The Betty Pages #2
The first 9 pages of The Betty Pages Issue #2 start off with a Table of Contents then delve right into a number or letters from Issue #1 of The Betty Pages, with the interior cover page featuring a B & W photo of Bettie Page in her infamous leopard print unitard, but the picture of her is taken inside and she gives a fierce look to the camera as she kneels.
Page #10 features a brief column by Bill Ward of his impressions of Bettie Page and how much she was an influence on his work, and how he felt she was the best pin-up model that ever lived. There is also a nice pin-up by Ward of a female who looks a lot like Bettie Page, reclining on a bed with a cigarette dangling from her hand, a shoe dangling from her foot, as she talks on the phone. Pages 11-16 feature another Harrison magazine update and checklist continued from Issue #1 and there are some nice B & W photos of Bettie in a French Maid outfit and the following pages also feature Bettie with another attractive leggy model in a "prison break" photo shoot. Really cute stuff. Page 16 features more Bettie photos "driving" and they're placed a top another checklist of Harrison magazines featuring Bettie.
After an ad on pg. #17, Greg Theakston writes a nice informative yet brief biography of Ms. Page on pages 18- 23 concerning her time she decided to bow out of the pin-up and glamour limelight, and the story will continue in Issue #3. It is sprinkled with more B & W photos of Bettie.
Page #24 starts out with a nice summation of George B. Petty's art and methods for his much cherished and infamous pin-ups. He used the airbrush long before most artists had heard of it, and his work is shown with a few illos throughout the pages, ending on #28. #29 does add an additional bio of Petty, the year he was born, died and a brief description of how he used several models to pose to make a composite drawing and airbrush painting based on all of them. Petty also often employed his daughter for some poses for his work.
Pages #30-31 feature more checklists of Bettie's magazine appearances, and then pgs. #32-35 feature a brief bit of info about the Teasearama burlesque movie that was the follow-up to the Varietease movie, featuring both Bettie and Tempest Storm. It also provides some photos, some rare photos of the only known photo book of the movie to exist and other pics of Bettie, Tempest Storm, and Irving Klaw.
Pages #36-45 feature a biography of sorts of Irving Klaw, the man responsible for so many photos of Bettie Page, Tempest Storm and others, and he was also responsible for the aforementioned movies in the preceding paragraph. There are more B&W photos of Bettie, Paula Klaw, dancer Blaze Starr, and, on pg. #45, a (then-recent) photo of Paula Klaw, who looked surprisingly great for her age the time the photo was taken.
An ad on #46 for Bettie mail order photos, and #47 features scans of magazines that featured covers of models that strongly resembled Bettie.
Pgs. #48-50 feature nice nude photos of Bettie taken by Bunny Yeager of Bettie on the beach and in the water.
Pgs. #51-58 feature biographic information of late comic book illustrator, pin-up artist, and gag cartoonist Wallace Wood. There are great examples of his art throughout the pages, including a repro of an interior page to the Thunder Agents #1 comic book with the character Iron Maiden. Page 358 features a photo of a (then-recent) Wood lounging in a chair with his Army jacket on, smoking a cigarette.
Pgs. #59-66 feature a re-print of "Kenton of the Space Patrol" comic by Wallace Wood and Joe Orlando, in B & W.
The interior of the back cover page features an ad for 7 different 8mm tapes of Bettie Page, and the back cover features an ad for Teaserama with pics of Tempest Storm and Bettie Page.
This issue was filled with plenty of biographical information about the pin-up and comic artists, and Jack Kirby is also mentioned.
Nice photos all around of Bettie Page, and there are more photos of other dancers and you get a real sense of what the pin-up style comics, gag Playboy cartoons, and burlesque movies were like at the time.
A well done comic digest, with more biographical info than fictional comics, but the gag cartoons, the interviews, the biographies, collector checklists and of course the photos all make for a very nice issue.
5 out of 5.