auction Exchange ran an article.  Book reviews abound…but most notable is the brief blurb from, of all places, Croatia (!) in the magazine Vox Feminae.  Open your Google translator and enjoy!     Monsters and Madonnas at the International Center of Photography Library ran a nice piece which mentioned Take Me to the Water.  Things Magazine linked to Dull Tool Dim Bulb recently and Blurb named Vintage Photographs of Arcane Americana "Book of the Week."   I've missed some here, but thanks ALL!

Craig Yoe in his new book The Creativity of Ditko credits my research and images considerably in helping to solve the question of who REALLY invented the character Spiderman…and it isn't who you may think.  A great story which defines friendship, hypocrisy and the relationship between art, commerce and comics.  Highly recommended.  I was pleased to contribute. 
Dull Tool Dim Bulb Books has several interesting new photography collections now available, minor little efforts but then all are only $5.99 if purchased in ebook form.  The pictures look better on a screen than the printed page now anyway, but they are also available in paperback and hardcover.   Without going into descriptions, trust ALL are unique books documenting highly unusual "things" and forgotten art forms...the hallmark
of Dull Tool Dim Bulb.  Each links here to the books on Blurb.com. 

The Cryptic Rebus Drawings of Anonymous: 19th Century Picture Word Games from the Collection of Jim Linderman

I'm with Dummy: Vent Figures and Blockheads  Vintage Photographs from the Jim Linderman Collection.

Private Photographs of a Burlesque Queen: Lynne O'Neill the Original Garter Girl  Original Photographs from the Jim Linderman Collection

Argentina Tintamarresque: Comic Foreground Novelty Photographs from Argentina
Next up will be True History of Tijuana Bibles: Facts and Myths which is taking a while as I actually have to write.  I'm far better at scanning photographs than I am at writing.  But it will look like the below, will likely be 150 pages and will tell the story of the little filthy comic books your grandfather knew well but wouldn't mention...with lots of previously unreported attempts of your tax dollars trying to stomp them out, and the wise-guys who printed them in their basements.

 

 Vintage Sleaze the Blog (which tells a true and usually very funny story untold story from the glory days of smut) continues a meteoric rise to the top of the blog world.  Vintage Sleaze now has well over 90,000 followers on Facebook (!) and to think I started it just to trick folks into looking at my REAL blog.    Pretty women and dirty men make for good reading…and believe me, as the stories have never been told, the research is hilarious.  The site tells a true story every day from the 1950's and 1960s, when soft-core sleaze was hounded by censors and the law.  The real life characters (models, photographers, illustrators, writers and mobsters) make for good reading, and that the public agrees is great.  Many of the stories (and much, much more) will be compiled into TIMES SQUARE SMUT to be available soon.   Risque and not quite Innocent fun now rendered harmless by the real smut of the internet!  The book centers on three sleazeballs who unwittingly changed culture: Leonard Burtman, Edward Mishkin and Irving Klaw, and several remarkable artists they employed, and the focus is on the graphics and artistic contributions (as well as their efforts to eliminate book censorship and promote intellectual freedom.)  The stories are outrageous.

Additionally, the blog within a blog CONTEMPORARY Vintage Sleaze, which profiles, with their cooperation, major artists working today who have been influenced by the smut of the past, is now up to 36 entries, and we have had the cooperation of an astounding group of notable artists.  Ryan Heshka, Tony Fitzpatrick, Jane Dickson, Hudson Marquez, and many more nationally known figures.  To date, only ONE artist has turned me down and I won't say who, but screw him.  I never liked his dealer either.

Stay tuned to Dull Tool Dim Bulb for upcoming projects and stay away from the other blogs.  I have all the attention I need, and if clicks were coins I would be rolling in fresh dough.  Or, as a hero of mine who passed away recently once said "farting through silk" but I will regret writing that as soon as I hit the "publish" button.

In addition to the above, other Dull Tool Dim Bulb Books are still in print (and in ebook) including Arcane Americana and Camera Club Girls: Bettie Page, Her Friends and the Work of Rudolph Rossi.

