#200288 - The Strap Returns Malteste Gargoyle Sales
The Strap Returns
by Malteste
Gargoyle Sales
New York, New York
ca. 1955
optimized incomplete
and
optimized pictures-only version
Gargoyle Sales of New York City also sold the bizarre art of Gregor, who rendered the work known as Bizarre Honeymoon. The Strap Returns consisted of 50 ink drawings topped by typed narrative blocks showing women punishing women.
The settings is “exotic Singapore, city of mystery, contrasts & castes . . . It is a year before the Japanese conquest, when imperialistic rule of the British seemed to be at its height. It was a city within cities, virtually, for the elite of the British army had their own little world, full of class distinctions. The wives of those dignitaries browbeat & punished their native servants as cruelly as did Roman matrons in the days of Nero. Beautiful Eurasian girls toiled as domestics & fared as slaves! But justice would be done. For, without warning, a mysterious masked figure on horseback sprang out of the murky night — The Phantom of Singapore — leading her valiant corps of fighting girls to kidnap those women who'd been unjust & cruel to their servants, bringing them back to her secluded mansion in the hills to receive the Masked Phantom's justice!”
Pictures depict painful bondage contraptions that restrain, stretch and twist with ropes, chains, pulleys, weights, barrels, spikes, suspension, inversion, wood frames, posts and stocks. Whip, hairbrush, cane, feathers and hands provide additional discomfort for captives.
Action occurs while participants are dressed in high-heeled shoes or boots and sometimes nylons. Tight belts punctuate hourglass figures. Aggressors often appear as pirates. Some clothing is ripped or shredded.
The art of Malteste might be characterized as primitive, but its simplicity satisfies in the depiction of fine feminine figures. His pen delineates classic legs and ankles and well-rounded hips and bust-lines. While some tableaux might be static, the dramatic dynamics of scenes are obvious.
Source material for these ebooks was obtained from websites. Multiple image-editing processes were applied to produce images suitable for ebook use. While most of the pictures are acceptable, some of the articulate text will be difficult to read. Five of the 50 chapters are missing from the ebooks. For these reasons, this product is classified and priced as Bargain Bin, despite the work required.
Similar to many Stantoons booklets, each chapter has a rectangle of text at the top and an illustration below it. The ebook disassembles chapters, placing text and pictures on separate optimized pages. A second ebook contains only pictures.
Recently, photo prints of the first 10 chapters of the set were offered online at $85.00. With its strong bondage and fetish elements, this obscure 1950s ephemera deserves a place in our catalog.
One ebook, delivered by download from your 30th Street Graphics account.
