Bishop / Benson / Stanton / Willie / etc

[FreakAnimalFinland]

Well, one could add this to pornography appreciation topic, but well, I consider these guys more as artists. Many people know guys like Stanton, because his stuff is simply well available. Huge books compiled by Taschen, are indeed nice, and probably got them all. And some of his self finances Stantoons booklets too. But when you look at the perhaps lesser known (outside the "scene") guys like Bishop of Benson, perhaps they should be introduced to some noise folks too?

Was just reading through some german edition of Bishop re-prints. Cheap pulp style coarse paper, A4 size softcover book. It reminded I actually had few other compilations of his works too. Art of Bondage by Bishop, was it? Much thicker and a lot more content. He seems very much like "traditional american illustrator" in my eyes. In bondage art it really set some standards. Heavy use of black & white contrast, very talented, but still stylished and not "realistic". Big influence for me in times when I had my attempts to do this type of stuff. Some can see early Erotic Perversions for my 90's ink on paper attempts to put my interest of rubber & bondage on paper.

Perhaps better just cut & paste something about this guy:

Robert K. Bishop
"Bishop"
Born in the state of Michigan, "Bishop" became an illustrator who studied art in the city of Detroit (Michigan Art School).
His early works that reached notoriety after his beginnings with Centurians Publications, and other assorted early "Scene"
magazines created a following, this writer included, that to this day grows larger.

Often referred to only as "Bishop", he is best known for his black and white work, with the use of airbrush to generate
texture and sheen to his drawings.

He is considered by many to be the pre-eminent Master of bondage illustrations repeatedly featuring helpless women
straining in stringent bondage, usually dressed in latex, and heavily gagged.

Having expressed concerns with the "politically correct yet consensual, "Harmony Philosophy" pertaining to fiction,
he directed his endeavors with the House of Milan, and it was with HOM that much of his most published works were seen,
including the "Fanny Hall" erotic comic series, and covers for the Geoffrey Merrick, and Frank Campbell novels.
The rest is History.

He just followed his natural instincts and pretty much updated his  memories of John Willie's work, much in the same way
Lucas and Spielberg  updated their memories of Saturday matinee serials for their Indiana Jones    -- i.e., with a vengeance.
In addition to his artistry, he added a strong  heterosexual element hithertofore essentially ignored by other artists.
In spite of being somewhat revolutionary, he thought nothing of it and was  even surprised when asked why he didn't use
a "nom de perv" pseudonym like  virtually everyone else in the industry. Although "Bishop" was well suited  to the genre,
it was his real name.


Barb (Barbara Behr)  Bish, and HOM were the only game in town until Harmony was created much much later.
By then, in fact, Barb was already itching to split off to create California Star and Bish's will was beginning to flag.
But prior to that he had created much of the most glorious BD art ever drawn.

He was certainly a loner and a something of a recluse, especially after he left HOM, but he also spent a lot of time
prior to that as a motorcycle  enthusiast, an avid moviegoer, a comic book fan, and fine  photographer.

From my research it is suggested that he was an avid gun enthusiast,  though not really a collector, per se.
He  had rifles and hand-guns which he used for target shooting in the hills, but    stopped a bit short of being a collection.

Sadly, "The Bishop" ended his own life at the age of 46.  For reasons known but to  himself. 
It is not up to me to either question his actions nor to judge him by them.
Each man must do what he feels in his heart and mind.

In reality, "The Bishop" will never be gone from us.  His works, and his memory live on.

My thanks to Hunter Rose who helped complete my compendium of known works, and also my sincere
gratitude to Geoffrey Merrick for sharing with  me, some personal  insight about his friend. Additionaly 
Mistress Michelle has recently included her thoughts which can be read below.

For the month of June we honor Robert Bishop. In 1979 , while  doing a photo shoot for HOM I met Robert Bishop. The same day I also
met Campbell. Campbell , Bill Ward and Bishop in Bondage were the three main B&D artist of that time. Some also say Wiley and Stanton.
Bob however touched me because after the photo shot he presented me  with a drawing he had done of myself. Bob Bishop started drawing
bondage over 43 years ago for Centurian Publishing. Because Centurian  was not big enough to pay his salary he went to HOM for full time
work and was there for nearly 20 years. Most of his drawings were  done in the mid 70's and early 80's . In the mid 80's he took over as
editor and chief. He did a few drawings at that time and left around 1988. He died suddenly in 1991. We corresponded for years until I
lost touch. He is surely missed.

Mistress Michelle

Couple of examples. For more, just put search on images of "Bishop Bondage" or something.
I do appreciate the nice airbrush techniq he is master, but for reason another, I do prefer a lot of works with simply high contrast black & white only. With no grey tones.





