Tim PilcherCritiques

It's a well edited little book with some stories from the Golden Age of comics (1950's). I've just loved it!
There is an introduction that give you a brief history of the genre and a cute unique free fridge magnet :)

Interesting overview of the subject. I would argue that much of the work isn't erotic in the slightest (women being murdered while pleasuring men is disturbing, not erotic), but I suppose somebody somewhere must have deemed it so, unfortunately.

Also, it seemed very straight. If I were a gay man in the 1950s I'm sure I would have found L'il Abner or Terry and the Pirates quite erotic, to say nothing of those many hunky superheroes out there, but nothing like that was explored--it was pretty much sexy women all the time, with the exception of two Victorian images and one Tiajuana Bible.

Pretty images combined with poorly written text and a noticeable absence of citations.

Not deep, but a quick read.

Not deep, but a quick read.

"Don’t do drugs, kids, m’kay? Drugs are bad, m’kay? Don’t do drugs."

So the first time I ever did ecstasy was also the best time. Subsequent explorations were close but never quite as good. The environment was about as exciting as you could get my first time, but the primary issue is also that it became harder and harder to get pure MDMA in the States. The chemists were frequently cutting costs by cutting it with speed, Sudafed, aspirin, meth, or other miscellaneous additions.

The first time I did ecstasy was in Amsterdam. I had just received a good job offer after spending the whole summer freelancing. Set my job start date just over two weeks away, so I was at loose ends. No relationship and no need to work because I had plenty of money saved up. So I said, screw it, I’m going to Amsterdam. I had already been to Amsterdam twice before, and it was and still is my favorite city in the world. So I bought a ticket to leave the next day and to stay for two weeks.

I had nowhere to stay, but I knew a couple women who lived in Amsterdam. I had a friend at the time who was an architect from Germany. She lived across the street from me, and I had attended a party at her place about a month prior where I met two friends of hers who were visiting from Amsterdam—Marion and Marianne. I’m not joking. We hung out at the party, and got along swimmingly. They also borrowed my futon to use as their bed.

I call up Marianne that day and say, “Oh, hey, it’s David. You borrowed my futon … right … so, I’m going to be coming to Amsterdam … tomorrow. Do you mind if I crash at your place?” Fortunately, she said I could!

After arriving in Amsterdam, I manage to make my way to her apartment, which was near the Vondelpark area—a beautiful sprawling park toward the southeast end of Amsterdam. It was three flights up an incredibly narrow winding staircase (everything is up a narrow winding staircase in Amsterdam) to her huge old apartment, probably built in the 1700s. (Unlike Americans, the Dutch don’t tear buildings down when they get “old” and replace them with cheap, crappy condos.) She introduced me to her roommate Phrenc (a guy) who lived on the floor above. They set me up with a mattress on a landing just outside Phrenc’s door. For the next week or so, she took me out several times, and I met many of her friends and went to great places unknown to tourists.

It was about a week into it, when Phrenc and I were chatting and somehow the subject of ecstasy came up. I had never done it. Well, we need to fix that, he said.

So he explained this deal to me, which at first I didn’t quite believe could be true: he knew of a small bar toward the center of town, near the Keizersgracht Square where a drug dealer showed up at midnight every night. He said that the bar was a bit obscure, and it was primarily frequented by Dutch people. The bar was aware of the dealer, and, in fact, they received a percentage of everything the dealer sells. And furthermore, the police were aware of the guy there, but they looked the other way because tourists weren’t buying the shit and getting rowdy and causing problems. The Dutch who did were well behaved.

So we’re going to go to this bar, and Phrenc is going to buy me a tab of e, and a vial of coke for himself so he can stay up—because he had worked until 4am the night before, as a waiter. I didn’t completely believe this would work out, but, hey, I’ll give it a shot.

The bar is a rather dim but nice looking place with old-world character frequented mostly by twenty-somethings. We get there at 11pm and order a beer. He explained, this is your only beer for the night. After that, you drink water. Check. When the guy shows up, Phrenc is going to buy the stuff, come back, and then pass me the tab. I’m to go into the bathroom and bite half. Come back to the bar and sit for a while, see how I feel. If I’m feeling good a half hour later, then pop the rest.

Sure enough, this large black dude in a trench coat shows up at midnight on the dot. (I say black because obviously he wasn’t African American … he was Dutch!) Everyone was going up to the guy, shaking his hand, and being friendly. Phrenc sidles up, gives him a big hug and a handshake with a whisper in his ear and then returns. They made an exchange. Phrenc passes it over, and I do as I was told.

We’re sitting at the bar for a little while just having a normal

con

ver

sa

tion

when

oh!

