Tijuana Bibles: Art and Wit in America's Forbidden Funnies (First Edition)

Bob Adelman; Art Spiegelman (introduction)

ISBN 10: 0684834618 / ISBN 13: 9780684834610

Published by Simon and Schuster, New York, 1997

About this Item

First Edition. An exploration of Tijuana bibles, explicit underground comics produced from the 1930s through the 1950s. Included with the book is an example of a Tijuana bible, titled "The 4 Marx Brothers," following the sexual exploits of Chico, Groucho, Harpo, and Zeppo. Book: Near Fine in a Very Good plus dust jacket. Faint foxing to the top page edges. Jacket lightly toned to the extremities, with faint foxing to the top edge of the inside front panel. Tijuana bible: Eight pages, bound with a single staple. Noted on the front wrapper as No. 10. Mimeograph duplication, rectos only. 3 x 5 inches. Brief rusting to the binding, else Near Fine in wrappers. Seller Inventory # 154294

Bibliographic Details

Title: Tijuana Bibles: Art and Wit in America's ...

Publisher: Simon and Schuster, New York

Publication Date: 1997

Binding: Hardcover

Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included

Edition: First Edition.

About this title

Synopsis:

Crammed with 140 illustrations, twenty in color, a collection contains selections from the Tijuana Bibles, risque comic books of the thirties, forties, and fifties that poked erotic fun at the celebrities and issues of the day. 20,000 first printing.

Review:

When Robert Crumb, S. Clay Wilson, Gilbert Shelton, and other Bay Area misfits first started producing "underground" comics in the '60s, they were considered to be highly innovative in their use of frank sexual themes. However, some 10 to 15 years before they commenced their explicit, often offensive cartoons, another genre of pornographic graphics was dying out, the so-called "Tijuana Bibles" (or sometimes "Cuban Bibles," "French Bibles," etc.). Simon & Schuster has released a collection of these antique obscenities that often featured famous political, show business, or cartoon figures having more fun than mainstream censors would have allowed. The introduction, by comic book apologist and New Yorker comics editor Art Spiegelman, is an amusing and sarcastic look at the history of this lost medium, with some interesting reflections on the genre, noting that "Though there are bound to be those who will loudly declaim that the Tijuana Bibles demean women, I think it important to note that they demean everyone ... it's what cartoons do best." While the reprinted comic strips are often amusing in being laughingly bad, the historical essays and asides by editor Bob Adelman provide fascinating historical context. A sociology of mid-century sexual mores and the love/hate relationship that Americans have with their celebrities is evinced by the combination of reprint and commentary.