Follies

Ice skating (aka the perfect excuse to reveal a pretty young girl's knickers in public). Image assumed to be in the public domain due to lapsed copyright.

Tags: ice skating, knickers, pulp magazine, cheesecake, cute

Click image to enlarge.

Colorized Classics

 Colorized classics:

 

Classical Cheesecake

Classical cheesecake by the great Ted Withers (second image "smoothed out" via AI). Withers seemed to start out as one of George Petty's many imitators, but later developed a more "painterly" approach to his pin-up work:

AI Enhanced

Not sure of the artist, but the signature seems to read "Pete." Upscaled the original via Zygo, lending it a somewhat polished appearance (at least IMHO):

Jane's Journal

Yes, Norman Pett's Jane returns in this stock edition published by Rylee just two years after the war. The 41-page pamphlet includes photos, articles, sketches and a hand-colored strip rarely seen outside the UK. Oh, and page sixteen features this unexpected little gem:

The rest of the book may be viewed (and downloaded) at Internet Archive (nsfw):

https://archive.org/details/Janes_Journal_by_Pett_Rylee/

The Quaids: Three Do's and a Don't

Yes, the Quaids are back from their latest shopping expedition, and couldn't wait to show you their latest acquisitions:

AI generated image, modified in photoshop. Original by TheRRRealist.

The Quaids: Before and After

So, quadruplets are usually defined as four children born from the same mother at the same time (generally identical in appearance). Here we have the aptly named Quaid girls taking a candid selfie on their eighteenth birthday...

...followed by the exact same four; washed, scrubbed and blow-dried for their boudoir shoot (and wearing as little as their Mom will allow). Amazing how a touch of lipstick and gloss can change your entire outlook, isn't it? :)

Open source characters; image released into the public domain under cc-zero.

Boudoir Shoot

 Boudoir pics featuring our favorite platinum blonde:

Prompts: Woman, 18, Perfect Body, White Hair, Fairer skin, Beautiful, Scandinavian, Bedroom (alt: Changing Room).

Postwar Cheesecake

Katy Keene in her "undies." Despite its squeaky-clean reputation, Archie Publications could get pretty steamy during the pre-code era. While the character was aimed at a predominately female audience, most stories contained a generous amount of cheesecake, usually in the form of Katy getting changed. Readers often submitted designs for the characters' clothing; evidently the strip had a devoted male following as well.

Eight years before Marilyn Monroe's iconic scene in The Seven Year Itch, Katy Keene found herself fighting the gale for close on six pages. The strip's creator, Bill Woggon, frequently "spiced up" the action with pin up pages and mild innuendo here and there (well, practically every issue TBH). 

"Fanservice" elements were less common in other titles, though they managed to sneak in under the radar from time to time. Billed as "America's Typical Teenaged Girl," Ginger Snapp was a female version of Archie Andrews, complete with bright red hair and oddball supporting cast - although the similarities seem to have ended there. Unlike her better-known counterpart, Ginger occasionally treated her readers to gratuitous lingerie shots, complete with lacy black underwear and thigh-length suspender stockings.

Last (and quite possibly least) we have Owen Fizgerald's Moronica. Published by AGC in the early 50s, Moronica (yes, that was apparently her real name) was portrayed as ditzy, naive and accident-prone, ie a stereotypical "Dumb Dora" played exclusively for laughs. Appearing mainly in the back pages of Dizzy Dames (a more subtle title cannot be conceived), the strip ran for less than a year before its cancellation in June 1953. Strangely enough, the idea of an airhead blonde losing her clothes at the drop of a hat didn't catch on too well at the time. Guess there's just no accounting for taste.

French Frills!

For those of us with a  yearning for those sentimental days of yore: here's a quaint piece of vintage ephemera from the classic gentleman's magazine, French Frills: 

Ah, nostalgia... 

Hit Singles

Japanese idol band バンもん! (Panmon!) indulges in some gratuitous fan service on the cover of their hit single 雪降る夜にキスして ( "Kiss me on a Snowy Night").

It goes without saying that 'cheesecake' cover shots are not uncommon amongst all-girl bands; as far back as 1982, the Go-Gos established a precedent with their highly influential photo shoot for Rolling Stone magazine. In the present day, it has become almost obligatory for female musicians to model their lingerie before the camera.

Jane at War

Another thinly-veiled excuse to see Jane in her underwear...

Seeing as we couldn't possibly say it any better ourselves, we thought we might present this extract from Don Markstein's Toonopedia:

"There are certain types of entertainment that never go out of style — funny stories about home life … exciting stories about great heroes … pretty women who repeatedly strip or get stripped down to their underwear or less … The first is represented in comics by such famous features as Blondie and Hi & Lois, and the second by such famous features as Dick Tracy and Prince Valiant. But newspaper comics featuring the third are few and far between.

In America, at least. But Britain has had them since December 5, 1932, when Norman Pett's Jane's Journal: The Diary of a Bright Young Thing debuted in London's Daily Mirror (a leader in British comics, the most famous alumnus of which is Andy Capp). A couple of sources say the character was modeled after Pett's wife, but this may be a pious fiction, as other sources say she was based on model/actress/sexpot Christabel Leighton-Porter, who would have been 19 at the time.

