From Birth to the 1970s

by Tim Pilcher

  This fantasy strip by Trina Robbins has numerous visually coded sexual images, including the first panel with the unicorn.

  TITS AND CLITS

  While Wimmen’s Comix was being put together, another group of female cartoonists were simultaneously planning their own comic book rebuttal to the male-dominated industry.

  Joyce Farmer and Lyn Chevely managed to get Tits & Clits, with its deliberately controversial title, published in July 1972—just three weeks before Wimmen’s Comix #1.

  Farmer and Chevely’s anthology covered delicate subjects such as contraception, masturbation, and abortion, and inevitably attracted the attention of the authorities. When an undercover policeman bought a copy at the Fahrenheit 451 bookstore in San Francisco, the store’s owners were arrested and Farmer and Chevely were sought out. The duo hid the remaining 40,000 copies of the first issue with friends and lived for two years under the threat of a year’s imprisonment, fines of up to $400,000, and the loss of their homes and children, until the District Attorney decided not to take further action.

  Finally coming out of “hiding,” the two defiant women produced Issue 2 of Tits & Clits in 1976 with their bitter experiences clearly etched on the cover. Drawn by Farmer, a woman menstruates on the American flag, declaring, “I leaked, but it’s OK. It’s on the red stripe!”—an obvious swipe at the U.S. authorities. But Farmer and Chevely’s run-in with the police had left psychological scars, as Farmer revealed in 1988: “Deep inside me, fear still censors my brain before my fingers can pirouette.”

  Tits & Clits survived this initial persecution and Farmer and Chevely went on to produce another seven issues, attracting other creators such as Roberta Gregory, famous for her Bitchy Bitch character, and Lee Marrs.

  An excellent and humorous cover by Joyce Farmer for Tits & Clits #6.

  Sharon Rudahl broaches the taboo subject of sex and pregnancy in Tits & Clits #6.

  Jam Bridge by Mary Fleener, from Tits & Clits #7, shows how women often dealt with sexual issues in a more sophisticated manner than men.

  COMIX LEGACY

  The wild, weird, and wacky sex portrayed in the underground comix of ’60s America was just the tip of the iceberg compared to what was happening across the Atlantic, in Europe. Right across the continent, a true revolution was occurring that would change the way French, German, Spanish, and Italian comics would be viewed for ever.

  Bill Griffith’s pastiche dummy cover for Just Laid Comix.

  Victor Moscoso’s erotic Devil’s Wages strip from Zap Comix #9 has a light, yet sexy touch.

  Pulitzer Prize winner Art Spiegelman explores the darker side of romance in this E.C. Comics homage about necrophilia, from Young Lust #1.

  5

  Abandonment Abroad

  EROTIC BANDES DESSINÉES

  While Middle America was blissfully unaware of the East Coast’s growing under-the-counter BDSM comics scene, and had not yet had its senses assaulted by the West Coast’s underground comix, the more liberal artists in Continental Europe were already far ahead in the erotic comic stakes. As early as World War I, groundbreaking artists like René Giffey were producing spicy comic strips and illustrations for mens’ magazines. Giffey’s work, such as Memoirs of a Young Lady and his later illustrations for the Librarie Générale, the Almanach de l’Humour, and the sadomasochistic John Spaning novel L’Educatrice, were pushing the boundaries and inspiring American illustrators to follow suit.

  As the ’60s came into view, the French were ready and waiting for the permissive society to take shape. Comics, while having a degree of respectability, were still regarded as childrens’ fare until a group of young agitator-creators including Jean-Marc Reiser and Georges Wolinski started up the satirical comic magazine Hara Kiri in 1960. The magazine proved so controversial that the French government actually banned it several times. But the seeds were sown for sedition in the strips. Guy Peellaert created his sexually liberated heroines Jodelle and Pravda in 1966, using pop art imagery in a sequential form to create comic strips that were quintessentially ’60s. Set in a contemporary version of Ancient Rome, the redhead Jodelle’s adventures examined all the debauchery and depravity associated with the decaying Roman Empire. While Jodelle was a sophisticated courtier, Pravda (Russian for “the truth”) was the raw leader of a biker gang and the strip had a visceral edginess to it.

