John Willie moved to North America the end of 1945 intending to publish a fetish magazine. He settled first in Montreal and then moved to New York City. He brought from Australia photographic negatives and ideas for artwork and the type of magazine he wanted to produce.

Bizarre was published by Willie from 1946 until 1956 when he sold the magazine to a friend who published a few more issues before the publication folded. The magazine was filled with original artwork by Willie, photographs by Willie and others, stories, and letters to the editor. Most issues before 1956 had cover illustrations by Willie and some have his comics. Willie’s interests were bondage and fetish apparel (especially high heel shoes) but the magazines depended on material furnished by readers so the range of activities and dress was wide.

All the issues of Bizarre were reprinted by Taschen in the 1990s in two volumes and copies can still be found online. Original copies sometimes appear on eBay. I’m reproducing the front cover and a few pages from number 11 published in 1952.

The cover artwork by Willie shows some of the activities and dress found in Bizarre. This artwork carries forward an idea he presented in his only published artwork in London Life magazine (1935), the magazine that was the inspiration for Bizarre.

This photograph for an article about high heel shoes appears on page 7. I’m not sure, but I suspect the photo was taken by Willie in Australia in the 1930s with his second wife Holly as model.

This is the beginning of NYC’s story “From Girl to Pony” (on page 24) which is completed in issue 12. The artwork is by Willie.

This is a photograph on page 32 by Willie taken in Australia of Holly. In the late 1940s Willie sold a number of his bondage and high heel photos of Holly and others taken in Australia in the 1930s (and possibly early 1940s) to Irving Klaw. Klaw carried these photos in his catalogs until about the mid-1950s.

The reader’s photograph appearing on page 63, above part of another reader’s letter, shows the properly attired 1950s Domme. A copy of a 1946 issue of Bizarre is lying on the floor by her right shoulder. This same issue appears in September 2012 InStyle magazine (on page 488). The vintage copy was purchased by an editor who liked “the gorgeous images of shoes.”