Im sure many people have read about Tijuana Bibles or at least heard of them. They were the fuck books from the 30s to the 50s that portrayed cartoon characters like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck fucking their female counterparts. They were comic book looking pamphlets that also had human characters dropping very funny lines and fucking.
They have never been collected until Bob Adelman released Tijuana Bibles: Art and Wit in America's Forbidden Funnies, 1930s-1950s which has come out in a new edition with an introduction by Maus creator Art Spiegelman.
Adelman is best known as a photographer for his famous picture of Martin Luther King Jr. giving his I had a dream speech. Adelman remembered his first experiences with the Tijuana Bibles and has now created the definitive book about them.
Check out the official site for the book here
Daniel Robert Epstein: I read that this new edition Tijuana Bibles is a re-release.
Bob Adelman: Its just gone into paperback after four printings in hardcover. It got wonderful reviews in The New York Times and The New Yorker.
DRE: Is this the first book that goes in-depth into the Tijuana Bibles?
BA: Well I think so. Its definitely the first anthology. Back in the 60s there was an underground publication of some of them but it was not available in bookstores. It is definitely the first time theyve been released in the mainstream. Im photographer by profession and quite involved in social and political matters. I first became known for my coverage of the civil rights movement but I always had a great nostalgia for these little books. I always had it in the back of my mind to publish them somehow. Most of the people in the book business told me there was no way to publish these, not so much because of the fact that they are pornographic, but because of the issue of trademark. The bibles used well known people and of course Disney characters. The people who originally sold and distributed these books were criminals even though the artists werent. They had no copyrights to the material and werent worried about copyright infringement but more about going to jail because at the time these came out pornography was a crime. The post office was one of the enforcers because of distribution of the material over state lines. I sent a copy of the book to Gay Talese and he said that if I had sent it to him 30 years ago wed both have been arrested.
As it turned out all the smart people in the book business said that Disney will eat me alive if I ever publish pictures of Mickey and Minnie doing it.
DRE: I read you had to deal with some pretty unsavory people, such as mob connected printers, to get this book done.
BA: Well I was apprehensive that at some point someone would call me up and tell me that they controlled certain distributors. The book was printed in China because most printers wouldnt touch it here.
DRE: But there is a lot of smut out there though.
BA: They told me that their print shops are in the south and people would be offended by it. One printer told me that they didnt do these things in the 1930s and they werent going to do it now. I did have some contact with a mob connected printer but their prices didnt make any sense. At one point I had a terrible time because I had the arrangement with Simon & Schuster but I couldnt find a printer. Hong Kong is a pretty free area but it was bizarre that here was something that was made in America but now it couldnt get printed.
DRE: How did the trademark issue get settled?
I saw an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer and he told me that there was a trademark issue but that it was a no-brainer. The way in which trademarks are enforced is by getting an injunction preventing you from publishing something which would be damaging. But since this had already been published 60 years ago the burden would be on the trademark holder to prove how he had been damaged. I thought that was really smart so I said to myself Now I had finally met a smart lawyer. When Simon & Schuster heard that they were fine with it. They only asked that we get Art Spiegelman to do an introduction to make it kosher.
I enjoyed the bibles because these were the sex manuals of my youth but Art Spiegelman was very much influenced by them as was Mad Magazine, R. Crumb and many of the underground comics of the 60s. The 30s and 40s comics were very polite so the surrealism of putting sex into comics was revolutionary. The next generation brought a whole satiric, ironic and sexual thrust to them. As part of comic book history they are important because many people believe they may be the first comic books. Some of them were even 32 pages long like modern comics. The drawing style was also more relaxed and freer which appealed to the 60s comic artists.
DRE: Do we know who drew the bibles at all?
BA: Not really. There is one person that Art Spiegelman thinks he knew from Fleer Comics that drew them. But we were not able to find anybody who did them. Will Eisner was approached by someone with a pinkie ring saying I control the little books in Brooklyn and Ill give you eight dollars a page. But Eisner said he never did them.
DRE: Its hard to believe that because eight dollars a page was a lot back then.
Have you shown the books to contemporaries of yours?
BA: Well Roy Lichtenstein was a close friend and when I showed him the book he said that his early interest in cartoons might have been stimulated by looking at Tijuana bibles but hes too repressed to remember.
DRE: The books were produced in the US so why the name Tijuana?
BA: At the time the manufacturers of these, to get halfway decent printing, you had to use a letter press but over time they would mimeograph and do all sorts of reproductions. But they often said they came from abroad to keep the police off their tails so a lot of people first saw the books in Tijuana. I remember them being called two by fours and fuck books.
DRE: Fuck books tells you exactly what they are.
I know you were able to reprint the books from the collections of Art Spiegelman and Madeline Kripke, but did it only come from them?