Later about Benson..

[FreakAnimalFinland]

Simon Benson
don't really find any information about this guy, but remember when as youngster was enthusiastic of old editor of <<O>> to launch Marquis magazine, and this new slick & neat glossy magazine often includes works of Benson. They also put out big number of Benson Books with c. 30 illustrations each and the text. That stuff was obviously all heavy rubber stuff. Just bondage and rubber. But later on got very nice book SLAVE WORLD - A Benson Artwork Portfolio, published by Discipline Press B.V. in 2000. c. 50 full page illustration on heavy b/w ink, which expanded (but not abandoned!) the heavy rubber themes into hardcore s/m.  All the typical characteristics of Benson are there. Unnaturally oversized tits. Extensive shackles and restraints. Total objectification of female gender. Piercings and "scriptures" in body. Some images in this book overlap with other publications, but this is very good way to start. His style to draw is somewhere between caricatyre and actually "relevant" pornographic illustration. Exaggerated characteristics like above mentioned obsessively large tits (not always, but often) and physically impossible positions of slaves and so on contribute to the artistic side. Not photorealistic by any means, just nice slightly amateurish, but on level of ideas, pretty unique.

About Bishop and Benson, what I do like, is that in scene so heavily focused on submissive male, often these comic artists actually are bringing the kind of old pornographic drive of enslaved and torture women. There is no reference to healthy relationships or some humanrights agenda I sense from a lot of bondage photography/magazines. It is just made to serve the lowest urges and sexual needs, but in form of quality art.

Perhaps easy way to start would be his more colorful works...

Benson2000 - He is definitely the most published and successful illustrator of the bizarre – more than 50 books have been illustrated by Simon Benson. He consequently draws up scenarios others don't even dare to think of. Hi clear, distinctive style throws a glaring spotlight onto the darkest of human fantasies. BENSON2000 contains a selection of brand new, all previously unpublished material, a lot of them in full colour. Format 24 x 16 cm, 96 pages

I actually don't have it, but got to get it sometime in future.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

Finnish artist who have been published internationally known as Roy Tekri or Tendril (among other aliases). On pages of Secret, Marquis, .. was it <<O>>>? And Also in Marquis rubber comic special Rubber Monastery. Great artists. Perhaps I must underline that I do like more of his pre-computer works on pure black & white. But that's just personal preference. Couple years ago, I was hosting panel of pornographic comics in Helsinki for full hall of people. There was myself as the main speaker, and Nalle Virolainen (cult s/m artists), Tendril and Reetta known of munabomber sex humor zines. Have met him few times besides that in various places. Anyways, I've been pretty surpriced that his album available even on Freak Animal distribution havn't sold shit. That's really good stuff. His way of using heavy contrast ink & white with very stylish brushworks was something very tasty. His new computer colored / treated images are good as well. He seems to dislike the commercial porno world, but also heavily XXX rated sadomasochistic & marginal fetish work can't really be very well distributed in regular comic world. He belongs to few artists in Finland, who'd I automatically recommend. His works on the 90's X -magazine. All his works on Secret & Marquis related. His works in old Kinky Club mags. etc. Some samples, not the best, but material seems pretty hard to find online:




This man should be published more. And in some right channels...

[tiny_tove]

Shitload of Stanton images - http://fdhfhdfh.110mb.com/index.html

[FreakAnimalFinland]

Been going through complete Bizarre 2xbook set for some days now. I don't know, but I'd hope this publication would be familiar to any fetishist. Dating back to 1946-1959. It's all the old school stuff. Corcets, high heels, neat dresses. But also bondage, amputees, rubber capes, etc. There exists in Taschen Icons series very cheap Best of Bizarre compilation too. If you don't need the full edition with almost 2000 pages worth of stuff, this nearly 200 pages paperback for probably less than 10$ should be good investment.
There are plenty of John Willie's works of all types. He was author, photographer as well as beyond excellent illustrator. Think about the biggest masters of old school USA pin-up (a'la Alberto Vargas, George Petty, etc..), but just high heels, long gloves, rope, gags, shackles...

comics style:


illustrations:


Letter section of the magazine sometimes accused to be invented letters, but also famous characters like Fakir Musafar writes in some issues about his rituals & body modifications, which were indeed some pioneer works just like Willie's works. It's quite strange how "close" some of these things are. F.M.'s Bodyplay magazines used to be found in some comic shops, despite they contain no drawings really. Was exposed to some of them very early on. When he published his Spirit+Flesh hardcoverbook 6 years ago, I knew I had to get it. Wrote to man directly and told him I just saw short document piece of him aired in biggest Finnish TV channels. He was very surpriced about that. Got to purchase signed 1st edition of the book (well, it's still available - signing included, hah..). But still, to see how distant, but somehow amazingly close some of these infamous characters are. Willie never made big$ and died from illness in early 60's. Fakir is still around. Modern Primitives (Re/search) also includes plenty of that.

