#400457 - Fanni Hall Number 2 Robert Bishop House of Milan

Fanni Hall, Number 2
The Plot Thickens
by The Bishop
House of Milan Corp.
Los Angeles, California
1978

optimized
and
optimized pictures-only version

House of Milan serialized Fanni Hall comic strips in Knotty magazine. Those eight episodes were collected and published as Fanni Hall, Number 1. They provided source material for our first Fanni Hall ebook (#301368).

More like a graphic novel than a comic serial, Number 2 exposes Mr. Bishop's prodigious graphic skill and his conversational prose. By 1978, he'd mastered air brush techniques that add subtle contours and shading to the alluring figures of his female characters.

Not a character, the third-person narrator has personality. A colorful raconteur with consistent tone and viewpoint, the narrator expresses sympathy for our hapless heroine and outrage over her captors' cruelty.

When describing Fanni's painful ordeals, he speaks from her point of view, complaining about the severity of endurance challenges and various viscous fluids Gorila — Madame's obedient stooge — incorporates into Fanni's “training” days. He discloses mental strategies Fanni uses to cope with lengthy poses in painful restraints that test muscles and sanity. We're told what she says when she talks to herself.

The writer provides many details about restorative bathing, forced and voluntary sex, weapons, and subversive organizations. Descriptions explain the unpleasant sensations that ropes, arm binders, belts, blindfolds, straps, cuffs, dildos and over-sized gags cause.

So much for Fanni’s reverie. He collared her with the broad leather, the bracelet-strap thumping and swinging across her shoulder blades. One hand was released from the clasps and the other, still confined, was pulled around behind her back and linked to the strap.

The other hand now joined its sister in bondage. Gorila pulled the linked wrists extra especially high, pulling on the strap with one hand, and lifting her hands with the other. Then came the hobbles. Finally, he released her from the wall-chain, and snapped a leash onto the collar. . . .

Gorila produced a short little spreader-bar; it couldn’t have been much more than five inches
in length. Curious, Fanni stared down as Gorila made ready to attach it. I wasn’t for her ankles as she surmised; it was for her knees. This was ridiculous! What more did he need than the hobbles. As it was she almost had to run with her tiny jerky steps to keep up with his normal walk. . . .

As she was lowered towards the frame, she took one last look over Gorila’s shoulder and saw one small item that she hadn’t noticed during her first appraisal, and that was a six-inch long round-ended aluminum dowel standing vertically from the narrow crossbeam she assumed she’d actually be sitting on. Instantly, she knew what it was and why Gorila had taken the precaution of keeping her knees apart.

The 48-page volume shows Mr. Bishop's adroit artistry on about half its pages. Some pages show a single scene. Others contain multiple tableaux, within defined borders and in montage-styled arrangements of layered images.

Deft renderings of his svelte captive employ bondage schemes that present her luscious femininity in brazen displays. Illustrations depict confining devices with industrial precision, showing careful attention to knots, buckles, chain links, spikes, rings, hooks and rivets. He designed an extensive wardrobe of gags, blindfolds, collars, gloves, boots, belts and cuffs.

Expert airbrush gradients that express gleam and shadow on flesh and leather work as well in the delineation of steel contraptions and sleek firearms. As we retrospectively appreciate Mr. Bishop's unique style and creative genius, it almost seems like his talent danced a playful frolic in the fields of bondage erotica — as a professional driver tests the acceleration capability of a race car — exploring new dimensions of explicitness in the sexy presentation of stretched, suspended, twisted and bent curvaceousness.

The narrative pretext that tethers Fanni Hall — a professional something — to all this distress relates to Cold War espionage, weapons, NATO and communists. While Madame victimizes Fanni in the first place, Madame's enemies kidnap both of them in the end.

The product presents Fanni Hall, Number 2, in two optimized ebooks. One contains the text and pictures that relate to the story. Some of the pictures approximate scenes in the prose. Many pictures in the original and all advertising are omitted in this iteration.

The text was reset for the ebook. Few changes were made to the friendly vernacular, but some spelling, paragraphing and punctuation were revised. 25,000 words.

Image tonality was adjusted. The ebook presents complete tableaux and virtual enlargements of picture regions that show bondage arrays, action and figure features. This digital technique intends to reduce the need for zooming and scrolling.

As possible, graphic elements were placed near text that describes them. The close correlation of prose scenarios and picture content distinguish this work from other picture-and-prose curiosa of its day.

All new scans. Female nudity.

A second ebook presents all pictures (except those in advertisements) in the original. Optimized images fill more than 140 pages. Both versions include front and back covers.

Mr. Bishop's stories and pictures are so clear that they seem to disclose his own fantasies. But that functions as evidence of an accomplished master at work.

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