Knife to meet you

Watch out! This senorita means business. After the recent post discussing how Lupe Velez was so casual about brandishing her sidearm I thought it would be interesting to follow up with a cover where the Bolles girl looked like she was both willing and able to do some bodily harm. This 1940s reprint from a 1935 issue of Breezy Stories is a most unusual Bolles cover. The most obvious reason is because Breezy Stories was a pulp that trafficked in stories of a rather demure nature far removed from the true Spicy pulps. As described in a 1932 issue of Writer's Digest the editors of Breezy looked for: "dramatic, powerful human problem stories in many of which the sex angle is merely suggested." Curiously the article later indicates the editors "do not care for stories that have a distinct foreign flavor." Despite these high minded descriptions it is obvious that Bolles was hired to to sex things up and add a pinch of foreign spice. Not only did the cover have the exotic accent claimed to be so unpalatable by the editors but also a threat of violence that was entirely absent from within the pages of the magazine.


With this cover Bolles was dipping his brush into the spicy menace genre monopolized by Culture Publications, an imprint started by Harry Donenfeld (who later made his fortune with DC comics) that included in its line-up Spicy Detective Stories, Spicy Adventure Stories, Spicy Mystery Stories, and later adding the incongruous Spicy Western Stories. As risqué as were the stories inside their pages, they paled against the visceral impact of the covers, particularly those by the master of the genre Hugh Ward. His fulsome, barely clothed women practically burst with goggle eyed panic as beetle-browed thugs, mad scientists and backwoods geeks menaced them with dagger, pistol, poisonous snake, blackjack, raygun, scimitar, bullwhip, syringe, branding iron, spear, dumbbell (wielded by the carnival strongman), arrow, harpoon and other instruments of violence. For the sake of comparison, most of the covers shown here involve knives. They are also unusual because they depict some tough harem girls you wouldn't want to mess with, instead of the typical shrieking showgirl. But just from these few examples it is clear that Ward owned the Spicy Menace genre. Even H.L. Parkhurst's covers for these titles, which dealt with equally lurid setups, appear almost classical in contrast.
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Aside from the standard woman in peril theme there were at least two other storylines that run through the spicy menace covers. One pandered to race fears, and the other not so subtly hinted about the impending fate of a brazen woman foolish enough to display her charms to the wrong audience. Not surprisingly the spicy menace titles were prime targets for decency leagues and the editors tried to succor them by publishing less graphic versions of the covers and later by replacing the Spicy Titles with the less provocative "Speed". Neither worked, and they were eventually hounded out of circulation.

So back to our Bolles girl. She must be considered a sort of bespoke or one-off cover as Bolles never did another that remotely resembled her situation or disposition. And frankly, I don't think he was comfortable doing this cover. For as suggestive and even salacious as some of his other work was, it totally lacks the misogyny and sadism that run so rampant through Spicy Menace art. It's also curious that it appeared just a few months after the Culture Publications titles hit the newsstands. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if Ward painted the Hashish for Hoshepure cover to show Bolles how spicy menace was done. Finally, there's one other unusual detail in the Bolles cover painting and no, it's not the lack of the raised pinky. Can you spot it?

Foxy Hunter

Just a short post this time around. I've been in England this week and have discovered that our man Bolles has been misleading us about the appearance of women on the other side of the pond. Consider the evidence on your left. Our cover girl to this 1935 issue of Spicy Stories has nothing in common with the Geordie's I've spied strolling the river walk, as attractive as they are. But perhaps I simply haven't looked hard enough, and so I will update you if my research yields any new insights. As some of you know Bolles did an entire series of covers on girls of the world and so my work must continue, undaunted.

Cover Girls

This 1930 issue of Talking Screen, which was soon retitled Silver Screen, is among one of only four cover portraits that Bolles did in his long career. To my mind it is far and away his best. It is instantly recognizable as a Bolles but still captures the essence of Nancy (she's always seemed a bit of a pixie to me). The gauzy look to the edges and lines make me think she was done in oil pastel, a medium Bolles would only have employed by directive. His cover for the debut issue of Talking Screen was a pastel of Norma Shearer in the Armstrong style, so blatant was it that Armstrong did his own version of of pose just a few months later for a competing movie rag. This Carroll cover is far more successful and I only wish there were more. The one unfortunate element is that the type runs right over Enoch's signature, which is uncharacteristically large.

Now it is true that Bolles did a dozen or so figural illustrations of Hollywood starlets for Film Fun but most were a bit of a disappointment, clearly taken from stock photos--despite the captions claiming they were specially posed for Film Fun--and they come off a bit generic. The lone exception was the over the top painting of Lupe Velez as pirate girl. I would be grateful if someone could explain to me the popularity of the girl-as-pirate, for a while it seemed that every illustrator worth his salt was shoving them off the plank one after another. The Bolles cover certainly captures the vivacious energy of the Mexican Spitfire, perhaps because she may have actually posed for it, or at least that is what Enoch's daughter once told me. The one misfire in this painting is the lame flintlock. I could swear Lupe's brandishing a purse sized can of mace.

Last Call!

Drat! Or should I say draft? Midnight yesterday was the last call for beer day. This is a cover I've been waiting for an opportunity to share for so long I simply couldn't throw it back in the cooler for another year. A bit of history: long ago I spotted a smudgy thumbnail of this 1922 issue of Judge on eBay and it immediately set my Bolles radar pinging. I had no choice but to get it. After the issue showed up in the mail my intuition was confirmed. The telltale EB was faintly initialed in the shadow of the glass (notice the tiny conceit of how the descender of the "B" extends ever so slightly out of the shadow). What a thrill. This has to be the most atypical cover of any Bolles ever did.

