Erotic horror-inspired artwork by Italian artist Alessandro Biffignandi.
 
Italian artist Alessandro Biffignandi passed away in January of 2017 a few short months after an incredible book chronicling his vast body of work was released by Korero Press in June of 2016, Sex and Horror: The Art of Alessandro Biffignandi. You can also thank Korero for the entertaining book which preceded Biffignandi’s, Sex and Horror: The Art of Emanuele Taglietti, another master of the genre and if I understand correctly—and I hope I do—it appears Korero intends to keep publishing other books under their “Sex and Horror” banner. This is all pretty fantastic news if you enjoy the explicit classic sleaze which defines Italian fumetti (or comics) from artists like Biffignandi, Taglietti, Stefano Tamburini and Tanino Liberatore (who created comic series RanXerox praised by director Guillermo del Toro), and Enzo Sciotti.

After developing a love-affair with comic books as a kid, Biffignandi had the good fortune become a student of Averardo Ciriello, a very busy, highly influential Italian artist (with a very dirty mind) who is historically best known for his work creating movie posters (approximately 3,000 over his career) for Italian cinema. After studying with Ciriello, Biffignandi was personally recruited by the largest movie poster production house in Italy (at the time) Studio Favalli run by Augusto Favalli. Sometime in the 1960s, Biffignandi relocated to Milan where he worked for prestigious Studio Creazioni D’Ami which provided artwork to publishers in the UK and France. Biffignandi also found work with another publisher, Edifumetto (who also widely used artwork by Emanuele Taglietti) and his horror-inspired erotica would soon be seen in magazines such as Sukia, Zora, Wallestein il Mostro, and other fumetti-style comics.

Before you start scrolling through the images in this post, I’d like to share a couple of things. First, and I’ll give it to you gently, it seems that Biffignandi had a thing for Disney characters and books as a child and his work is known to reflect this interest at times. So, you know, you just might see your old pal Peter Pan doing things that only a real boy could. Could be worse. Also important to note, especially if you are not familiar with this genre, is Biffignandi’s work is somewhat explicit and pretty much all that follows is very NSFW. YAY!
 

 

 
Much more after the jump…

’The Concrete Jungle,’ (1982) 22x31” Original Thai poster. Artist: Larry Salk
 
Like so many 1970s tots with a taste for lurid, inappropriate, forbidden thrills, in print and onscreen, I count as a key corruptive influence the most notorious Charlie’s Angels episode from its tawdry 10 pm-time-slot Farrah Fawcett first season, “Angels In Chains.” With its sweaty redneck county work-farm setting, menacing guest villain corrections officers—Anthony James, the terrifying hearse-drive from Burnt Offerings, and Mary Woronov as butch sadist Maxine, forcing the undercover Angels to openly shower before applying delousing spray to their naked bodies — and shocking sexual slavery twist, this sordid summer ’77 rerun minted legions of instant Women-In-Prison devotees.  But since tween access to grindhouse gold like Barbed Wire Dolls, SS Experiment Love Camp, Escape From Hell & Wanda the Wicked Warden was sadly impossible, I had to wait over five long years to experience the dawn of the 1980s surprise American exploitation WIP resurgence with The Concrete Jungle.  And it was so, so worth it.

Produced by Billy Fine, who followed up with the star-packed, much more infamous (and slapdash) Chained Heat in 1983, Concrete Jungle benefits hugely from the assured direction of underrated trash-film expert Tom DeSimone, whose resume not only comprised the zero-budget 3-D 1972 softcore bait & switcher Prison Girls, R-rated drive-in/cable megabits like Chatterbox (the talking-vagina comedy with adorable Candice Rialson), Linda Blair’s slasher Hell Night, and later, the rollicking Wendy O Williams/Pat Ast/Sybil Danning parody Reform School Girls, but a slew of all-male XXX movies, including Heavy Equipment, the first gay porn feature in 3-D.   