Eric Stanton Artist of Vintage Sleaze (part four)

ALL MY ESSAYS ON vintage sleaze illustrators are now collected on VINTAGE SLEAZE
The third illustrator who worked for Stanley Malkin and Eddie Miskin's line of sleaze paperbacks in the early 1960's was Ernest Stanten, the son of Russian immigrants. Under his adopted name, he is today highly regarded as the king of the fetish illustrators, and as such I won't spend as much time profiling him...numerous books have been published on the illustrious illustrator. Stanton's first girlie drawings were done on sailor's handkerchiefs while he was in the navy (at age 17). Like Gene Bilbrew (see my previous entries) Eric Stanton also studied at the School of Visual Arts in NYC and again, like Bilbrew, worked for Irving Klaw, the photographer who became infamous with his photos of Bettie Page. Stanton also worked closely with his friend and studio mate Steve Ditko (no less than the creator of Spiderman) "Hey Spidey...get a load of THESE drawings" He also learned from Batman inker Jerry Robinson. Like the other artists I am adding to my blog, he drew for many publications other than the imprints of satellite distributors and until he passed away in 1999 he continued selling his work by mail order. Published collections of his work abound, but for my money, his best work was the more than 100 covers he did for After Hours, First Niter, Nitey Nite, Unique Books and Wee Hours. Examples above. Stanton's work is marked by slender, stiff, upright figures with implied seething undercurrents of passion. As Brittany Daley writes in Sin-A-Rama, they had "... tall frames and mile long legs". The women are strong and confident, if somewhat curiously adjusted, and the men are weak. There is an elegance and style seldom seen in paperback covers, and in every one there are folks with secrets.
SHY SHAMED SECRET SHADOWED HIDDEN by same Author

Article "Proto-Porn from the 1950s" by Jim Linderman

NOTE: The following is an article I wrote which was just published at Sugarcut Magazine. Sugarcut is THE premier erotic art and photography site, and I thought some of the camera and visual arts folks who follow Dull Tool Dim Bulb might enjoy seeing it without clicking onto a NSFW site! If you DO want to see the original article on Sugarcut, you can find it, and it has 25 illustrations in a slide show.

Proto-Porn from the 1950S

By Jim Linderman

6 March 2012

Shown is a wide-angle lens full of vintage camera club pinup digests from the early 1950s. Long ignored progenitors of pinup pulchitrude! It was illegal to sell nude photographs in the Eisenhower days, but some enterprising and greedy shutterbug gahoots found a way around the law, frequently in cahoots with the guys downtown, if you know what I mean.

“Figure Study” publications for the artist and photographer!

These obscure digests were all purportedly aimed at the burgeoning nude photography hobbyist, or at least they claimed to be. They were available under the counter or through the mail, at least until Uncle Sam got wise. The models, some famous (Blaze Starr, Judy O’Neal, Bettie Page and many more) were pulled from burlesque routes and strip clubs…others were amateurs who replied to ads. There are no less than five devoted to Ms. Page alone from various publishers. All are hard to find today. Each is now over 50 years old… and since they were published in small editions by phony companies, then carried by trunk and hand to the shop, few survive today. Many have no return address or date. Shop owners priced them at what they thought the risk was worth.

The models in these “proto-porn” periodicals never had pudenda or pubes. The photographs were black and white, and each digest-sized booklet ran from 20 to 50 pages. The colorful covers belie the blurry pages inside. The men behind the camera were seldom identified, but with care and a loupe, one can often identify the photographer’s swinging pads from the wall decorations and curtain designs.

Who was responsible for these stroke books masquerading as figure studies for photographers? At least one series was produced by a later prominent publisher of fetish pinup periodicals. Others came from a husband and wife team living in Midtown Manhattan a few doors down from Bettie Page, and a big load from a mysterious photographer with a Florida address…a sunny address he began using after apparently thinking the city up north was “too hot” and left Brooklyn behind. Nearly all were published in series, but a complete set is unheard of.

