English Pulps?

Screenies Magazine, April 1937 (reconstructed cover) artist: Jacques Real. Probably an American pulp resold in the UK before wartime restrictions came into effect (the cover displays prices in both US and English currency). The style and format is reminiscent of Film Fun and similar "girly" titles, though Screenies seems to have been comparatively short lived by comparison.

Best Swishes Revisited

A recreation of Film Fun (February, 1936) featuring Enoch Bolles' famous cancan girl:

 

First, the original (with minor photoshop adjustments)...

...followed by the same image with the hemline headline raised...

 ...finally, all the "rough edges" smoothed out in AI (lost some of the detail, unfortunately).

And just as an added bonus: I found this version during my wanderings around the web; apparently part of a "valentine's day collection" by an artist named Blue Mourning. The bright red forms a sharp contrast with the original's cool-toned palate.

Hey, Look!!

Look Magazine, 22 November, 1938: with Germany re-arming and war looming on the horizon, Claudette Colbert still managed to steal the cover spot :) The image seemed to be based on a publicity still from Zaza (odd, considering the film wasn't released until 1939; no doubt Paramount was eager to cash in on the spectacle of the talented Ms Colbert revealing her frilly underthings).

It's interesting to compare this cover shot with stills and posters from the same movie (both B&W and color). Unfortunately, the Hays Code didn't allow for garters and stocking tops back in the day...

Magazines, covers & postcards

Tried to "clean up" some of the images I came across on BB's tumblr site; once again, I'll leave you to judge the results:

 

Spicy Tales

 

Pulp magazines (often referred to as "the pulps") were inexpensive magazines that were published from 1896 to the late 1950s. The term "pulp" derives from the cheap wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed. In contrast, magazines printed on higher-quality paper were called "glossies" or "slicks." The typical pulp magazine had 128 pages; it was 7 inches (18 cm) wide by 10 inches (25 cm) high, and 0.5 inches (1.3 cm) thick, with ragged, untrimmed edges. 

The pulps gave rise to the term pulp fiction in reference to run-of-the-mill, low-quality literature. Pulps were the successors to the penny dreadfuls, dime novels, and short-fiction magazines of the 19th century. Although many respected writers wrote for pulps, the magazines were best known for their lurid, exploitative, and sensational subject matter, especially those of the "spicy" variety. 

While held in low regard at the time of of publication, "spicy pulp" cover paintings are now considered exceptional pieces of American pop culture and are keenly sought after by collectors and enthusiasts alike. 

- freely adapted from the Wikipedia article.

Mandrake the Magician: Lora

Lora flees a fate worse than death in her bra, panties and stockings...

Spicy Detectives: Sally the Sleuth: Restorations

You know, Adobe photoshop™ is a truly amazing program. With a basic knowledge of the system, you can take an old, faded, extremely distorted image and give it an entirely new lease of life. It's particularly useful for restoring ancient, grainy snapshots to a relatively pristine condition. While not as crisp and sharp as a direct scan would have been, it gives a good impression of what the original might have looked like, fresh from the newsstand some seventy-odd years ago:


Next, we have page two, as initially "scanned":


followed by the restored version of the strip (ain't I a clever little elf?):

OK, I know all this proves is that I have waaaaay too much time on my hands, but any picture of Sally the Sleuth in her lingerie deserves to be treated with the utmost respect. For my next trick, I'm thinking of trying my hand at drawing a two-page Sally strip in the style of the artist. If anyone has any ideas for a storyline, feel free to post your suggestions below :)

Spicy Detectives

The majority of comic aficionados are familiar with Bill Ward's Torchy and Matt Baker's Phantom Lady, but "racy" female characters have been around at least since the pulp era; Spicy Detective's Sally the Sleuth being the prime example). Taking her bow in November 1934, Sally was probably the first 'lingerie detective' on the American comics scene, and had a considerable number of literary descendants during the later 40s. Her main legacy to the artform seems to have been an impressive talent for fighting crime in her underwear (a trick she appears to have learned from Norman Pett's Jane).

Created by cartoonist Adolphe Barreaux, Sally the Sleuth started off in Spicy's back pages several years before comic books became an established format. Drawn in a "primitive" but surprisingly effective style, Sally's adventures usually ran for two pages, telling an entire story in less than 15 panels. A typical plot-line consisted of Sally working undercover to solve some local gangland mystery, resulting in her being stripped down to her bra and panties when the stock villain of the month caught her snooping about.



In most cases, she was rescued by her boss, Chief Brady (occasionally her kid sidekick, Peanuts), although she was capable of holding her own when the odds weren't overwhelming. Recurring themes included abduction, white slavery, extortion etc - standard pulp scenarios providing Sally ample opportunity to have her clothes torn off by the latest lowlife racketeer. As time went on, the action (for lack of a better word) became more risque, as Sally was stripped, bound, gagged, spanked, and whipped with ever-increasing regularity.

During the war, Sally started fighting the Axis and the feature was handed over to more sophisticated illustrators. While the artwork improved, it lacked the raw sexual energy of the Barreaux years. Part of the strip's innate charm had been the bold, naive approach to the subject matter; despite the inclusion of the popular 'homefront' subtext, the stories just didn't pack the same punch anymore. Still, the sado-masochistic elements continued to multiply, and Sally was one of the very few characters you could count on to lose her clothing within two or three panels.



FURTHER READING

Sally the Sleuth Google Reader

Before the Code

As mentioned in an earlier post, American cinema suffered a decades-long drought in sexual content, lasting from the mid-thirties to the late sixties. Intended to preserve the moral climate of the movie industry, the Hays Code forbade the depiction of practically all sexuality from the silver screen, even those delicious bra-and-panty scenes the public had grown to love during the Roaring Twenties.

Many film historians have theorized that this hardline censorship was inspired by the austerity of the Great Depression, but the plain truth is that the Code's designer, William H. Hays, was a puritanical jackass. OK, maybe that's being a trifle unfair, but let's face it: who in their right mind would consider Betty Boop a threat to the youth of the nation?


Mind you, Betty's animated shorts could get pretty steamy at times, but when cartoon characters are being censored over the length of their hemlines, you know someone has few screws loose upstairs. Prior to 1934, movies could still emphasize the inherent beauty of the female form with luscious underwear, bare thighs and stocking tops. Following the institution of the Code, revealing close-ups and gratuitous stripteases were strictly verbotten. 
 
The Hays Code was the Hollywood equivalent of Prohibition, only in this case the killjoys were battling the sins of the flesh. Girls had to be sweet, chaste and well-covered at all times. Hemlines were lowered, garters were hidden, and the very mention of women's intimates was banned from big screen (hence the word 'unmentionables').
 
It was a sad day for human civilization: audiences around around the world were forthwith denied the spectacle of Carol Lombard's satin underwear no matter how innocent the context. Disrobing had to take place off screen when it occurred at all, as everybody knew there was nothing more shocking than the sight of a pretty young woman in her stockings and panties.

Idiots.