#506 - Bizarre World Eros Goldstripe 1970
Bizarre World, Number One
Eros [Goldstripe] Publishing Co. Inc.
Wilmington, Delaware
1970
digital replica
and
optimized for ebook viewing
The final issue of Bizarre Life magazine (number 18) was probably published at the end of 1970 or early 1971. Then, under the new Eros Goldstripe brand, Bizarre World lived for one issue. [As High Heels magazine survived as a title in the transition from Selbee to Eros Goldstripe, it would seem that the same could have been done with popular Bizarre Life.]
In the process of moving operations from New York to California in the early 1970s, Mr.Burtman may have been advised that his flagship lifestyle magazine be completely divorced from his sometime publishing partner Gordon McCausland. Through Consolidated Publishing in Toronto, he had jointly published several issues of Bizarre Life in collaboration with Mr. Burtman. At about this time, Mr. McCausland was seen in the Caribbean and suddenly vanished from the planet.
Mr. Burtman may have been advised that the words Bizarre World and Bizarre Life were too similar, risking lawsuits over ownership. A common sense approach to naming might suggest that the successor title in the lifestyle genre be a complete break with the past and disappearing partners.
This is all speculation, but it’s the only explanation I can think of for producing but one issue of Bizarre World. To further illustrate the odd sequence of transition, the front cover of Unique World says “Number One” while the table of contents page says “Number 2”. If this magazine had retained Bizarre World as its title, it would indeed be Number 2.
Whatever motivated name changes, the first and only issue of Bizarre World forms a worthy effort in the series. The focus is on dominant females in leather and high heels who whip a man for alleged wrong-doing or just for fun.
It's clear to us that this is the proper theme of Bizarre Life, Bizarre World, and later, Unique World. In a society managed by males, magazines that depicted scenarios showing women in control of men could fairly be characterized as bizarre or unique. Magazines showing men disciplining women reflected ordinary household convention. (For example, in 1963, John Wayne spanks his adult daughter in McLintock!. Were she to spank him, that would be "bizarre.")
Only a few of the 84 pages show women in bondage, which is neither bizarre nor unique, but common. There's no quarrel here with the erotic weight of bondage scenes. But, in the broadest sense, they are another presentation of the then familiar female character of sitcoms and soap commercials.
In four photo sets, not seen in other magazines, one or two women use an assortment of whip, crop, and cat to hurt and humiliate a man. In at least two pictorials, the men are described as volunteers. Most whip-wielders stand tall in shiny, knee-high boots. Models also show off pretty legs in high-heeled pumps and stockings in two sets.
A doctor makes improper advances toward a patient in Nursed and Dominated. She and his nurse then subdue and restrain him.
In Dungeon Domination, two slender sadists in corsets, stockings and boots bind, strip, whip, pinch, twist, poke and sit on a young man, presumably their kinky client. Many color pictures in this one.
When a crop-carrying wife returns home to find her husband embracing the maid, she forces him to don the attire of his paramour. After hours, a sexy secretary has her boss help her change into corset and boots. Then she binds, whips, and humiliates him. In the last pictorial, a fierce brunette in boots seems to enjoy whipping the man at her feet.
The first, four-page episode of Gene Bilbrew’s comic serial, “The Dominated” restates the main motif of the magazine: women punishing men. In this case, when a husband has the audacity to question her autonomy, his wife whips him into shape. The second episode appeared in Unique World One [SKU #541]. Bilbrew illustrations introduce two short stories — “Nursed into Submission” and “Domination and Desire.” These pictures provide vivid samples of Mr. Bilbrew’s diminished craft in his last years. Several filler illustrations by both Mr. Bilbrew and Eric Stanton.
Other content includes Letters to the Editor, some bondage pix, and the Bizarre World of Britain.
Digital replica
In the digital replica, pages are presented in their original sequence. A few page layouts were revised to show pictures at their original size, without reduction. None of the pictures were stretched to fill space.
The brightness, contrast and color of photographs have been adjusted. Many specks have been retouched. All words, pictures and pages in the original, including ads, are in the digital replica ebook.
Optimized ebook
The optimized version disassembles the magazine pages. Sometimes arranged as many as 5 to a page, the optimized version positions each photo or illustration on its own, wide ebook page. Most pictures fill the screen from top to bottom. Small pictures and women-in-bondage photographs were omitted from the optimized ebook.
Despite darkness in some of the photographs, the optimized ebook offers the best way to see the photography in the only issue of Bizarre World ever published. More than 120 brightened pictures are collected in a convenient femdom album, designed to reduce the need for zooming and scrolling and anticipate the curiosity of the viewer.
Fans of femdom imagery and fiction will enjoy the two ebooks that are based on this conscientiously assembled magazine. The original publication was an ambitious product for its time and provides first class content for this digital iteration.
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