The books are today relics of days gone by. Despite history books which credit Hugh Hefner with starting the modern revolution in nude photography, not to mention sexual mores, it was a dozen independent small presses with moxie (and buxie) with a few mob-connections who got the balls rolling.

Jim Linderman is an author, collector and editor of the daily blog VINTAGE SLEAZE. This group of original “Figure Study” digests come from the author’s collection and date circa 1950 – 1955. Vintage Sleaze the daily blog is HERE.

Vintage Sleaze

Promote Your Page Too

What is New at Dull Tool Dim Bulb 2012 Update Jim Linderman

A few recent developments from the Dull Tool Dim Bulb empire!

MUCH pleased to have had no less than David Sedaris recommend the Dull Tool Dim Bulb Blog to his readers.  As one who has gone from sitting in Barnes and Noble watching David read to becoming a writer (of sorts) himself, this is a great honor.

Skilled writer and artist Emma Higgins has written a lovely profile titled "Jim Linderman Perpetually Ahead of the Collecting Curve" HERE on the Grand Rapids website H.A.C.K.  Grand Rapids, as you may or may not know, is a booming city in the culture department, with their annual Art Prize awarding $$$ and attracting many artist participants and visitors annually. HACK is a wonderful guide to the West Michigan Art Scene and much more.

Two new books, I'm With Dummy: Vent Figures and Blockheads: Vintage Photographs from the Jim Linderman Collection and PROTO-PORN: The Art Figure Study Scam of the 1950s are now available.  Each is available in paperback OR Ebook download for the iPad.  They lanquish on the virtual shelves of Blurb.com.  ALL the Dull Tool Dim Bulb Books are now available as $5.99 downloads.  Save a tree and buy a virtual book.

Vintage Sleaze the blog now has an astounding 36,000 followers on Facebook and the network of blogs under the Dull Tool Dim Bulb umbrella is approaching 2.25 million page clicks.  If clicks were coins and followers were finance I would be rich...but I prefer happy.

In the not to announce category The World Erotic Art Museum in Miami may be doing a show based on the Vintage Sleaze series and Book Secret History of the Black Pin Up: Women of Color from Pinup to Porn which would be an honor.  More as, and if, this develops.  I think it will...and if so, linkage will result.

Design Weekly wrote a nice profile and recommendation to Vintage Sleaze, thank you very much. 

I recently made what I believe is a significant contribution to an important new book by an important comic book historian, but I'll report on it in the next update.

Music fans can now follow Bob Dylan Record an Album of Songs by Charlie Patton on Facebook.  The site grows out of a series of infrequent essays on Dylan...who, with a new album out any day now, has once again failed to do what I wish he would.  He will.

I also presume all have seen the recent Jim Linderman New York Times Profile?  The article uses a photograph by Michigan-based photographer Adam Bird which I much appreciate.  Mr. Bird is a young photographer with considerable style and skill.  The Times also quoted me in a recent article on the rebirth of pinup style.

I have discovered an original stag film of Texas Legend Candy Barr dancing.  This is not the common film on Youtube, but a film shot on the same set or stage around the same time.   I'm not quite sure what do do with the film, but It has been transfered to Digital CD and I'm pondering selling copies or using it as a gift to friends.  The only problem is that once the Candy is out of the bag, it will be bootlegged wider than Justin Bieber's next recording.  Any ideas?

Humorama Humor New Book on Old Gags Humorama by Alex Chun

Alex Chun has a new volume available from Fantagraphics Books in his series which profiles the "few dollars a drawing" gag writers who sold work to the Humorama line of digest publications during the 1950s and into the early 1970s. As I have been writing on the lesser known artists who contributed, with the scant information available...I eagerly await the book!

I also collect the original drawings, and a good share of them have been posted on my blogs over the last few years...great stuff, and neglected ever since the women's movement made them even more offensive than we thought they were.

For those of you who do not know the Humorama books, which literally filled the racks when I was growing up, here is a sample of my favorite "issues" (as if one was any different from the other.) You will note the colors on the covers I pick are similar to those used on traffic lights. No coincidence. They were intended to stand out (make you stop, look both ways and carefully proceed to the checkout.)



