The Late, Great Di Mulatto Endures

Bondage/fetish art Di Mulatto is dead, but, like any fine artist, he left behind a legacy that will endure forever.

The Bizarre Library series of books, which are not an easy find,  often didn't bother to credit writers, even though the quality of the writing is above average for the genre.

Here's a sample of the above books' opening:

1.

"Isn't Eve Sedgewick lovely?"  someone murmured, and there was a general turning of heads and flutter of whispers as eager, bright eyes turned to see the famed beauty enter the statesroom of the yacht.

She certainly was a gorgeous creature.  Her golden blonde hair spilled around smooth, alabaster shoulders, framing a delicately hewn oval-shaped face.

Her eyes were large and cool blue, and there was a supercilious arch to her eyebrow, as if to say, "I'm better than you are, and I know it."

She had a small, perky nose and full, voluptuously sensuous lips, the color of passion fruit.

Her figure was magnificent.  She was wearing a shimmering white chiffon gown which was sleeveless and cut shockingly low over her curvaceous torso.

Her thrusting, ballooning breasts pressed against the pale material as if ready to spring free at any moment.

Her waist was trim and slender, and her hips just wide enough to be sensual without being pudgy.

Certainly the best of the genre was being produced by H.O.M. (House of Milan) with covers by Robert Bishop and text by FE Campbell. Still, Bizarre was a worthy competitor.

"Mistress of Pain" is one of my favorite Bizarre titles. It's a little overwritten, but passion trumps all any time.

This is from the book's prologue:

Prologue

Diana Cazadora's smile was a menacing wreath of cruelty as it played about her lolling tongue. The incessant metallic glow from her green eyes pierced through the web of oiled black tresses that crawled in serpentine tendrils over her ivory shoulders to her brilliantly nippled titflesh.

She saw the looks of putrid fear on the faces of those who had profaned her.

Those who now knew that humiliation, degradation and abysmal pain would be their punishment.

Diana saw also the stony grimaces of those who had yet to penetrate her domain. They would soon know that the indomitable savagery of their mistress's snapping quim was no legendary tale.

It was the key to their existence.

The bristling snake pit that would succor their hunger. By feeding ravenously upon them.

She gazed diffidently at the leather-clad man's purple-black prick pullulating with jungle jism. Smirked at his tremendous flowering of balls.

Sweat ran cold as she spoke, and cunt-juices stopped dead in their cracks. Semen hardened in dicks heavy with churning blood.

"The men have proved that they cannot even pretend to master the empire of pain, of panic-of pandemonium. Therefore the mistress will resume her rightful place."

Her hips twitched like the rump of a leashed bitch in rut.

"The animals die with fear in their eyes," she said with flared nostrils. "Let's see how keen you all are to meet my machines."

The covers below for "School For Sex Slaves" and "The Professor's Dungeon" represent a regression in cover art.

As the cover price was now $4.95, it's not illogical to assume that these books appeared a couple of years after the previous titles, and the artist is now "Esposito", someone I'm not familiar with.

Does anybody out there know anything about this Esposito? 

Although adhering to genre standards, the illustrations are unfinished and lackluster, and totally lack

Di Mulatto's mix of sadness, submission, and euphoria. The second cover also depicts a full-frontal image, rare for this series.  

Although Bizarre traded in fetishistic themes, they did issue a smaller number of more conventional novels that Di Mulatto illustrated with his usual brilliance.

note the disparity in the spelling of the artist's name.

On his "Mark of the Master", the spelling is de Mullotto

Bizarre Library, with Di Mulatto, either gets it wrong, gets it right, or is making some point

For this post, I've used Bizarre's choice.

The Joy of Sex (Pulpy Porn Style)

It's a sexual smorgasbord out there, with the emphasis on 'bored', I'm afraid. It's a deluge. We have graphic images. We have mountains of explicit pornography. We have machine gun-style fucking and sucking. It's all just a few mouse clicks away. 

Still, there is nothing quite like the written word. Nothing. And there's nothing like a lurid illustration to accompany it.

Roll up, roll up, brothers, sisters, and feast your eyes on these artifacts of a bygone era, these lost exhibits of the lavishly lurid.

The sex novels of the 60's, 70's, and 80's tackled subjects that are off-limits today -- 'politically incorrect' -- because some tit-sucking momma's  boy, some blubbering milquetoast with his wife's panties on his head and balls in her pocket, decided to become a 'victim' of them, decided he'd  'clean up' society by demonizing them... all the while taking bribes for political favors, and using his elevated station in life to  rob, rape, and Reverse Robin Hood the people who voted him in.

There was a time, not long ago, my friends, when there was a clear distinction between fantasy and reality, when 'victims' were the physically and mentally abused, when sex was a playground, and make-believe was just that.  It was a simpler time.   You knew where you stood.  The agendas were clearer.

Now, despite the propaganda that it's an 'anything-goes' world, the reality is that anything will offend somebody, and that somebody is gonna cash in.  

It's a sadder world today when a Wall Street banker cops a slap on Rolex for his mass destruction of middle class lives while prosecutors are aggressively busting children for trading 'naughty pictures' with each other on their cell phones.

Makes sense in a way: Sex has always been an easy target for those engaged in distracting us from their crimes of opportunity. It's become the indefensible, the accusation that turns the old 'innocent 'til proven guilty' mantra upside down. It may appear we have more freedoms, but we really have more rules, more policing of our thoughts, our fantasies, and our dreams.  