In DeSimone’s professional hands, Jungle starts off like a slick network TV movie but quickly plunges into hard-bitten, gritty sleaze enacted by a glorious, well-cast, thoroughly committed ensemble led by Happy Birthday To Me and soon-to-be Young and the Restless star Tracey Bregman as “Cherry,” the new fish, a fresh-faced innocent ski-bunny turned unwitting cocaine smuggler; Jill St John, the imperious, glamorous, oh-so-crooked warden; classy dame TV-staple Nita Talbot as the crusading reformer who thinks Jill and her tactics stink to high heaven; and the deliciously diabolical Barbara Luna, another daytime diva, oozing silky malevolence as Cat, the evil queen bee of the cellblock who sashays around in designer jeans, pulling the other gals’ puppet-strings by supplying (and withholding) narcotics, pimping the hot ones (“You’ll fuck who I tell ya to fuck!”) to rapey muscle-daddy Officer Stone, and unleashing her twitchy, wild-eyed blonde henchwoman Icy whenever a wayward prisoner needs bashing or killing, which is often.

As played by the amazing June Barrett with such gleeful, star-quality, damaged ferocity, Icy manages to steal scenes from a memorable gallery of supporting skanks, including thuggish matron Kendal Kaldwell (best known as the ample bikinied lesbo producer coaxing hapless brilliant screenwriter Pia Zadora into a hot tub at the end of Lonely Lady); foul-mouthed shit-starter Aimee Eccles (as Spider), and even raunchy redhead Carole Ita White—who got fired from Laverne & Shirley when all the laughs she was getting as nemesis-nasty Rosie Greenbaum sent Penny Marshall whining to her showrunner brother Garry— but went on to become a grindhouse Bette Midler with other cherished appearances in Chained Heat, Hellhole, The Naked Cage and Savage Streets. 

DeSimone keeps tension simmering right at the boiling point, always keeping us fearful for cutie-pie Cherry, while choosing inspired moments to whip things into a filthy froth, like when he intercuts between sexual assault and childbirth, the mother’s shrieks, the rapist’s groans and the wails of the victim (Camille Keaton, who got plenty of practice as the epically poked lead of I Spit On Your Grave) blending into an unforgettable aria of tastelessness.  And when Cherry’s pushed too far — beaten, tormented, molested (off-camera) by Muscle Daddy, friends whacked — and, innocence broken forever, likewise snaps the teeth from her rattail comb, then squeezes her jagged new Clairol-shiv in one hand until blood starts to flow, it’s such s rapturous WIP movie-moment, the ensuing exercise yard riot, a rousing spectacle of mud-wrestling and electrocution, is but icing on a cine-slime cupcake discriminating trash fans may never tire of scarfing.

Not available on US home video since RCA/Columbia’s cruddy-looking VHS tape hit the streets 35 years ago, this essential bitches-behind-bars classic has now received a 2K restoration from the original interpositive with Code Red’s brand-new, sparkling all-region Blu-ray, exclusively available at RoninFlix.com. Aside from the enhanced resolution revealing some shockingly shoddy stunt-double wigging, the only thing wrong with this release (which includes great new interviews with Bregman, DeSimone and co-star Sondra Currie) is the intro with the label’s inexplicably ubiquitous “Banana Man” — an unfunny fixture in desperate need of recasting… or retirement.

Below, a selection of “women-in-prison” movie posters, now on sale for 30% off at Westgate Gallery. Use the code “BF30” at checkout.
 

’The Concrete Jungle,’  (1982)  27x39” Original Spanish poster. Artist: Larry Salk
 

’Barbed Wire Dolls,’  (1976)  39x55” Original Italian poster. Director: Jess Franco
 
Many more after the jump…

Marlon Brando explaining to Swedish actress Ewa Aulin how strong his tongue is.
 
