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

Adelman, Bob

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1904989187 ISBN 13: 9781904989189

Publisher: Erotic Print Society, 2006

Synopsis

Crammed with 140 illustrations, twenty in color, a collection contains selections from the Tijuana Bibles, risque comic books of the thirties, forties, and fifties that poked erotic fun at the celebrities and issues of the day. 20,000 first printing.

About this title

Review:

"Charming and evocative, these artefacts present a little-known cultural history." - The New Yorker"

Synopsis:

This book talks about Bob Adelman, with an introductory Essay by Art Spiegelman. "Tijuana Bibles" is a first-ever collection of America's underground pornographic comics from the 1930s to the 1950s. Known as "Tijuana Bibles" these highly explicit comic books constitute a fascinating view of the unknown, erotic America of that turbulent era. Tijuana, the Mexican border town just south of Los Angeles, was made infamous by two things: it's reputation as the American tourist's Sodom and Gomorrah (think Prohibition days and live sex shows with donkeys) and the eponymous Bible. "Tijuana Bibles" (known also as 'eight-pagers') were pornographic comic books produced in the United States from the 1930s to the 1950s. Printed in black on cheap white paper and eight pages long, their popularity peaked during the time of the Great Depression. They were drawn and written by anonymous artists and printed and distributed by no less shady publishers. The art is crude but executed with immense vitality. The subject matter usually consists of explicit sexual encounters featuring popular cartoon characters, as well as famous film stars and politicians.

In a superb essay introducing "Tijuana Bibles: Art and Wit in America's Forbidden Funnies, 1930s-1950s", Pulitzer-prize winning cartoonist Art Spiegelman writes that these 'cheerfully pornographic and downright illegal booklets...probably weren't produced in Tijuana (or Havana or Paris or London, as some of the covers imply)'. Nor were they bibles. The location was more likely ironic. As wry and raunchy as the subject it celebrates, this inspired volume introduces a new generation to the "Tijuana Bibles", underground comic art above ground for the first time since they were produced. Still unexpectedly shocking and devoted to making a sexual mockery of every sacred cow in the pasture, the Bibles are unveiled here with 100 classic examples in full. It's folk art with a subversive edge.

About this edition

• Publisher: Erotic Print Society
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1904989187
• ISBN 13: 9781904989189
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 160