BA: When I got serious about doing this book I had a very dear friend, named Richard Merkin, who was an artist whose work was very much influenced by the bibles even though hes a painter. He had a very good collection and when I first talked to him about it he said that since hes a professor he wasnt sure. If I was doing an art show he would contribute but otherwise he didnt see any point to doing it. I then went to see Al Goldstein who I knew from photographing him doing various transgressive acts. I think Al has lost it these days but he used to be fun. One of his editors knew Madeline Kripke and she was interested in them because back then women didnt see them and because of the language. The language is quite wonderful such as I rankled down to the corner. Its the kind of language you see in the tough guy detective stories of the 30s. Madeline did cooperate and after that Richard Merkin came back because he knew it was going to be a serious book. Art was very enthusiastic because he felt a big debt to them. He thinks that its not possible to sustain a comic just about screwing but he just may not be an all night long kind of guy. I could read through quite a few actually.
DRE: How much do we know about the real origins of them, such as whose idea it was to make them?
BA: Absolutely nothing. We never found any of the makers. I thought upon publication of the book somebody would surface. But I guess its been too long. Art tells a story that Al Capp was very flattered when they satirized Li'l Abner. Some of it was very sophisticated such as the Alger Hiss thing where they believe that Hiss and Chambers were homosexual lovers. Thats pretty wild stuff but there may have been some truth to that. They hated Hitler but loved Mae West because she was a walking Tijuana bible. She embodied everything they believe in. We forget that the women in the 30s were extremely independent because millions of men couldnt find work and it was too humiliating for them to stay married so they left then the women had to fend for themselves. In the books the women are usually smarter and craftier than men
DRE: That seems to be the way in real life as well.
BA: [laughs] Well we all have different lives.
DRE: How did you get started in photography?
BA: I studied philosophy [laughs] and tried to figure out why I shouldnt do myself in. When I found some answers to that I really didnt want to talk or think but act and get involved in making things. I hit upon photography and it turned out I had a gift for it. I was always interested in social and political issues which is the direction my photography took. When the civil rights movement and the student sit-ins started, I was very moved. I had grown up in the Eisenhower 50s when there werent any real radical politics so I was very excited by the activists so I started documenting it. That led to becoming a photojournalist but I guess my picture of Dr. King giving his I had a dream speech became quite iconic.
DRE: Do you hold the rights to that picture?
BA: Yes I do but I dont have a trademark [laughs].
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
They have never been collected until Bob Adelman released Tijuana Bibles: Art and Wit in America's Forbidden Funnies, 1930s-1950s which has come out in a new edition with an introduction by Maus creator Art Spiegelman.
Adelman is best known as a photographer for his famous picture of Martin Luther King Jr. giving his I had a dream speech. Adelman remembered his first experiences with the Tijuana Bibles and has now created the definitive book about them.
Check out the official site for the book here
Daniel Robert Epstein: I read that this new edition Tijuana Bibles is a re-release.
Bob Adelman: Its just gone into paperback after four printings in hardcover. It got wonderful reviews in The New York Times and The New Yorker.
DRE: Is this the first book that goes in-depth into the Tijuana Bibles?
BA: Well I think so. Its definitely the first anthology. Back in the 60s there was an underground publication of some of them but it was not available in bookstores. It is definitely the first time theyve been released in the mainstream. Im photographer by profession and quite involved in social and political matters. I first became known for my coverage of the civil rights movement but I always had a great nostalgia for these little books. I always had it in the back of my mind to publish them somehow. Most of the people in the book business told me there was no way to publish these, not so much because of the fact that they are pornographic, but because of the issue of trademark. The bibles used well known people and of course Disney characters. The people who originally sold and distributed these books were criminals even though the artists werent. They had no copyrights to the material and werent worried about copyright infringement but more about going to jail because at the time these came out pornography was a crime. The post office was one of the enforcers because of distribution of the material over state lines. I sent a copy of the book to Gay Talese and he said that if I had sent it to him 30 years ago wed both have been arrested.
As it turned out all the smart people in the book business said that Disney will eat me alive if I ever publish pictures of Mickey and Minnie doing it.
DRE: I read you had to deal with some pretty unsavory people, such as mob connected printers, to get this book done.
BA: Well I was apprehensive that at some point someone would call me up and tell me that they controlled certain distributors. The book was printed in China because most printers wouldnt touch it here.
DRE: But there is a lot of smut out there though.
BA: They told me that their print shops are in the south and people would be offended by it. One printer told me that they didnt do these things in the 1930s and they werent going to do it now. I did have some contact with a mob connected printer but their prices didnt make any sense. At one point I had a terrible time because I had the arrangement with Simon & Schuster but I couldnt find a printer. Hong Kong is a pretty free area but it was bizarre that here was something that was made in America but now it couldnt get printed.
DRE: How did the trademark issue get settled?