As far as movies go, 1968 flick Candy has it all. A star-studded cast comprised of Marlon Brando, Richard Burton, James Coburn, John Huston (playing the head doctor of a mental institution), Walter Matthau, John Astin (best known for his role as Gomez Addams on TV’s The Addams Family), Ringo Starr (as Emmanuel the Mexican gardener) and striking Swedish actress and beauty queen Ewa Aulin. Add a killer soundtrack composed by Dave Grusin which includes The Byrds and Steppenwolf and you have the perfect flick. What else could you possibly need? While I’d venture to say that would be enough for most movie fans to give Candy a whirl, there is so much more to this cult classic than just the Oscar-winning actors in the cast and the movie’s outrageously hot, 23-year-old blonde starlet.

Based on the scandalous 1958 book by Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg, Candy is a film centering around Ewa Aulin’s character of Candy Christian—a high school student pursued by pretty much every male who comes into contact with her. In fewer than ten minutes into the movie we meet alcoholic poet MacPhisto, Richard Burton’s character whose prose and persona are so seductive that he causes his female fans to faint. MacPhisto’s dramatic entrance is enhanced by invisible fans that blow his wild hair, long scarf, and cape (!) as he recites a fictional poem Forests of Flesh while a bevy of teenage girls swoon and scream. A few even bend to kiss the stairs that MacPhisto walked on as he exited the lecture hall. At this point, Candy has been rolling for about fifteen minutes, and unless you don’t have a pulse, you’re impossibly hooked and can’t wait to see what happens next. Especially since the sly MacPhisto has managed to make the first pass at Candy by passing her a note requesting her presence in his Mercedes where things get weirder than weird—and that’s all I’m going to say about that.

As the film rolls on, the rest the cast is introduced, like James Coburn who digs into his role as Dr. A.B. Krankheit (a spider monkey specialist and brain surgeon) while John Astin regales us with a constant stream of one-liners from his dual characters of T.M. Christian /Jack Christian, Candy’s father and uncle. The non-stop barrage of bizarre incidents involving Candy and the film’s cast of characters culminates in her meeting spiritual leader Grindl played by Marlon Brando whose “temple” resides in the trailer of a moving truck. Although Brando/Grindl and Candy seem to have a pretty good time, according to the actor (as seen in the 2015 documentary Listen to Me Marlon), Candy was the worst movie he ever made in his life. In an ironic twist, Brando was Candy‘s money-man and he personally helped secure financing for the film as a favor to director Christian Marquand—a close personal friend of his who Brando named his son in honor of. (Marquand was also briefly married to wild child actress Tina Aumont). If you still need to be somehow convinced of Candy‘s many merits, it also contains a nutty scene between 60’s “It Girl” Anita Pallenberg (as Nurse Bullock) and Ewa Aulin that involves a bit of hair pulling. Meow.

I’ve posted some great stills, posters and lobby cards from Candy for you to check out as well as the bonkers trailer for the film which was beautifully restored and released on Blu-ray in 2016 by New York-based film distribution company Kino Lorber.
 

A publicity photo of Marlon Brando and Ewa Aulin for ‘Candy.’
 

 
More eye candy from ‘Candy’ after the jump…

Hustler, 1976.
 
I’ve never quite bought into the idea that red is always a color of sex and desire. Not that I give a fuck or have any scientific evidence to back up my uninformed opinion other than the anecdotal prejudice that if red was a color of arousal then we’d all cop off at stop signals and dear old Santa Claus would be a sex god.

Maybe he is.

And maybe this explains why porn mags get into spreading some Christmas cheer every December by getting a little festive with their covers.

Such naive and dot-to-dot thinking led me to browse (ahem—for research purposes…of course!) through a fine selection of vintage, glamor mag covers just to get the inside skinny on how they once celebrated the Holiday Season. For if there is one thing I do know, thanks to analytics, is that our dear readers like stuff that says “NSFW” with a hint of the naughty, the naked, and the red.

So maybe red does mean sex?

