Customer Reviews

Tijuana Bibles: Art and Wit in America's Forbidden Funnies, 1930s-1950s

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

From the 1930's through the 1950's, small eight page underground comics were distributed all over the United States. They were crudely drawn, even more crudely written, and usually involved popular icons of the day engaged in sexual acts, accompanied with some very blue humor in the form of dirty jokes and puns.

These were called Tijuana Bibles, and also known as Eight-Pagers, Two-by-Fours, Gray-Backs, Bluesies, Jo-Jo Books, Tillie-and-Mac Books, Jiggs-and-Maggie Books, and F**k Books, this according to introduction writer Art Spiegelman.

Author Bob Adelman has collected dozens of these rare bits of cartoon history and republished them here, adding a commentary by Richard Merkin, and putting these into a quasi-historical and sociological context.

Ever wonder what Popeye looked like while having sex? What about Donald Duck and Minnie Mouse talking dirty while going at it? What did Cary Grant and Alger Hiss look like during gay love? All of this and more are here.

This book does a better job of reprinting the Tijuana Bibles than anything, but reading a bunch of them in a row gets very tedious. The introduction warns against this, as well. The drawings are often very crude, and the humor is very old, since their prime era was in the 1930's. Also, all but a few of the artists were anonymous, and the printings were not done in the exotic locales of Havana, Tijuana, or London (as the little booklets claimed), but probably in some basement with a mob type watching over the production.

This is not just a book of dirty pictures, but a very interesting look at what the author calls early sex education. While body parts are rather exaggerated, young men could look at these in the days before government and school sponsored sex ed and have a vague idea of what to do.

If you have any of these dirty little books around, then hold on to them, they are rare. If you have this overview of the history of Tijuana Bibles around, keep it away from the kids, unless they are curious about the sex life of Dick Tracy or Dagwood Bumstead. I recommend this thin book to anyone who claims to be a fan of underground comics, or erotic art and cartoons.

This collection of satiric and pornographic cartoons will alternately amuse and offend people everywhere. Nothing and no-one is sacred. Some of the strips are beautifully drawn and funny, some are crude and downright witless and others (note the strips believed to be those of Wesley Morse) are both witty and erotic. If nothing else, this collection serves as a potent reminder that sex, in all its permutations and manifestations, has been around for a lot longer than some people care to admit!

Yes it is pornographic, but that is what *Tijuana Bibles* were. I remember quite well when in high school in the 50's, a few were passed around until quite tattered. And, this was at a Catholic boys school. For fun and games and an introduction of a type of porno, this edition can't be beat. If the reader hasn't been totally brainwashed by a religion, purchase it and have fun..

I quite agree with the 6/10/99 customer review from Melbourne, Australia. This interestingly packaged (and heavily illustrated) collection will alternately amuse and offend most everyone. While some of the art is decent (or even good), much of it is crude but somehow apropos to the subject. The packaging is very good, and the book's price is a bargain for what you get. I'm 50 and didn't even know these "Tijuana Bibles" existed until I stumbled across this book. Very educational as well as entertaining. I first bought a copy last summer and enjoyed it so much I bought another for a friend, who enjoyed it as much as I did.

One reviewer correctly compared these to the "dirty pictures" most people saw in junior high school. This is an accurate description. Most of this stuff is not that funny or particularly erotic. In fact, it gets dull pretty fast. The cartoons with Amos & Andy, Laurel & Hardy, Hitler, and Mahatma Gandhi (that one must be seen to be believed), and a minstrel-like Joe Louis are interesting largely for historical reasons. But the takeoffs (no pun intended) on Betty Boop, Lil Abner, Popeye, etc. are surprisingly flat, considering the unexplored comic possibilities (though the Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck segment is good for a few laughs). Be warned though, some of this stuff (especially in the last chapter) is really gross even by modern standards, so proceed with caution. Overall, it's more of a curiousity piece more than anything else.

I wanted this book for years and I'm so glad I got it. It's just an awesome look into the past.

Wasn't the 20th Century wonderful? The art/craft of comic books blossomed, along with the cult of the celebrity. Add those two to everyone's interest in... er... smut, and you have Tijuana Bibles! It's scholarly AND titillating, all at the same time!

I'll make this short and to the point. I have purchased several books with Tijuana bible artwork and this one is simply the best. The others do not come close.

...Interesting academically, perhaps, or as a cultural artifact, but if you're a fan of erotic cartoons and are after genuine wit or bawdy humor, try something closer in time to the present, such as Dark Horse Comic's new edition of "Little Annie Fanny: Vol. 1." These cartoons are mostly like the scribbles you passed around in grade school, and their erotic impact is lost, nearly a century later.

Based on the description, I assumed that this book was more politically subversive. Disappointingly, however, the content material was only subversive in that these comics used well known icons of the time in explicit pornography. The art is generally competent, the wit less than so. As a historical artifact it was interesting for about one viewing and basically then only to realize that people in the 1930's used the same slang for genitalia. We returned our order.