  L’Écho des Savanes was first published in 1972 and was the first full comic strip anthology marketed toward an adult-only audience. 1974 saw the launch of Metal Hurlant, a liberated magazine anthology that contained an eclectic mix of science-fiction and fantasy stories, many with more than a tinge of erotica. The following year saw the launch of the bawdy humor title Fluide Glacial (appropriately on April Fool’s Day), and all of these titles helped the French public accept that adult humor and erotic themes were acceptable in comics long before its more puritanical U.S. and U.K. counterparts.

  Toward the end of the ’70s, many respected comic book artists dropped kids’ comics for the more salacious, lucrative, and creatively free pastures of erotic bandes dessinées (French for “comic books”). Artists like Bob Leguay, who had had a respectable 30-year career in childrens’ comics, took a sabbatical—living in the U.S.—and returned five years later to immerse himself in erotica, co-creating strips like Duke White with Patrick Morin and Les Aventures Bestiales de Mary-Jean with Soldero.

  By 1980, the specialist black-and-white magazine anthology BéDé Adult (Adult Comics) was launched. The title ran work by all the greats, such as W. G. Colber, Britain’s “Chris,” Jean Foxer, “McFrahap,” and “Peter.”

  The French adult bande dessinée was finally established as a respectable and thriving genre.

  Paul Gillon’s La Nouvelle Vénus (The New Venus), pen, ink, and watercolor.

  Belgian artist Dany (Henrotin) expresses erotic abandonment with fine brush work in Aurelia.

  A selection of illustrations by Rene Giffey and Georges Levis reveal how explicit French comics were at the beginning of the 20th century.

  Jodelle, drawn in a pop art style by Guy Peellaert and Pierre Bartier, mixed sequential storytelling and iconography.

  Pin-up was a series of nine albums, written by Yann Le Pennetier and drawn by Philippe Berthet, that told the story of Dottie, a cheesecake model, who poses for a comic artist called Milton (Caniff) who draws a strip called Terry (and the Pirates).

  Rene Giffey’s Memoirs of a Young Lady show the inadvertant sauciness of the shop girl.

  GEORGES LÉVIS

  Born in Toulouse in 1924, Jean Sidobre studied fine arts in Paris. After World War II, he started a career in illustration, adopting the pseudonym Sainclair. He worked on numerous titles such as Marius, Ce Soir (Marius, This Evening) and Nous Deux (Us Two). In 1949, he took on the pseudonym Sylvia and created his first comics work in Éva magazine. Sidobre then worked at publishers Le Hérisson, where he drew the comic adaptation of Jean Bruce’s popular OSS 177 spy novels. Sidobre worked at L’Intrépide magazine, where he simultaneously illustrated the series Steve Hollygan and Jim Dynamic between 1958 and 1960 under his own name. He took on the title strip of Mireille magazine, and illustrated various works at Hachette and Heauval. From 1971, he illustrated Mademoiselle Caroline, with text by N. Ferren, and a year later he drew a comic adaptation of the television series Daktari and contributed to Patty, a British magazine.

  But in 1978, Sidobre took a whole new direction in his career, assuming the pseudonym Georges Lévis and specializing in erotic comics thereafter. One of his earliest, and most famous, creations was the 19th century erotic bisexual adventures of Liz et Beth, which was later serialized in the magazine anthology BéDé Adult and collected into volumes by Neptune, Glénat, and Dominique Leroy. In 1982, he adapted Sophie Rostopchin’s erotic novel Petites Filles Modèles and two years later adapted the 1868 erotic novel L’École des Biches (School for Girls, or Morals of the Little Ladies of our Time) by J-P Blanche. In 1985, Lévis collaborated with scriptwriters Michel Denni and P
hilippe Mellot on the album Mémoires d’une Entraîneuse. That same year, Lévis teamed up with Francis Leroi and created Les Perles de l’Amour (The Pearls of Love), a steamy story set in colonial India, and Dodo, 13 Ans in L’Écho des Savanes magazine—the 1987 story of Dodo (translated as “Coco”). His final work was Crimes et Délits (Crimes and Misdemeanors), written by Tony Hawke and colored by fellow erotic artist Erich Von Götha. Only one book was collected before Lévis passed away in 1988, and the work remains unfinished.

  A page from L’Ecole des Biches revealing Lévis’ skill with pen and ink.

  The painted cover to Petites Filles Modèles.

