Jay's Boots, Bondage, and Smiles

It's Thanksgiving!  A time for turkeys.  Stuffing!  Mashed potatoes!  Huge messes in the kitchen?  Well, that's to be expected.  But, along with being a time for trussed turkeys, it's a time for trussed damsels.  So gather together and give thanks for... high heels.

Evil Dolly's Featured Fetish Artist of the Day:  Jay

I'm afraid I've been able to discover next to nothing about Jay.  That's often the way it goes with many nearly anonymous fetish artists, especially from the 50s.  They publish a few works under a pen name and then just disappear.  The most I know about Jay is that he had a few series distributed through Klaw's Nutrix company in the mid-1950s.  He produced at least two series published by Nutrix:  Anything Goes Girls Club and Fashion in Boots and Bondage.

It doesn't appear Jay was a dedicated illustrator, as were some of his peers.  His works of pencil and ink show plenty of flaws in anatomy, along with some shortcuts (hiding hands and faces, which are some of the more difficult things to draw).  But he wasn't without talent.  And he clearly focused lots of attention on what would seem to be his own personal fetishes.

Chief among those fetishes are women in hobbling boots and shoes of all sorts.  Stiletto heels and ballet boots laced up on long legs.  Uncomfortable footwear of Jay's own invention are locked onto feet.  The girls' arms are often doubled up and bound tightly into constrictive clothing, rendering them armless and helpless.  And yet most of them are smiling big happy smiles, as if they couldn't be more thrilled.  And why shouldn't they be?

But here's where it gets a little confusing.  There's another series that I've also seen attributed to Jay.  The art style is noticably different in some ways.  We could be dealing with a case of two Jays, or this second style might have been erroneously attributed to Jay at some point -- the Internet has been known to be wrong. 

Gone are the cheesecake poses and many of the fine details.  The waists are smaller, the legs are thicker, and the style just seems different.  This series mostly features women (or tg's) sealed inside of stitched-up doll suits and masks, with perky padded breasts, used as servants and ponies.  Well, I approve of that, as one might imagine.  The world needs more of that kind of thing, I say.

That last one with the bride is my favorite.  Bondage brides are beautiful!  And she looks so happy.  Who cares if it's forced joy?  But back to the point.  It almost looks like another artist.  But there are little things like this:

Compare the face of the girl in the left panel of this Boots and Bondage chapter and that of the smiling cowgirl with her sturdy-legged pony in the dollish series.  The smile, the jawline, they're virtually identical.  So perhaps it is the same artist, after all.  If someone knows better, please correct me. 

I don't know of any current reprints of Jay's work.  However, I did see that those first two series (along with lots of other Nutrix publications) are available in ebook form from this location:  http://www.30sg.com/.  However, I can't personally confirm the veracity or quality of the conversions from this vendor, I simply found them during a search, so I invite you to make your own judgements.

UPDATE: According to bondage and fetish artist Osvaldo A. Greco, "the second series of drawings are not by Jay but made by a guy called B&G, a customer of Klaw with a fetish of dolls."  So it would seem that Mr. B&G used Jay's existing work as a reference, possibly even tracing the faces.  Can't say as I blame him, I hate drawing faces, too.

November Random

I voted today, early style.  Got a sticker.  I suppose it's time to take down the Halloween decorations, but I don't wanna.  Partly because I'm feeling lazy, but mostly because some years the Halloweeniness doesn't kick in until right at Halloween, or right after.  After weeks of horror movies on TV, now I'm ready.  But it has already passed.  And I only got three trick-or-treaters.  And they didn't even have costumes.  A sad, sad state of affairs.

Speaking of horror, I caught the start of the second season of American Horror Story, and I would like to register a complaint!  Oh, not about the show, that seems okay so far as these things go.  The problem is that the creepy asylum the show is set in is named Briarcliff.  Now, I've made mention of a horror novel I've been writing off and on for years.  It is set in a creepy hospital that was once an asylum.  And the hospital's name?  Briar Ridge!  Briar Ridge... Briarcliff.  A ridge is like a cliff, and they both have briars.  Aagh!  What are the odds of that?  I hate when that happens.  Now I'm afraid people will think I stole parts of the story from the TV show, even though I started writing this years ago.  Oh, bother.  And this isn't the first time.  You know that Human Centipede movie?  I've had an idea of a story involving that basic theme, though with a far different plot, for decades.  I might have never written it - I have lots of ideas that never make it to fruition - but now if I ever do write it I'll seem like a copycat.  A regular Johnny-come-lately!

I suppose it's not a big deal.  I mean, there are hardly any original concepts in this big old world.  Every story is but a reiteration with a different take, no matter how originally they were inspired.  But, seriously.. Briarcliff??