GENE BILBREW REVEALED: The Unsung Legacy of a Fetish Art Pioneer: 1 (African American Artists)

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I have bought thousands of books wrapped in plastic or through the mail sight unseen. Most of them have nothing I want. ‘Panty Raiders' was the buy of a lifetime. I have read it or looked at the drawings thousands of times. It was what inspired me to seek out an artist and do my own stories. It was, in short, just the kind of setup that encouraged the two artists to kibbitz each other’s work. And also to lend each other a hand when deadlines loomed. Ditko’s material showed a total unawareness of sex while Stanton’s material conveyed a kooky preoccupation with it. Yet both shared the same ambition of make it as artists; and both, one might say, were earnest and obsessed.”

EXOTIQUE is thoughtfully prepared and edited for those whose outlook on life is sound and hopeful: for those who find enjoyment in the bizarre and the unusual both in action and in attire. Why must we all be conformists… follow the crowd? Are we not able to think for ourselves, act as we feel and dress as we desire? This is an unbeatable combination and it IS within our reach. Her mother was angry that Stanton never claimed recognition or royalties because of his role in creating the character. When Amber asked her father about it, “his response,” she said, “made it clear that it was something he would never even consider because the ideas were freely given. We had a great working relationship,” Stanton recalled in a 1988 interview. “We were the only guys who could have gotten along with each other.” After her father’s death, she found Ditko’s phone number and called him. She wanted to know if he had any memories he could share. He couldn’t remember anything, she reported, and he denied that her father had anything to do with creating Spider-Man.STANTON’S DAUGHTER Amber wrote about her father’s contribution to Ditko’s creation of Spider-Man in an article, “A Tangled Web,” originally published in The Creativity of Steve Ditko (2012). She remembered watching with the family the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade on tv when she was nine years old. As a giant balloon of Spider-Man appeared on the screen, her father exclaimed: "Would you believe that— I never would have thought," she quotes her father saying with amusement. Says Seves: “One could only imagine how gratifying Ditko’s presence must have been to Stanton after his time with Grace; from being around someone who was repulsed by art to being around someone whose very waking moment was consumed by it. ‘There were times Steve would spend twenty hours straight doing a comic,’ Stanton remembered. It's all your fault Jim that we're like this!" Pete grumbled glancing down at his prettily flared skirts. "Aw shut up!" Jim retorted, "Do you think I like it any better than you, being dolled up like this?" Born in Los Angeles in 1923, Bilbrew's first career was as a vocal group singer, performing with The Mellow Tones and the Basin Street Boys. [1] :13–26 [4]

The Sorority plans a party for the ‘Delta Delta' girls, and the boys are mortified to find that they must serve. The boys were quite concerned. "But won't the Delta Delta girls spread the word around the campus about our being your . . . your maids?"The book’s only scholarly flaw is Seves’ failure to caption the illustrations; they are usually explained in the adjacent text, but you have to look hard for it. A photograph of an attractive middle-aged woman we determine is Stanton’s mother only because the text nearby is about her. In fact, while Stanton usually denied having influenced Ditko’s conception of Spider-Man—“Steve doesn’t like me to talk about him,” he told Theakston, “my contribution to Spider-Man was almost nil”— he sometimes admitted that the web-shooter idea was his.

Gene Bilbrew (1923-74) was one of the finest artists in the genre. Immediately following the Second World War he worked for the Will Eisner Comic Book Studio. He then enrolled in Burne Hogarth's School of Visual Arts where one of his fellow students was Eric Stanton. In 1952, perhaps at Stanton's recommendation, he began drawing bondage art for Irving Klaw. His Klaw bondage work is of little interest to the Petticoat Punishment enthusiast, but can be found in the Bizarre Comix series by Belier Press. This can be read in a single afternoon. Most of it is taken up by pictures, which is no complaint at all, given the fantastic quality of the art (this would be five stars if this book were bigger and in color), and the fact that almost nothing is known about Gene. The sorority girls decide to have a dance and have their maids come in formals. First, they must buy them. The girls lend the boys dresses for the shopping trip. a b c Hyperallergic Daily magazine article, "A Long-Lost Artist of the 1950s Sexual Underground" by Jim Linderman, 5 January 2015 at hyperallergic.com Jan 6, 2015Seves quotes Ditko about the full-face mask: “I did it because it hid [Peter Parker’s] obviously boyish face. It would also add mystery to the character and allow the reader/viewer the opportunity to visualize, to ‘draw,’ his own preferred expression Peter Parker’s face and, perhaps, become the personality behind the mask.” During his last months with Rogers, Stanton was also producing work for Irving Klaw. Klaw, self-named the "Pin-up King," was a merchant of sexploitation, fetish, Hollywood glamour pin-up photographs, and underground films. His business, which eventually became Movie Star News, began in 1938 when he and his sister Paula opened a basement level struggling used bookstore on 14th St. in Manhattan. I heard the sibilant rustle of silk behind me, and glanced over my shoulder to glimpse Pete and Jim mincing into the room on the arms of their Mistresses. We three did look like French Maids except perhaps for bulges missing in the proper places. His text is accompanied throughout by lots and lots of illustrations, many in color, and Seves gives the histories of several of Stanton’s serials and tells their stories. The book is virtually an extensively annotated bibliography of Stanton’s life work. But it’s more than that. It’s also a detailed biography, a sketchy history of “the bizarre,” and an exhibition of Stanton’s ladies. Reproduction throughout is high quality.