Bette Page/Queen of Hearts

author Jim Silke Dark HouseComics.com
Bettie Page items - with Jim Silke at Dark Horse.com
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Interview with Jim Silke at DarkHorse.com

Welcome to the birth of pinups, pulp novels, glamour magazines, and sexy photos, bought under the counter at some photo shop or found in your dadís bedroom drawer.

This is the age of Sexual Innocence of the 1940ís, as repressed sexual desire was about to explode in the 50ís in movies and print--when there were two types of girls, those who do and those who donít. Remember good girls go to heaven, and bad girls go everywhere.

Bettie Page by Jim Silke, 1995

This is not a book you just pick up, flip through, and put back on the shelf. Itís a wonderfully researched and well written edition that expertly sets the mood of the Sex, Sizzle, and Sensationalism of presenting women in pictures and drawing.

The bookís design and photos are as sexually charged as the feelings author/artist Jim Silkeís holds for the era, the artists he admires, and the women that inspired them, especially his dedication to Bettie Page.

Other books by Jim Silke

At the age of 26, with a failed attempt at breaking into the movies in 1948, Bettie found herself in New York City getting work at the lowest form of modeling, as a ëphotographers modelí.

Her main source of income at one time was appearing in countless black & white glossy pictures, sold mail order--15 cents for Pinups; 25 cents for high heels, silk stockings or fight scenes; 40 cents for spanking and bondage photos. She made less than $10.00 an hour, and less than $4,000 a year.
Bettieís image was soon to be an ìinstant narcoticî, for males buying ìpinupî magazines of scantily clad women--she was the poor manís version of what the Good Girl next door does when she was being naughty.

Then theres those remarkable Artist like Robert McGinnis who can captured the inner lives of those women living the good life, but for whom, below the surface, lay something dark, deadly and mysterious. McGinnis drew over 1,500 paperback and magazine covers, some of which I remember from when I was a kid.

Today you can still find these items, now considered original art, and collectables showing up at local book stores, flea markets, and auctions on the internet. But if you canít afford the originals, donít worry--this bookís got all you need, and the quality of the reproductions is excellent.