Best of Bizarre (TASCHEN Icons Series) (Paperback)

~ Angelika Taschen (Creator, Editor), Eric Kroll (Author) "I am writing the introduction to the long-awaited reprinting of Bizarre magazine..." (more)
Key Phrases: extreme heels, John Willie, Bizarre Vol, Sweet Gwendoline (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

A compendium of highlights from John Willie's esoteric bondage magazine, "Bizarre", which was published erratically between 1946 and 1959. All 26 cover images and a selection of pages from each issue are included. A wild bonanza of bizarre ideas, concepts, and costumes.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Taschen (May 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 3822855553
• ISBN-13: 978-3822855553
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,267,478 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

• This item is part of The Icons Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A historical (monotonous) look at Fetish photos and sketches, January 7, 2003

By	"ripcode" (Santa Clara, CA) - See all my reviews

This book is a compilation of historical "Bizarre" magazine black & white photos and sketches of fetish women in various attire. The body type is always the same stylized extreme hourglass, large conical breasts, a tiny waist and round (rear). I was expecting something a little more diverse, given the title, and didn't know that in this case "Bizarre" was more of a title of a source magazine than a description of the book's contents.

In some of the sketches you can see the form become so stylized that the arms are not even bound behind, but removed, and sometimes the shoes and hands have the same shape. You can see that the R. Crumb the cartoonist may have read these magazines, and took it to a new extreme.

To me the pictures are endless slight variations on a theme, in other words in the first pages interesting, but in the end, boring. You really have to be a fan of this style to do more than flip through the book.

5.0 out of 5 stars Much ado about little..., January 30, 2010

By	Robert Kelley (Westport, MA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

Taschen's collection, sampled from issues of John Willie's BIZARRE, is a delighful look back at the work of a man who was in the forefront of eroding the 1950's, Ozzie and Harriet, twin-beds-in-the dark, missionary-style attitudes about sexuality. Back in the day, this was hot stuff, 'the-kind-men-like', (pre-Playboy) underground publishing. But be warned, it's a book more from historians than personal titillation. Our sense of 'what's shocking' has evolved so far that the average PG-13 movie probably eclipses any page in BIZARRE. One is left with a sense of 'what-was-all-the-shouting-about', yet John Willie was constantly skirmishing with the U.S.Post Office about whether BIZARRE was too pornagraphic to be sent through the mails. It's all here: dark, but still innocent, an opening salvo in the sexual revolution. It's a one-of-a-kind show. Don't miss it.