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So what clued me in? First, even at low resolution I could tell it was a quality illustration, but then Judge had a bullpen full of top rate illustrators including the likes of Flagg, Held, and Lagatta. What set this image off were the lighlights. Bolles did a lot of commercial art and reflective materials (glass, porcelain) often had strong highlights with the light source located directly in the midline. Second, the shadow had some Bolles touches too it, amorphic with a warm to cold register. Or maybe I just lucked out.

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At any rate I think the cover is a hoot, and you have to wonder how long it took Enoch to paint all those little bubbles. And of all things, the cover was swiped by another artist (Bolles hated that) nearly a decade later, on another cover of Judge no less (hard to believe prohibition lasted that long). Who knows if the "model" was a glass of root beer or the real thing. Although Enoch might have an occasional beer I very much doubt if he took his oils and canvas to the nearest speakeasy to solicit an appropriate model.

Cheers!

Walk on Stilts Day?!

Yes, it is. Really! Once again, we have a perfectly topical example by Bolles on hand to help us in acknowledging this most inexplicable of celebrations. And what a great example she is. I love the bows and how the tails drape behind her. She's having no trouble at all negotiating the stilts even with those pumps. Our Bolles girl is certainly no klutz.

True Inspiration!

The classic illustration blog Today's Inspiration celebrated its 1,000th post yesterday. It's probably safe to assume most of you are well familiar with TI (I get more feeds from it than any other site on the internet). Started four years ago by the commercial illustrator Leif Peng, TI is a wide ranging survey on illustration that balances entertainment with erudition. And of course it is chock full of fabulous scans of great art. Leif's most recent series of posts has been on the manifold genius of Al Parker, but for me (and I suspect many other followers) it is his entries on the many the long forgotten talents that are most inspirational. With passion and conviction, Leif reminds us again and again that there was a time--not that long ago--when illustration was a vibrant, influential field teeming with talent and imagination.

I also owe Leif a personal note of gratitude. Two years ago my Enoch Bolles flickr site was 'erased' by an anonymous sysadmin because the scans I posted weren't mine. Leif was sympathetic to my cause and graciously provided me space in TI to write about Enoch Bolles and present some of his art. The enthusiastic feedback I got inspired me in turn to make the leap to create my own blog (shoutout to the Dawl for making it look so good), and Leif''s support has also spawned several other illustration blogs. So let's all raise our glasses to toast Leif and let him know we are looking forward to the next one thousand posts on TI.

P.S.: Leif has posted his top 10 most downloaded images. Can you guess the theme? PINUPS!

Upped-skirts, Downed Panties and Other Pinup Clichés

There's a very amusing post at Illustration Art on the physics of pinup illustration. Unfortunately it made light of a subject worthy of more gravitas. So today debuts the first in a series of occasional lectures on the topic of pinup clichés. We must begin by acknowledging that a pinup is de natura iure itself a cliché, and so our endeavour will focus on the various subspecies made so popular by the leading pinup practitioners. Among them a special shout out (shout at?) must go to Art Frahm. He was the first to document the weird phenomenon of the opposing forces of updraft and gravity well, originating approximately at the girl's kneecaps with the result of a simultaneous upskirt and panty drop. In most cases Frahm embellishes the composition by the addition of the so-called lucky leerer and inexplicably celery, as first observed by the pop-culture commentator James Lileks. On our right we feature a rare example of a Frahm front flank updraft, which seems to have aroused as much enthusiasm (at least in the postman whose appointed rounds have come to a screeching halt) as would be expected from the more common rear orientation. The final element is the orientation of girl's face. For the sake of the composition but forsaking logic, her embarrassment is directed to the viewers of the painting rather than the lucky leerer, despite the fact that we are out of the site-line of the naughty bits.

Gil Elvgren is another of the upskirt devotees and he painted several examples early in his career, which began in the late 1930s. Clearly seen in these examples is his singular contribution to the genre; namely the pursed lips variation to the more general expression of abashment endemic to the pinup world. Elvgren used this expression only occasionally in his earliest work but by the 1970s (see example on right), the "Limpet"--as some disparagingly refer to it--became the standard of the Elvgren girl. Judge for yourself whether the term is apt.

The previous setups are variations on the more generic Klutz as depicted here by K.O. Munson. In most examples the girl is shown suffering from a moment of athletic ineptitude but other examples entirely forgo the pretense of a setup. We are led to belief the girl simply lacks the basic motor skills required for bipedalism.
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So where does Enoch Bolles fit in this discussion. It must be acknowledged that Bolles resorted to, if not created, many of the standard setups including the upskirt, the snagged skirt, the klutz, the girl astride beach toy, the girl with terrier, dressed in a tea towel, sleepy time girl, hairpin pose as well as many others. Yet there is a telling difference to the Bolles girl and that is her remarkable lack of self-consciousness. Caught in a situation that would shame others, she registers no embarrassment at all. Take a look at these examples and you'll see her unique temperament. True, our Spicy Stories girl may simply be unaware of her condition but you can't say the same for the girl on the cover of this 1937 issue of Film Fun. Miss Bo Peep blithely deals with her prediciment where the Driben girl registers obvious annoyance.

The final two covers are even more emblematic of the Bolles difference. Here we see standard setups for the upskirt and klutz. Most pinup girls would have been mortified but the Bolles girls are having a good time, and I hope you have too. Class dismissed.