Hopefully, the world will turn full circle again, and the hysteria and hypocrisy associated with depictions of human sexuality will dissolve, and pulpy porn excellence, almost quaint now, will make a welcome return.

Don't Kow-Tow To The Noise

 

 

Two years in the making, my film Pond Scum nears completion.

Truly a collaborative effort, it has grown and morphed and mutated like a living organism into something that is, strangely enough, about the nature of creativity.

 

What I like most about filmmaking is the evolution of each project, and how the subject matter brings the like-minded together.

Frankly, I make films based on what fires me up. I make films with budgets and without budgets. There is always a way. That's what being creative is. Finding a way. Finding your own way. And ignoring the noise of negativity, envy, those projecting their own insecurities onto you, and those kow-towing to convention.

 

I have no illusions about Pond Scum's fate beyond completion.

It is dedicated to cinema's great revolutionary, Koji Wakamatsu, who may spin in his grave when he sees it. Who knows!?

Craving Pulpy Porn

This fella has a 'Lust List', and she's at the top of the list, apparently.

Male and female, we've all had our own personal Lust Lists over the years. Not all of us have posed like this while considering the state of our lists, though, so his Charles Atlas pose does make me doubt the young lady's  placement on his list... unless she's a mid-op transsexual?

Perhaps Tom of Finland had a son.

These novels existed before paperbacks embraced full-on pornography, so they conveyed a pleasing noir vibe.

For me, her total nudity takes some tension away, although I like the suggestion that she may be standing behind a mirror, or window.

Mother and daughter competing for the same men. A pulpy chestnut, for sure. And most guys would welcome the eventual compromise.

Massive themes of voyeurism in art of this nature, and it never fails to work.

Love the hook of a book being taken from a 'file'.  A 'file' suggests reality, something highly classified, highly taboo. Must try to get my mits on more of Harding's 'files'. Come to think of it, who the hell is Harding, and why is he sharing his files?

A lot of cover copy here to get us to the deliciously lurid title.

Personally, I hate covers with real photos, but this sweaty shot of a wanton woman who turned nympho after being slipped some 'stuff' does evoke a successfully sleazy tone.

"She was a hot enough broad without any outside help..."  Is it too much too expect a woman to be hot without outside help these days? Must ponder that.

Someone came into her store to take advantage of a 'Sale', but stayed to sample the merchandise that wasn't on sale, I suspect.

So, does the title suggest that he'll stick around until she screams? Or does the screaming kick things off in a whole new direction?

A Big Thank You To You All

This blog now has 536 'Followers'. I'm really grateful for that. Thank you, folks!

I started this blog to share the things I love -- movies, books, music, illustration, graphics, painting, and people whose take on the world is somewhat unique. Like AIDS, I like infecting humans with stuff they won't be able to shake so easily.

I'm not quite sure how often a 'Follower' of this blog drops in, but, since I'm a 'Follower' of a stack of blogs myself, I figure no answer to that question is going to fit all.

 I'm pleasantly surprised that I have a mix of male and female readers because, traditionally, much of the content I post has been considered male-oriented. It gives me optimism to see women (and men, of course, my 'Followers', not approaching pornographic material from a position of offended hysteria. Despite the truth that I derive some sexual stimulation from some of the sexual material I post, my primary reason for posting it is that I believe it has serious artistic merit. I believe that it deserves consideration, or debate, and I certainly believe that it contributes to a better understanding of our darkest, deepest selves.

It is the deep, dark self that I am most fascinated with. Since you're a casual reader and/or a 'Follower' of the blog, I'll confidently assume that you're also interested in the deep, dark self.

From childhood, our deep, dark self is a friend and an enemy. It gives us comfort, satisfaction, and euphoria, like a drug, but it also isolates us from others, and  when you're living in a world that is working hard to bump you onto the grid, the isolation can be painful.

 

 

I started to like horror and the bizarre because it took the edge off my loneliness.  It felt like a friend who'd somehow avoided the grid. It didn't attempt to lure me with lies and empty rhetoric, and it didn't molest me while smothering me with kisses. Horror movies, bizarre images, books of the fantastique, literature of dubious parentage, and what my parents called weird stuff, got me through the long night of childhood. These treasures were a warm hand to cling to, a suggestion that my life didn't have to be a carbon copy of lives endured by others. I had choices. I'd have to fight for them like a fucking pit bull, sure, and nothing would last, but at least there was something else on the horizon.

I hope this blog is a reliable haven of pulp for you, an organic forum for material that gets dismissed elsewhere, totally ignored, or stripped of its worth by mass media with big agendas. I hope it's also a place of truth, where you can proclaim your love for the most marginalized of diamonds, or your disgust for that which all others love.

 

Thank you for deeming this humble gallery of a thousand voices worthy of your time.

For reasons I can't explain, I feel obliged to provide metaphorical shelter to the cultural miscreant in you, and I take my obligations seriously.

So, be yourself while you still have time, and fuck the rest sideways.

"There's nothing to mourn about death any more than there is to mourn about the growing of a flower. What is terrible is not death but the lives people live or don't live up until their death. They don't honor their own lives, they piss on their lives. They shit them away. Dumb fuckers. They concentrate too much on fucking, movies, money, family, fucking. Their minds are full of cotton. They swallow God without thinking, they swallow country without thinking. Soon they forget how to think, they let others think for them. Their brains are stuffed with cotton. They look ugly, they talk ugly, they walk ugly. Play them the great music of the centuries and they can't hear it. Most people's deaths are a sham. There's nothing left to die."

--Charles Bukowski


The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship, 1998