Is it good if your comic has to start with a disclaimer that the characters in it are at least eighteen years old?
We briefly met Bettie Page when talking about Starslauyer and Rocketeer, but Dave Stevens use of her is not the end of comics obsession with her. If you don’t know her, she became famous as the “Queen of Bondage” for her pinup work in the fifties. Not because it was all that extreme but mainly because of, well, her smile. She had a charm to her that elevated her beyond the tawdry material she appeared in. The sort of innocent, vulnerable sexuality that maladjusted asocial comics nerds can just about handle. It’s an obsession I never quite understood but it has provided many a mediocre comics artist with a bit of pocket money drawing her.
Betty in Bondage Annual 2 is a case in point. What we have here is a comic that chronicles “Betty” making a photo set in which she pretends to be after a ring of white slavers. Most of the ‘plot’ such as it is consists of various bondage scenes in which she either tortures another girl or is tortured instead. This torture mostly consist of being tied up and then mildly whipped or spanked. I’m sure it appeals to fetishists but it’s all fairly tame for something that comes with that disclaimer. The art by Teo Jonelli is decent but nothing spectacular. Nevertheless there were three annuals of this stuff and the publisher, Shunga Comics, had two other series starring “Betty”. Somebody must’ve liked it.
I’m not sure when or why I bought this myself, but it must’ve been as some random cheap back issue bought at a con or something. If you like this sort of stuff, Eric Stanton is much better and has some actual artistic merit.
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