I try to sniff out, dig up and write about one dead Humorama artist a month on VINTAGE SLEAZE . Some of those articles have also been collected on HUMORAMA ART. Feel free to browse and share.


Collection of various Humorama Publications circa 1957-1965 Collection Victor Minx

Buy the Alex Chun Book Below from Fantagraphics or your favorite seller. Mine is on order!


UPDATE: MY REVIEW OF THE BOOK IS HERE on VINTAGE SLEAZE the BLOG


Tweet





DULL TOOL DIM BULB / VINTAGE SLEAZE BOOKS HERE

Hudson Marquez Artist and Art

Hudson Marquez Artist and Art (Originally posted on the original Vintage Sleaze Blog by Jim Linderman 2013)

I believe Hudson Marquez is the first participant in the Vintage Sleaze Contemporary series to have been voted into the Broadcasting Hall of Fame, but I first knew of his work without even knowing it…through familiarity with the Cadillac Ranch and the work of the Ant Farm Collective.  Cadillac Ranch is off the scale as far as environmental art goes…one of the most famous art installations in history, and one which makes the late windbag Christo seem as profound as Leroy Neiman.  There are plenty of contemporary artists making large scale environmental sculpture and installations, but the Cadillac Ranch is the effing mother tailfin of them all.

Which is why we are thrilled not only to have Mr. Marquez as a fan of Vintage Sleaze, but now a willing participant in the series.  As is the case of most notables, Hudson is modest and self-effacing.   Following is his entire autobiography, dutifully pecked into his cellphone especially for us on request.

 "Hudson Marquez Was born in New Orleans Louisiana. He got out as soon as possible.  His travels finally led him to San Francisco where he helped found the Ant Farm, and arts collective that was very active in the late 60s early 70s. He became addicted to video and in 1972 Started the video group TVTV. This group of small format video pioneers had a great run, Producing a number of award winning documentaries for PBS. In 74 he created the Cadillac Ranch sculpture in Amarillo, Texas. Now living in Los Angeles, ex- pornographer Marquez splits his time between writing and painting pictures of cars and girls."
 
Well, with all respect, we can do better than that.

Marquez has been a provocateur his entire life.  A story teller as much as a person who lived to tell the tales… and considerable tales there are.  Like being with Led Zeppelin tales.  Like meeting Charlie Manson tales.  Like Canned Heat (look them up. listen and learn kids) tales and, well…pussy tails.  Hudson likes women and it shows.  He also once said all women should drive in high heels, a quote not only tailor made for this site, but one which could be pondered and debated in many circles.

Anyone who makes it through the decades as active, as political, as involved and as talented as Mr. Marquez deserves kudos.  That he has survived it with a glorious sense of humor and irony is admirable.  Trust it was not easy for smart people to live through the 1960s and 1970s.  Hudson is cracker-smack smart and he survived it.

A mere dip into the world of Hudson Marquez is to have the major cultural high and low points of several decades circle you like a tornado.

Mr. Marquez has work showing now at the La Luz de Jesus gallery in Los Angeles. 

Hudson's work is Acrylic and Ink on canvas now.  Big ones. With big roots from New Orleans.  Hudson is one of the few folks around who can put Professor Longhair across the table from Jayne Mansfield and make it work.  Hudson knows without Ike Turner, Tina would still be Anna Mae Bullock from Nutbush, Tennessee and if he were looking over my shoulder as I write,  I would proudly tell him I saw Ike and Tina from the first row in a gymnasium in 1971 blowing smoke right up the Ikettes skirts the entire show.  In fact, I love Hudson so much, I am putting a teeny cribbed photo of my vantage just for him.  It has absolutely nothing to do with the post here OR Hudson, but I think he'll like it.

Although above, Hudson says he was glad to get out of New Orleans, it stayed with him.  There is nothing more valuable for a contemporary artist to have in his blood than some New Orleans, and the ghosts of the city meet an amazing crew of icons in his paintings.

A fabulous, essential, hilarious interview with Hudson Marquez is HERE


Essential reading on Cadilac Ranch is HERE