I mean just look at the amount of red splashed out on the following selection of covers—it’s enough to give one hypertension. And note too how it was once seemly for megastars like Jayne Mansfield, Burt Reynolds, and Joan Collins to appear on the cover or even naked in the centerfold of such glossy, adult entertainment mags.

And last but certainly not least, these covers offer a potted history of porn mags. From when once adult magazines were about artful erotic photographs and great writing (by the likes of Hunter S. Thompson, George V. Higgins, Norman Mailer, Gore Vidal, interviews with writers like William (Lord of the Flies) Golding, and articles on the threat of the impending devastating weather changes and corruption in politics) the adult mag soon became just a selection of close-up hardcore pix which might not have looked out of place in a medical textbook (Gynecology 101?) and very little readable content. It was, I guess you could say, rather prescient of how our world has moved from text to pictograph and hieroglyph (emoji) via technology.

But, anyway, this is all a by-the-way to sneak in a few saucy vintage covers for your seasonal entertainment.
 

Joan Collins on the cover of Playboy, Xmas 1983.
 

Don’t be fooled by technical side of Practical Photography, 1965.
 

Jayne Mansfield on the cover of Variedades, 1956.
 
More saucy covers, after the jump…
 

An illustration from 1935 by Italian-born artist Carlo Farneti for a posthumous edition of Charles Baudelaire’s book of poetry ‘Les Fleurs du Mal.’
 

“That heart which flutters like a fledgling bird,
I shall tear, bleeding, from his breast, to pitch
It blandly in the dust without a word
To slake the hunger of my favorite bitch.”

—a passage from Charles Baudelaire’s poetry book, Les Fleurs du Mal.

When French poet Charles Baudelaire first published his poetry book Les Fleurs du Mal (The Flowers of Evil) in 1857 it caused quite the scandal. Baudelaire, his publisher Poulet Malassis and the book’s printer were all prosecuted for creating “an insult to public decency.” Baudelaire would eventually be convicted on two charges—obscenity and blasphemy. He was also forced to remove several poems from the book when it was republished in 1861. Below is a portion from Les Fleurs du Mal “Une Charogne” (“A Carcass”) in which Baudelaire beautifully romanticizes a decomposing corpse:

“The blow-flies were buzzing round that putrid belly,
From which came forth black battalions
Of maggots, which oozed out like a heavy liquid
All along those living tatters.

Then tell the vermin as it takes its pleasance
And feasts with kisses on that face of yours,
I’ve kept intact in form and godlike essence
Our decomposed amours!”

 
The controversy over Les Fleurs du Mal would eventually lead to the demise of Baudelaire’s career as a poet. Heartbreakingly, Baudelaire would pass away in 1867—ten years after the publication of Les Fleurs du Mal, addicted to opium, penniless and in a state of perpetual paralysis. Les Fleurs de Mal was published yet again in 1868 to include previously unpublished poems written by the poet. This publication would reignite interest in his work which would continue to grow in the years following his death. In 1935 Italian artist Carlo Farneti created a series of evocative illustrations for Les Fleurs du Mal for Parisian bookstore Gibert Jeune. Farneti had relocated to France in 1926 and quickly became a sought-after artist creating illustrations for books by renowned French novelist Émile Zola and Edgar Allen Poe (who Baudelaire referred to as his “twin soul.”) Twelve of Farneti’s exquisite illustrations for Les Fleurs du Mal follow—some are gorgeously NSFW.
 

 

 

 
More after the jump…

One of the 217 vibrant covers of pioneering Spanish horror magazine, Dossier Negro.
 
Dossier Negro made its debut in 1968, earning it the distinction of being the first-ever Spanish horror magazine. Staff illustrators were plucked from the young and vibrant local artistic community including Leopoldo Sánchez who at the time was just twenty. Sánchez would go on provide artwork for several influential magazines, including Vampirella and Eerie, and for Marvel Comics.