The first episode of Jane (which became the official title of the strip not long after it began, and by the way, no relation) was rather mild, cheesecake-wise — just a one-panel glimpse of Jane (last name Gay, tho this was rarely mentioned) in a petticoat as she prepared to meet Count Fritz von Pumpernikel. But that one did set the stage in at least one way. Fritz, who turned out to be a dachshund, was her constant companion from that moment forward. Jane (with Fritz) continued a few years as a vehicle for daily gags (which often involved her innocently dressing, bathing or catching her skirt on a thorn), but those soon gave way to loose continuity and then, when Don Freeman came aboard as writer in 1938, to full-fledged adventure stories. It was in the middle of a spy adventure that she met Georgie Porgie, who was to be her adversary, ally, and eventually lover (tho from all indications, a chaste one).

Throughout these adventures, Freeman and Pett retained the comedy element. That way, Jane could remain innocent while they brought every manner of contrivance to bear in getting her clothes off. In fact, she stayed innocent even when she "gave her all," as newspaper reports described the event — that memorable day in 1943, when, in a hilarious scene, Freeman and Pett brought circumstances together that forced Jane to run through a cafe crowded with military men, naked as a jaybird.

A week later, the American newspaper Round-up reported on the event, and added, "The British 36th Division immediately gained six miles." Coincidence? Perhaps. 

By that time, Jane had already become something of an icon in British popular culture, so it isn't surprising her doings were so closely followed by British soldiers. Even in America, she'd inspired a few imitators in the "Spicy" line of pulp magazines (the best remembered of which is Sally the Sleuth from Spicy Detective). Her first comic book, which combined reprints with new material, came out in 1944, and new ones appeared regularly for the rest of the '40s. In 1948, Pett moved to a rival paper, The Dispatch, and launched a rival clothes-shedding character, Susie. Pett's assistant, Michael Hubbard, took over the art on Jane. Hubbard used a more realistic style, and the strip had less humor as well. By then it had become practically an institution on the Mirror's comics page, but it lost steam over the next decade. On October 10, 1959, Jane accepted Georgie's proposal of marriage, they sailed off together into the sunset, and the now-legendary series was over..."

Read the original article on Don Markstein's Toonopedia.

Mary Perkins, On Stage

Gratuitous striptease from Mary Perkins

 

Mary Perkins was an American newspaper comic strip by Leonard Starr for the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate. Running from February 10, 1957 to 1979, it

mixed soap opera, adventure and broad humor, while the artwork was characterized by a variety of sweet young things stripping down to their underwear for no apparent reason a studied line and innovative storytelling. 

 

Text adapted from Wikipedia. 

Lilli

Despite the rampantly Anglophile nature of this website, we can safely assume that our subject matter wasn't confined exclusively to the English-speaking world. While the Brits are amongst the most highly fetishized societies in human history, the Germans have never been far behind in the nudge-nudge-wink-wink sweepstakes. Reinhard Beuthien's Lilli is a prime example of this kind of cross-cultural visual phenomena.

Making her debut in the German tabloid Bild-Zeitung (June 24, 1952), Lilli was a one panel cartoon originally intended as a "space filler". The contemporary theme of a pretty young woman making her way in post-war Germany struck a note with the Zaitung's readers, and within a few years, the strip had inspired a range of merchandise including perfume, jewellery and dolls. By 1958, a movie based on the character had been released (Lilli — a Girl From the Big City), indicating the strip's growing popularity.

Generally humorous in tone, the newstrip provided a regular supply of cheesecake for its audience; Lilli frequently appeared in her lingerie during bedtime conversations with her room mate (black cami-knickers seem to have been the fashion at the time). Seasonal activities such as ice skating or tennis were accompanied by "accidental" panty shots, and Lilli's dialogue was often laced with naive innuendo.

On a side note: the Bild Lilli Doll marketed in Germany during the mid 50s is known to have been the precursor to Mattel's Barbie. The long-standing rumor that Barbie was based on a "German sex toy" is a misrepresentation; although Bild Lilli was sold in joke shops and tobacco stores, she was initially designed as a novelty item, similar to the kewpies found in sideshow alley. By the late fifties, Bild Lillie was being sold as a children's fashion doll, complete with wardrobe and accessories. Interestingly, her proportions were considerably more realistic than many later figurines believed to be completely appropriate for young girls.

Go figure.

The OTHER Sally...

Wally Wood's Sally Forth wasn't a sleuth per se, but she shared a surprising number of similarities with her 1930s predecessor, at least during the early stage of her career. Both were blond, voluptuous young women who tended to lose their clothing faster than Scientology loses converts. Originally created for the military press in the late 60s, Sally Forth featured a smooth combination of humor and cheesecake, as depicted in the strip reproduced below:


As noted by Don Markstein amongst others, military tabloids had a history of mildly risque comic strips (both Torchy and Miss Lace started out in army publications), and Sally initially followed the same model, blending barracks comedy with sassy innuendo. The sex appeal was provided by the main character's innocent stripteases - usually down to bra and panties; the nudity was more often implied than explicit.

Some time later, Sally left the armed services and continued her career on the hard core circuit. The dressing scenes and panty shows were soon displaced by full frontal nudity and penetration shots. Various historians feel that the move to XXX pornography marked the decline of Wood's artistic milieu. From this perspective at least, it's unfortunate that more of Sally's earlier escapades haven't survived to the present day.