Oh. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

My leg was pumping, my head was bobbing to the music, and my whole body suddenly felt light and coated in golden honey simultaneously. Oh. My. God. He looked me in the eyes, which must’ve been wildly dilated by then. “You good?” “Oh, I’m am so good.” “Great. Let’s hit it.”

I swallowed the other half, and he walked us out about one block away to an unmarked door. He explained that this was a small nightclub where only Dutch people went, primarily college kids. You had to speak Dutch, or the door guy wouldn’t let you in. It was to keep the tourists away from hitting on the young Dutch people, but because he was Dutch, he would get us both in.

For the rest of the night, everything and everyone was beautiful. The club was small and packed body-to-body. After we walked down a short flight of steps, we turn to the right, and we're right in the center of the bar, a narrow, unadorned rectangle. At one end, the bathrooms, in the middle, the bar was about 15 feet long with about enough space for four people deep, and then at the back, the dance floor which was also small. I’d say you could pack about 40 people on the dance floor and maybe 100 people in the whole place if they were all nearly touching. Which they were.

We went straight for the dance floor. Phrenc actually didn’t dance, he sat on a bench just watching the crowd. By now, I was feeling so loose and free and happy that I was, as the drug said, ecstatic. Floating on a blissful pillow of love. I dove into the crowd and started dancing my ass off. The DJ booth was small and open, sitting right on the dance floor. I remember a beautiful young Asian woman was spinning tunes. To this point in my life, I had only been into punk rock, indie rock, and some experimental music. But suddenly, I understood club music. The repetitive beats set up a rhythm in your body, like a heartbeat, so you can lose your identity and just become one with the energy. The DJ was spinning an amazing mix of trance and world music. Unbelievably perfect. And beautiful like everyone. I think at one point I yelled to her, I love what you’re playing, and she laughed and yelled right back in English, Thank you! Glad you like it! I made friends with the bartender who was a 6-foot-tall blonde goddess. She ended up writing her name on a napkin for me and saying that I could come back to the club any time and show it to the door guy. Even though I don’t speak Dutch, she said, he would let me in. (Btw, it worked. I tried it two nights later.) I kept dancing and getting water, dancing and getting water. Never sat down for a minute. I spun myself into heaven. Everyone was bouncing and moving and happy and there wasn’t a hint of bad vibe anywhere.

At about 4:30, Phrenc said he had to go home and sleep but I didn’t want to stop so I ended up closing the club at 5:00am. Other than getting a few bottles of water, I had never stopped dancing. I left just as the sun was rising, still buzzed and light as a feather. I floated across the city of Amsterdam, finding my way to her apartment by instinct without a map. Phrenc had given me an extra set of keys, and I let myself in. I climbed up the stairs and lay down on my mattress. Looking up above me, I saw colorful bubbles floating toward the ceiling, a mild hallucination. I drifted off to sleep, my mind as light as the bubbles, and then woke up exactly eight hours later, hopped out of bed, and felt completely refreshed and ready to go out again. Ecstasy!

Collection of vintage comic panels, correspondence from the pages of "Bizarre" magazine, and ads for everything from lingerie to a bull whip. The settings are often science fictional, but there's also western, horror and present day. There is bondage and spanking, with the women always being the one to get their "fannies warmed." There is however a good deal of femdom material as well.

This little book is truly awesome, seemingly custom made for my own personal tastes. It only has one problem: the print is often so small that I have trouble reading it. Although I like the cute little package, I would prefer to have this material presented in a comic book or graphic novel size.½

Lot of information here, and I suppose where sexy anything is concerned reference works like this still serve their purpose, because if you tried to learn more on the internet you'd be overwhelmed by a flood of pornographic fan-art. But I can't get excited about anything that has this much repulsive "underground art" in it. Why were you so gross, sex in the sixties? You're all "smell the finger. touch the glove."

Drawings that depict erotic activities have an interesting relationship with photographic images that show precisely the same activities. In general, a given image is perhaps better appreciated as a drawing. The arousal required for perception of an image as erotic by any individual can so easily be spoilt by really small 'niggles', such as those inadvertently captured by a camera. This, I'm sure, is one appeal of erotic comics. Pilcher's Volume 1 here (there seem to be three volumes) provides a useful and fascinating introduction to the art form and to many of its proponents, more-or-less approached from an historical viewpoint. The analysis of particular aspects doesn't go deeply in this book – the later volumes may well add depth to just studies – but the result is highly attractive, and indeed thought-provoking, suggesting the need for further examination of the art. Enough is shown about specific artists and phenomena (including the famed 'Tijuana Bibles) to set the reader on the right track.

A lavishly illustrated of erotic comic art up to the 1970s. Much of the material comes from private collections so there is novelty among the familiar. The author is enthusiastic and knowledgeable.