During its 217 issue run work by other prominent artists would appear in Dossier Negro, such as José Ortiz (Spain), Ernesto “Ernie” Chan (aka Ernie Chua), Frank Frazetta, comic hero Bernie Wrightson (a long-time collaborator of author Stephen King) and comic master Enrique Torres-Prat/Enrich. Initially put out by Ibero Mundial de Ediciones (issues 1-124), the publishing house engaged the services of a fixture of the Spanish comic scene, Josep Toutain Vila (or José Toutain). Toutain would quickly make a connection with Jim Warren of Warren Publishing to license Warren-owned content for use by Dossier Negro as well as other comics from Italy and the UK. Later on, three different publishing houses would continue to provide a home for the wildly popular magazine. Noted in the 2012 book, Spanish Horror Film by Antonio Lazaro-Rebol, Dossier Negro remained a favorite in Spain throughout its twenty-year run which concluded in 1988.

I’ve posted 24 images of cover artwork from Dossier Negro that I know you will dig below. Some are slightly NSFW.
 

 

 

 
More after the jump…

Officially licensed Tom of Finland action figure from 2003.
 
In 2003 the Tom of Finland Foundation put out the first, and only to my knowledge, Tom of Finland totally articulated anatomically correct action figure. However, I feel compelled to say that the figure is better described as anaTOMically accurate as it pertains to the famous homoerotic art created by Touko Valio Laaksonen—the artist known as Tom of Finland.

Called the “001 Rebel,” the officially licensed thirteen-inch doll comes dressed in a leather jacket, leather pants, cropped white t-shirt, and motorcycle boots. Other accessories include three extra penises (one of which appears to be uncircumcised), two sets of feet and two Tom of Finland of condoms—one of which fits the dolls giant, erect dongs. Amusingly, the package contains a not-so-ironic warning that it contains “choking hazards.” You just can’t make that stuff up, kids. For those of you reading this right now hoping it might be possible for you to purchase your very own three-dimensional Tom of Finland doll, the provocative adult action figure is pretty easy to come on eBay, Etsy or right here. Completely NSFW images of the Tom of Finland doll and his various anatomical “accessories” follow.
 

 

 
Continues after the jump…

A painting of Vampirella by Spanish artist, Enrique Torres-Prat.
 
Spanish comic book artists have had a thing for drawing Vampirella for decades. This is an indisputable fact. Even though the very first illustration of Vampirella is credited to Brooklyn, New York native Frank Frazetta, there are more than a few prominent Spanish artists responsible for creating incredible, almost tangible paintings of one of the world’s most famous female comic book characters. For instance, Jose “Pepe” Gonzalez was a fucking legend when it came to his illustrations and paintings of Vampirella, and his many fans say that his artistic portrayal of the she-vampire perfectly defined the character. In fact, when Frank Frazetta was asked for his opinion about Gonzalez he responded saying that “no one drew women as beautifully as José Gonzalez.” Work by other well-known Spanish artists who drew Vampirella, such as the man who is the subject of this post, Enrique Torres-Prat (aka Enric/Enrich), was compiled into a fantastic book that came out just this past January, Masters of Spanish Comic Book Art, a must-have book that will make your coffee table much more appealing.

Torres-Prat/Enric is a revered artist and his original Vampirella paintings are known to sell for thousands of dollars when and if they become available. It has also been noted by Vampirella experts that Enric was likely the only artist to paint Vampirella into a triptych (a three-paneled painting). His experience with formal artistic training and education as a youth was vast and Ernic had the good fortune to be able to travel around the world during that time visiting museums in Amsterdam and the United States, soaking in work by the true masters such as one of his primary inspirations, Rembrandt. In 1971 the artist scored his first U.S. gig when his artwork was chosen to appear on the cover of People Machines—a collection of science fiction stories written by Jack Williamson who many called “The Dean of Science Fiction” as they did his peer, Robert Heinlein. This success would lead Enric to Warren Publishing where he would ink the covers of horror comic staples, Eerie and Creepy as well as Vampirella. 52 of Enric’s paintings of Vampirella would adorn the cover of the magazine during his time with Warren Publishing. José Gonzalez may be considered the definitive benchmark for Vampirella’s look, but it was Enric paintings that would become synonymous with the ethos of the dangerously-drawn, vampiric femme-fatale.
 