I saw an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer and he told me that there was a trademark issue but that it was a no-brainer. The way in which trademarks are enforced is by getting an injunction preventing you from publishing something which would be damaging. But since this had already been published 60 years ago the burden would be on the trademark holder to prove how he had been damaged. I thought that was really smart so I said to myself Now I had finally met a smart lawyer. When Simon & Schuster heard that they were fine with it. They only asked that we get Art Spiegelman to do an introduction to make it kosher.
I enjoyed the bibles because these were the sex manuals of my youth but Art Spiegelman was very much influenced by them as was Mad Magazine, R. Crumb and many of the underground comics of the 60s. The 30s and 40s comics were very polite so the surrealism of putting sex into comics was revolutionary. The next generation brought a whole satiric, ironic and sexual thrust to them. As part of comic book history they are important because many people believe they may be the first comic books. Some of them were even 32 pages long like modern comics. The drawing style was also more relaxed and freer which appealed to the 60s comic artists.
DRE: Do we know who drew the bibles at all?
BA: Not really. There is one person that Art Spiegelman thinks he knew from Fleer Comics that drew them. But we were not able to find anybody who did them. Will Eisner was approached by someone with a pinkie ring saying I control the little books in Brooklyn and Ill give you eight dollars a page. But Eisner said he never did them.
DRE: Its hard to believe that because eight dollars a page was a lot back then.
Have you shown the books to contemporaries of yours?
BA: Well Roy Lichtenstein was a close friend and when I showed him the book he said that his early interest in cartoons might have been stimulated by looking at Tijuana bibles but hes too repressed to remember.
DRE: The books were produced in the US so why the name Tijuana?
BA: At the time the manufacturers of these, to get halfway decent printing, you had to use a letter press but over time they would mimeograph and do all sorts of reproductions. But they often said they came from abroad to keep the police off their tails so a lot of people first saw the books in Tijuana. I remember them being called two by fours and fuck books.
DRE: Fuck books tells you exactly what they are.
I know you were able to reprint the books from the collections of Art Spiegelman and Madeline Kripke, but did it only come from them?
BA: When I got serious about doing this book I had a very dear friend, named Richard Merkin, who was an artist whose work was very much influenced by the bibles even though hes a painter. He had a very good collection and when I first talked to him about it he said that since hes a professor he wasnt sure. If I was doing an art show he would contribute but otherwise he didnt see any point to doing it. I then went to see Al Goldstein who I knew from photographing him doing various transgressive acts. I think Al has lost it these days but he used to be fun. One of his editors knew Madeline Kripke and she was interested in them because back then women didnt see them and because of the language. The language is quite wonderful such as I rankled down to the corner. Its the kind of language you see in the tough guy detective stories of the 30s. Madeline did cooperate and after that Richard Merkin came back because he knew it was going to be a serious book. Art was very enthusiastic because he felt a big debt to them. He thinks that its not possible to sustain a comic just about screwing but he just may not be an all night long kind of guy. I could read through quite a few actually.
DRE: How much do we know about the real origins of them, such as whose idea it was to make them?
BA: Absolutely nothing. We never found any of the makers. I thought upon publication of the book somebody would surface. But I guess its been too long. Art tells a story that Al Capp was very flattered when they satirized Li'l Abner. Some of it was very sophisticated such as the Alger Hiss thing where they believe that Hiss and Chambers were homosexual lovers. Thats pretty wild stuff but there may have been some truth to that. They hated Hitler but loved Mae West because she was a walking Tijuana bible. She embodied everything they believe in. We forget that the women in the 30s were extremely independent because millions of men couldnt find work and it was too humiliating for them to stay married so they left then the women had to fend for themselves. In the books the women are usually smarter and craftier than men
DRE: That seems to be the way in real life as well.
BA: [laughs] Well we all have different lives.
DRE: How did you get started in photography?
BA: I studied philosophy [laughs] and tried to figure out why I shouldnt do myself in. When I found some answers to that I really didnt want to talk or think but act and get involved in making things. I hit upon photography and it turned out I had a gift for it. I was always interested in social and political issues which is the direction my photography took. When the civil rights movement and the student sit-ins started, I was very moved. I had grown up in the Eisenhower 50s when there werent any real radical politics so I was very excited by the activists so I started documenting it. That led to becoming a photojournalist but I guess my picture of Dr. King giving his I had a dream speech became quite iconic.
DRE: Do you hold the rights to that picture?
BA: Yes I do but I dont have a trademark [laughs].
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
VIEW 7 of 7 COMMENTS
I hadn't heard of the Tijuana Bibles until this year, actually. I was taking a class about comic book literature and it came up during the reading of Watchmen that Alan Moore was making reference to them in a couple of panels, where Sally Jupiter had the little "Silk Spectre" comic.
Art Spiegelman is one of my favorites, too. I'm interested in learning more about what these guys like so much about these little books.