  Lévis’ most famous creation is the bisexual couple Liz et Beth, who were portrayed in lush painted artwork.

  Les Perles de l’Amour, written by Francis Leroi, had a finely painted cover by Lévis.

  Flagellation illustration by Lévis.

  A scene from Liz et Beth in gorgeous full color.

  ROBERT HUGUES

  Georges Lévis was a hugely influential erotic artist in France and inspired many creators, including Robert Hugues. Hugues was born in Nice in 1931, and studied architecture at the National School of Decorative Arts in his home town. He devoted most of his spare time freelancing for the publication Casse-cou et Myster. Then, in 1961, he joined Artima Editions, where he worked alongside fellow Nice artists like Bob Leguay and the brothers Robert and Raoul Giordan.

  Just like Georges Lévis, Hugues drifted toward erotic comics at the end of the ’70s. He took a multitude of pseudonyms, each allowing him to experiment with a different style. Under the guise of Trebor (Robert in reverse) he drew his Vihila and Yolanda series. Simultaneously influenced by Burne Hogarth and Georges Lévis, Hugues adopted his best-known pseudonym, W.G. Colber. His Colber persona drew numerous torid tales such as The Confessions of Nado, the stories of a happy hooker, and Lydia, Maidservant of Luxury, a fantasy about a nymphomaniac maid, which were collected into four volumes. Other series were Tania and Bertille, about two ambitious nurses who sleep their way to the top with practically every doctor and patient they come across, and The History of E, a pun on the classic erotic novel, The Story of O.

  So strong was Georges Lévis’ influence over Hugues that the latter was asked to take over Liz et Beth when Lévis died. “I was enthusiastic at the beginning, and I carried out tests, which had been accepted by the publishers, Glénat,” recalled the artist. “But I very quickly realized that it was not possible because I was too busy with my other publisher and I regretfully had to decline the offer.”

  The artist’s final alter ego was Mancini, who drew in a crisp clear line inspired by erotic Italian comic master Milo Manara. Mancini’s output included the de Sadeian story of Ninon, a country girl who is easy prey for the local Count. The timid young lady becomes his sex slave and is beaten, violated, and degraded until she breaks free of her old personality, discovering liberation in an echo of the classic Justine.

  Mancini’s erotic adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers had them more worried about their “family jewels” than the royal family’s wealth, and waving their pork swords around, rather than fencing with real ones. And when it came to women, they were “all for one, and one for all!”

  Hugues’ work appeared primarily in monthly magazines BéDé Adult and Sexbulles and has been translated into Spanish, Dutch, German, Italian, and English.

  The cover to The Adventures of Cléo.

  Many of W.G. Colber’s drawings were detailed and explicit, not to mention very difficult to perform without a snorkel!

  JEAN-CLAUDE FOREST AND BARBARELLA

  As the permissive society exploded in 1960s France, one comic creator who truly caught the Zeitgeist was Jean-Claude Forest. Born in the Parisian suburb of Perreux in 1930, Forest studied at the Paris School of Design, worked as an illustrator in the early ’50s, and became the premier paperback cover artist of the French science-fiction imprint, Le Rayon Fantastique. But it was when he created the character of Barbarella in 1962 that Forest became world-famous.

  “George Gallet, the editor of Le Rayon Fantastique, was also in charge of a quarterly adult publication called V Magazine,” recalled Forest in the ’80s. “One day, he asked me if I wanted to do a strip for him—no holds barred! Twenty years ago, we were living in a time of complete censorship in comics… That’s why I was doing mostly illustrations and book covers. Everything was forbidden, especially the female form. Fantasy was also frowned upon, because it was felt that it would corrupt the morals of children. Gallet asked me to do a kind of female Tarzan—‘Tarzella’—but that idea didn’t interest me. It did lead me to come up with Barbarella though, and for the next two years, at the rate of eight pages every three months I told her adventures, going with the flow of inspiration without any preplanning.”

  Barbarella told the sexploitational space saga of a young heroine crash-landing on planet Lythion. She becomes involved in a war between the Crystallians, who inhabit a giant greenhouse, and the barbaric Orhomrs, who live in the frozen wasteland outside. With a little bit of love, she persuades them to call a truce. In 1964, two years after Barbarella’s first appearance in V Magazine, Eric Losfeld published a collection. Despite the censor’s ruling that the book could not be publicly displayed, it sold over 200,000 copies and was translated across the world.

