#459 - Extatique 3 + Bondy: Midnight Masquerade
Extatique, Issue #3
Tele-Photo Publishing Corporation, c. 1958
digital replica
Midnight Masquerade
Gene Bilbrew, signing as Bondy
A UTOPIAN PRESS Publication, c. 1958
digital replica
EXTATIQUE, Issue #3I
n the beginning, there was John Willie's Bizarre, the first digest-sized, fetish periodical. Then, Mr. Burtman launched Exotique. Exotique inspired Ultra, Masque, Connoisseur, Fantastique and Extatique, which proclaimed itself to be "The New Art of Fashion Fantasy."
Extatique #3 is notable for its seven Gene Bilbrew illustrations and the four-page episode of his comic serial "Blue Lace." Two prose pieces describe details of corsets, corset lacing and high heels. Readers of Extatique have sent in letters and photos of their favorite shoes and boots. Photos are of but a single brunette in corset, stockings and pumps.
Including the cover, this magazine is 68 pages, but each of the four photos on the back cover are also presented on their own separate ebook page. Every word and picture of the original is included in the ebook.
Midnight Masquerade
Illustrated by Gene Bilbrew [Eneg], this anonymous short story describes a home invasion. The robber is a notorious thief and her target is the necklace of Latin dancer, Zeena. The dialogue of the masked perpetrator spells out her French accent: "Zat, Mamzelle, eez what I am called, 'Madam Midnight.' Now hand zee necklace overe queekly!"
Fortunately, Zeena was caught wearing only bra, panties, stockings and high-heeled pumps when the intruder arrives in tight leather jumpsuit and spike-heeled boots. Both the story and the pictures describe these two beauties in a fierce wrestling contest.
The 24-page booklet has eight precise Bilbrew paintings showing his curvaceous characters in conflict. The text has been re-arranged for the ebook to coordinate the narrative with the pictures.
Most ebook pages display two digest-sized pages, with a vertical picture on one side and text on the other. In the original, even the horizontally-oriented illustrations were placed vertically on pages. This arrangement required the reader to rotate the book to view some of the pictures. In the ebook, every picture matches the orientation of the text. Every horizontally-oriented picture is also repeated and enlarged on a separate page. The width of the rotated horizontal illustrations requires the ebook to have wide pages. Every picture has been enlarged to fill its page, cropping out some of the walls, floors and furniture.
Two e-books, delivered by download link.