Customer Reviews

Erotic Comics: A Graphic History from Tijuana Bibles to Underground Comix

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"As you might expect with a book called Erotic Comics: A Graphic History, I've not had much chance to read the text but I have looked at the pictures... and I'm still managing to type with both hands. That's not meant as a criticism. This is 'erotic' comics rather than outright pornography so, as they say in Bladerunner, reaction time is a factor. It's actually a very good book covering the history of erotic comics from pre-history, via Victorian prints and the Tijuana bibles, through adult magazines like the relatively tame gentleman's mag Playboy and the courser, specialist bondage magazines of Irving Klaw, to Robert Crumb's underground comics of the 1970s...

...[there's] a greater range of material from elsewhere, ranging from Japanese prints to Vargas pin-ups, from Harvey Kurtzman and the late Will Elder's sophisticated 'Little Annie Fanny' to John Willie's bondage comics. Heavily illustrated and with an introduction by Aline Kominsky Crumb, author Tim Pilcher has managed to uncover the incredible variety of ways the female body has been stripped (double meaning intended). It's a fascinating journey into a sub-culture of comics that we've not seen much of in Britain. From the statuesque 'Miss Geewhiz', who leaves much to the imagination, to the bizarre sexual exploits of a gay Jimmy Cagney, there's going to be something in here for all tastes.

There's a promised second volume which picks up the story of the underground comix in the 1970s and takes it forward to show how erotic comics continue to flourish in the first decade of the 21st century. They're not called the noughties for nothing."

By Steve Holland

"It makes me laugh to imagine anyone finding my comic work erotic," states Aline Kominsky Crumb, "and in general I can say the same thing about most Underground comic art." She's got a point. Other people's erotic fantasies and obsessions are ridiculous, unless they happen to turn you on, too.

If Sturgeon's Law is true, then ninety per cent of all the erotic comics drawn, then and now, are crap. Tim Pilcher's brief but informative history of the remaining ten per cent revels in the allure of that minority of comics, those drawn with a powerful personal style. What's weirdly consistent about powerful personal styles (and this is an observation Pilcher never quite manages to articulate, though he comes close) is that going public with one's sexual fantasies means going public with one's fascination with the grotesque as well. It's as if artists can't choose which boundaries not to cross in their work, not if they're being honest with themselves as well as dedicated to cartooning as a professional pursuit. That dedication, and society's expectations of us, however hypocritical, may explain why the history of erotic comics (at least up to this volume's cutoff date of the early 'seventies) is a history of artists getting screwed -- by their publishers, usually, but also by the police and the courts.

This is a picture book, and Pilcher's selection of images is very good indeed. The first of five chapters covers the prehistory of underground comics, from the bounty of the 18th century (Hogarth, Rowlandson, Japanese shunga prints, and illustrations for the Kama Sutra), through saucy postcards, Tijuana Bibles, pin-up paintings, and risque comic strips for servicemen. Chapter 2 covers the rise of Playboy magazine and its low rent competitors, but it's too bad Pilcher couldn't get the rights to reproduce any of Kurtzman and Elder's delicious "Little Annie Fanny" panels.

Chapter 3 focuses on bondage comics, followed by the underground comix of the 'sixties, dominated by the Picasso of the counterculture, R. Crumb. The final chapter is a brief survey of the rise of the French and Italian erotic comics industries, with their daunting standards of draftsmanship, as well as a glimpse of the Mexican sensacionale, which sells twenty million copies a month while satisfying what seems to be a national taste for erotica that's both gratuitous and moralistic -- rather like American sitcoms, now that I think of it.

This is a great book, lots of pictures and just enough text to inform the reader rather than just to bog them down. Highly recommended!

This book has a lot of information as well as amazing pictures. It covers everything from ancient erotica to pinup girls to modern playboy comics. I was very impressed. :)

This book is massive I thought it was going to be some little thing. Pictures are plenty and very nice! My only issue is the way it came. The hard cover comes with a paper cover (?) but that paper is not tight so it kind of moved along its trip to me. I wish it were packaged very tight instead of in this big box with air filled plastic protection. Luckily the paper isnt too damaged but it couldve been brutal. This book was a great purchase. Highly recommend it!

Some really good history, but missing some of the pieces that made underground comics what they were.
It is mostly about the more "tame" of the underground comics. There was a very dark underside to these comics that is missing in this book.

A true history needs to examine all of the sordid pieces of this part of comic history. You can black it out...edit it, if you wish, but do not ignore it.