  Dubbed, inaccurately, the “first comic strip for grownups,” Barbarella attracted rave reviews from a varied assortment of magazines. The French literary weekly, Arts, called it “a modern epic” while Newsweek lauded the space vixen as “a mythic creature of the space age” and Playboy agreed it was “the very ‘apoptheosis’ of eroticism.” After that, the sexy space woman’s adventures took her on a whole gamut of sexcapades throughout the known universe, encountering pirates living inside a giant jellyfish, a gang of children who employ carnivorous dolls, and a handsome, blind angel.

  Dino De Laurentis quickly bought the film rights and offered the role to Jane Fonda, who promptly threw the script in the trash. Her then-husband, director Roger Vadim, persuaded her something original and exciting could be done with the subject. Forest worked for eight months on the picture, which was released in 1968.

  After Barbarella, Forest developed a sequel, Les Coleres du Mange-Minutes (The Wrath of the Minute-Eater). Not wanting to be typecast as an erotic artist, he emphasized the science-fiction and poetry. This resulted in “a terrible disaster!” Forest exclaimed. “I didn’t want to go deeper into eroticism, I wanted to manifest my freedom. Besides, I’m against pornography. My intention was to remove Barbarella from her public image.” After the commercial failure of Minute-Eater, Forest’s career hit a slump. “For two years, I couldn’t find any work,” he recalled. “I was considered a distinguished erotomaniac by the comics industry! They wanted to give me things to do, but they were afraid of my reputation. They thought, ‘If it’s Forest, there will be sex in it and we’ll be in trouble!’”

  Forest then did a loose space adaptation of Jules Verne’s Mysterious Island, called Mysterieuse Matin, Midi et Soir (Mysterious Morning, Noon, and Evening). The Mysterieuse characters reappeared in Forest’s series The Adventures of Hypocrite, the artist’s appropriately named return to erotic themes. Barbarella then appeared in Le Semble Lune (The Moon Child), where she explored a dream dimension and finally gets married and has a baby, Little Fox. This was the last Barbarella story Forest drew before handing the art chores to Daniel Billon. In 1981, Forest wrote a final episode of Barbarella, for L’Écho des Savanes.

  Forest also wrote for a number of France’s comic artists, including Jacques Tardi and Paul Gillon—whose own erotic sci-fi comics paid homage to Forest.

  Forest received the Angouleme Comics Festival’s 1984 Grand Prize and the “Magician of Comics” was even given his own French postage stamp in 1989. Forest passed away on December 29, 1998, aged just 68, but his sultry space siren lives on in Robert Rodriguez’s 2009 remake of the movie.

  Jean Claude Forest’s class
ic creation Barbarella depicted a sexually liberated woman, reflecting the social mores of the 1960s. Barbarella would use her body to disarm enemies and to enjoy robotic lovers.

  GEORGES PICHARD

  One of the true greats of erotic bandes dessinées, Georges Pichard, started out working in publishing, but became an illustrator in 1946. After working on various magazines such as C’est Paris for 10 years, he then moved into comics with his debut strip, Miss Mimi. In 1964, he teamed up with writer Jacques Lob, and they created the superhero parodies Ténébrax and Submerman, but it wasn’t long before Pichard moved on to become a pioneer of erotic comics.

  Pichard’s first erotic work was Blanche Épiphanie, written by Lob and published in 1967. The story was a parody of the damsel-in-distress novels from the turn of the century, with the heroine constantly molested by the oversexed villain, Adolphus, until her masked hero rescues her. Three years later, Pichard teamed up with Tunisian-born writer George Wolinski to create their famous series, Paulette. Wolinski was no stranger to erotic comics, as he’d started contributing political and saucy cartoons, illustrations, and comic strips to the satirical monthly Hara Kiri as early as 1960.

  But Paulette’s adventures took Pichard and Wolinski’s creativity to new levels. Paulette, like many of her comic heroine counterparts, invariably became involved in escapades that involved sex, many including bondage scenes. Pichard’s art had a unique appearance, drawing tall, well-endowed, powerful-looking women, whose large eyes and excessive mascara gave them a Teutonic, gothic look.