Rubber

Bizarre Illustrated, Volume 2, Number 1
P W Publications
West Fairview Pennsylvania
1968

plus Rubex bonus

digital replica
and
optimized for ebook viewing

Bizarre Life and MODern Life Illustrated focused on alternative lifestyles, fetishism and current fashions, blurring boundaries between these subjects. They praised films and couture that presented rubber, leather, high heels, gloves and unconventional sexual modalities. Citations of media references to these once esoteric themes implied their acceptability.

Apparently, Bizarre Illustrated sought to mine the odd ore of this mine. Volume 2, Number 1, shows boots and rubber on its cover and there is plenty of both inside. Strictly a no man's land, shapely models populate this territory in tight leather and rubber duds.

Some of the photo content originated in the UK, including two photo sets that show young Teri Martine. Two pictorials show women in maid uniforms. Some models may have been local boot, rubber or leather enthusiasts who were known to the publisher.

An illustration by Boston introduces two short stories. One pictorial has something to do with stockings.

A page-by-page digital replica
The digital replica shows all 68 pages of the magazine, including ads. Some page layouts were revised slightly. Two pages were moved in the page sequence to accomplish continuity of one short story.

Tonality of images has been adjusted and some specks re-touched. Most of the pictures are bright and clear when viewed at full size. A few have undesirable patterns.

All new scans.

Optimized for ebook viewing
The optimized version is based on pictures, not pages. Each picture is positioned on a separate, wide ebook page, and about half of them fill the screen from top to bottom. A few of the smaller pictures have some graininess.

Bonus Material by Rubex
As Bizarre Illustrated aims at pleasing those with a rubber fetish, eight illustrations by Rubex achieve the finale of the optimized ebook. His pictures (from another magazine) accompany short prose titled Baroness Frankenstien.

Bizarre Illustrated appears to be the work of a determined individual who assembled content at his home in a small Pennsylvania town. With a unique vision of what a fetish periodical should be, he put together all the ingredients found in lifestyle magazines published in New York City: pictorials, fiction, illustrations, and a photo-article about boot styles. While some of the British photography may have been presented elsewhere, his locally generated scenes and pictures make this bit of antiquity an illuminating visit to past originality. Bizarre Illustrated gives us a peek into the imagination of a creative publisher with his own ideas about boots, leather and rubber.

Two ebooks, one optimized, delivered by download from your 30th Street Graphics account.