Anyways, one could guess that Willies influence on anyone after him is pretty extensive. Direct or indirect. And if this mans work is unknown, he'd be probably among first ones essential to check out.

[tiny_tove]

A person I know in Milan owns several Stanton originals. I should have killed her and stole the goods.

My all time fave is TOM OF FINLAND, still doesn't fail to amaze me after so many years.

http://www.tomoffinlandfoundation.org/

Bothis his illustrative works than graphic novels were amazing.



this is a cheap TASCHEN collection featuring plenty of his comic books and a shitload of pics of his "documentation archive"






Video from the leather report: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8KdpUZJ3zg

[FreakAnimalFinland]

If you are into more rare Tom stuff, there was couple of years ago published book by Like (fin), on hardcover, which included material from private collections of finnish guys. Including some previously unseen images, scetches etc. It was at first expensive, but I guess no matter how culturally cool it would be, macho homo material simply won't have mass appeal for Finnish market, hah, so now you find this book often in discount sales for pretty nice price.
I got few copies of old Tom comp. book for sale in my shop. I think that title was sold out decade ago or more. But of course mostly same stuff as always.

[tiny_tove]

Uh never heard of this. Could you drop me a line in case you see this?

Fore everybody obsessed by Tom, a must see is this .

[Tommy Carlsson]

Tom deserves his own thread, right?

Mikko -- have you seen the new Taschen Tom of Finland XXL book? Too expensive for me, but I reckon this is meant to be the definitive book on Tom. It would be interesting to know if the private collection material you mention might be included in it.

The old big hardcover Taschen did around 10 years ago (can' remember the exact title) was somewhat impressive, although the paper quality sucked, as did most of the repro work. Having seen original Tom art at an exhibition, most of the published pics look absolutely terrible. I hope this has been rectified in the XXL book, but like I said, money is tight and I can't really justify paying the £135 price...

[tiny_tove]

Tom deserves his own thread, right?

I second that.

Anyway I saw XXL in Berlin at Bruno's and I didn't buy it because I couldn't fit it in my luggage and I have no bookshelves where it could fit.

[Strömkarlen]

The old big hardcover Taschen did around 10 years ago (can' remember the exact title) was somewhat impressive, although the paper quality sucked, as did most of the repro work.

Was that the book the looked really heavy but was actually really light?

[Tommy Carlsson]

The old big hardcover Taschen did around 10 years ago (can' remember the exact title) was somewhat impressive, although the paper quality sucked, as did most of the repro work.

Was that the book the looked really heavy but was actually really light?

Yes, indeed! This one:

Product Dimensions: 13.6 x 10.6 x 2.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 5.4 pounds

[FreakAnimalFinland]

I have similar thing of Stanton. Probably exatcly same dimensions. Found it 2nd hand in some Brooklyn bookstore, and thought can't buy it, despite dirt cheap price, because shipping will be heavy. Grabbed it in my hands, and was surpriced how light it was. So, I bought it and shipped to Finland.

[tiny_tove]

is that from TASCHEN?

[ConcreteMascara]

There are plenty of John Willie's works of all types. He was author, photographer as well as beyond excellent illustrator. Think about the biggest masters of old school USA pin-up (a'la Alberto Vargas, George Petty, etc..), but just high heels, long gloves, rope, gags, shackles...

comics style:


illustrations:


Letter section of the magazine sometimes accused to be invented letters, but also famous characters like Fakir Musafar writes in some issues about his rituals & body modifications, which were indeed some pioneer works just like Willie's works. It's quite strange how "close" some of these things are. F.M.'s Bodyplay magazines used to be found in some comic shops, despite they contain no drawings really. Was exposed to some of them very early on. When he published his Spirit+Flesh hardcoverbook 6 years ago, I knew I had to get it. Wrote to man directly and told him I just saw short document piece of him aired in biggest Finnish TV channels. He was very surpriced about that. Got to purchase signed 1st edition of the book (well, it's still available - signing included, hah..). But still, to see how distant, but somehow amazingly close some of these infamous characters are. Willie never made big$ and died from illness in early 60's. Fakir is still around. Modern Primitives (Re/search) also includes plenty of that.

Anyways, one could guess that Willies influence on anyone after him is pretty extensive. Direct or indirect. And if this mans work is unknown, he'd be probably among first ones essential to check out.

I was just going to mention this. My sister showed my the Bizarre book last weekend. Definitely enjoyed its oldschool style.