 

 
Many more after the jump…

A vintage postcard, likely from Austria featuring a silly version of Krampus admiring three female Krampi. Yes.
 
According to Monte Beauchamp, a well-known art director and author of the 2010 book, Krampus: The Devil of Christmas, the postcards in this post originated in Austria sometime during the 1960s. The kooky concept paired a groovy and often goofy version of Krampus with even groovier buxom girls in skintight, barely-there clothing. This was of course yet another way to market the wildly popular Krampus craze in Germany, this time as a form of erotica.

Most of the cards simply read “Gruss vom Krampus” or “Greetings from Krampus,” and a few even feature vampy female versions of Krampus behaving badly—but not as badly as the hair-pulling, child-stomping traditional Krampus we all know and hope to never run into. The Krampus-themed cards in this post are perhaps NSFW just like anything Krampus related should be. All hail Krampus! The swinging underworld king of Christmas!
 

 

 
More fun with Krampus and the ladies after the jump…

The perfect gift for mother
 
Anyone who’s spent any time in America is familiar with the phenomenon of the elevation of Brian De Palma’s 1983 cokehead tour de force Scarface as a singular icon of worldly American success. Unsurprisingly, Martin Scorsese’s enervating masterpiece Wolf of Wall Street starring Leonardo DiCaprio seems headed down the same road, of a morality tale whose relevant audience seems to have missed the point entirely. 

I couldn’t tell you a single thing about financial operations of the real-life Jordan Belfort, but I do know that the man made a lot of money on Wall Street, did a lot of drugs and had a lot of sex, and then was busted by the feds for being a scumbag or something. Scorsese’s Wolf of Wall Street is the blackest of black comedies mainly due to its willingness to wallow in its protagonist’s point of view at such length. There’s an extended sequence towards the end of the movie that ranks up there as one of the core reasons I cherish the cinema as an art form, and if you’ve seen the movie you can probably identify the one I mean.

In any case, Leonardo DiCaprio, in addition to being a talented actor, is also famous for hanging out on yachts, which somewhat blunts the brilliance of his portrayal of Jordan Belfort. Stupid people everywhere appear to have seized on DiCaprio’s Belfort as a hero worth emulating, much as Martin Scorsese might have a different opinion on the subject.

Case in point. Right now on Amazon several canvas prints of DiCaprio-as-Belfort for use as “wall art” are available. All of them come in two sizes but if you’re the Belfort fan I think you are, you don’t want the small size, you want the full 44”x26” Big Kahuna, which will run you $124.99. There’s one of Belfort snorting cocaine off of a woman’s ass, that one’s my favorite. There’s another one of Belfort cavorting on the floor with his scantily clad mistress-then-wife Naomi Lapaglia (Margot Robbie) which covers similar terrain as the cocaine-ass one.

All of these can be shipped in time for Christmas, by the way.

There are a few others, including one of Belfort holding a glass of wine on a yacht that I think has extra resonance due to DiCaprio’s own hobbies, that you can see below. I wish they had thought to include a still of the early scene where Belfort is mentored by a senior trader named Mark Hanna (Matthew McConaughey) in the art of rapidly getting hammered during the luncheon hour. Hanna is given one of the movie’s more memorable lines when he says that the secret to success on Wall Street can be boiled down to “cocaine and hookers, my friend.”

Keeping on the subject of cocaine, in addition to the Wolf of Wall Street canvas prints I’ve thrown in one of Wagner Moura playing Pablo Escobar in the Netflix series Narcos and another one of David Bowie as Jareth in Labyrinth.
 

Naomi Lapaglia goodness
 

Sexy money armor
 

Leo on a yacht
 
More DiCaprio wall art after the jump…....