THE ART THAT MADE THE PINUP MAGAZINE

The tag line was "Girls, gags and giggles" which perfectly sums up the content between the covers.

Beauty parade was the first of Harrison's pinup publications. While working for Martin Quigley, the publisher of 'motion picture Daily' Harrison worked in his spare time to put together the first issue of Beauty Parade. The magazine was found by his boss on Christmas eve and got him the sack! He and his friend the artist Earl Moran conspired to give life to the mag and cash in on the new pinup market.

Harrison had the idea of doing 'photo stories', which showed women performing mundane everyday activities...doesn't seem like such a big idea? well there was genius in it. The 'genius' of it being that they were very scantily clad, which can make anything interesting!. These photo stories would spread out over 2 to 3 pages generally, and would somehow manage to end in something totally absurd. His competetors on the newstands did not want to follow him in this direction, so cornering the market for the lowest common denominator Harrison was 'giggling' all the way to the bank.

Other content included short features of famous burlesque stars of the day like Tempest storm and Lili St Cyr. One of the most famous regular models ofcourse was Betty page, who would feature in almost every issue.
Vaudeville type jokes, and readers letters made up most of the rest of the editorial content squeezed in between the black and white photography.

Despite the fetishistic and risque nature of the photography the models were never shown nude, and there was no sexually explicit material at all. Even in the artfully illustrated cartoons which tended to focus on mild S&M stories of high heeled and tightly corseted damsels in distress, things still remained within the limits of decency. I love these cartoons, and their influence may be visible in my art.

The rest of the content, which although not editorial, was still a big selling point of the pinup magazines, was made up of the adds.
Every copy was stuffed with adds for all sorts of products intended to titillate the male readers. From book courses on how to pick up women to lingerie and everything inbetween. But the most famous, and faithful, advertiser in all of Harrison's publications was the legendary Irving Klaw. Klaw's mail order company offered pinup and fetish photography and short films. Mostly bondage and mild S&M, but again no nudity or sexually explicit material.

With its tease and jokes and slapstick cheesecake setups, you could describe the content of the early pinup magazines as "a burlesque show for under the pillow". In those days though burlesque did not have the high class reputation it does today, and was seen as the poor rather seedy relation of vaudeville. As a result of this the bawdy inner pages were never accepted as art by the establishment.

The pinup magazine' target customer was somewhat unkindly (though perhaps not wrongly!) described by Harrison as being short, balding and awkward with women.

However times were changing and the 'seedy' little girly magazines could not compete with the luxury looks and real writers of playboy, who did not spend the whole budget on just the cover, and sold an aspiration lifestyle to men rather than a guilty pleasure. So their days were numbered.

Sadly it was during this time, in the 1950s, that Whisper dropped its painted cover art in favour of photography. This brought it visually into line with Harrison's newer range of scandal/gossip magazines. And it was these scandal sheets that would prove to be Harrison's eventual downfall, resulting in multiple lawsuits.

Today the covers of the old pinup magazines are collectors items, who's style and imagery have been endlessly recreated in modern pinup photography.

The pinup art featured in Esquire magazine by Alberto Vargas in the 1940s,known as the 'Varga girls', was often the basis of WWII aircraft nose art. Then were picked up again by Playboy in the 1960s.

Playboy still frequently features pinup art in its pages. Often works by modern queen of the pin-up artists Olivia, but they have also featured less conventional pinup artists like Patrick Nagel. Playboy has retained its popularity through branding and retaining its sense of class. The writing is a big part of that sure, but I think the pinup art has something to with it too.

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