Exotique, three volume edition published by Taschen, 1995

Taschen in the 1990s published reprints of two magazines, John Willie’s Bizarre and Leonard Burtman’s Exotique, which were formative in the development of North American fetish (used broadly here for BDSM) community. Willie’s Bizarre was published earlier and had a long-term impact on certain aspects of the community. Burtman’s Exotique and other publications were most important in presenting and defining the fetish style that would become standard. Willie’s Bizarre examined the inner world and Burtman’s Exotique presented the trappings.

This reprint of the first 36 issues of Exotique was my introduction into the world of 1950s fetish. It wasn’t until I purchased the Bizarre reprint that I realized what Exotique was missing, at least for me. I know for others what is presented in Exotique is more appealing.

Exotique is a pastiche that reproduces elements found in a variety of sources. While John Willie was heavily influenced by London Life when creating Bizarre, Leonard Burtman was influenced by Bizarre, with elements tossed in from Irving Klaw’s production (comics and forced feminization booklets) and Harrison magazines. (To get an idea of the content of Harrison’s magazines, look at Taschen’s Pin-Ups, 2001, a selection of pages from magazines such as Titter and Beauty Parade. There are copies of these magazines available for view and download at archive.org such as this 1947 issue of Wink.)

Exotique‘s pastiche wasn’t evident to me at first, though borrowed elements were what attracted me the most. I was drawn to the uncredited much earlier Charles Guyette photos reproduced in issues’ letters sections as provided by the letter writers of themselves. I enjoyed the comics but mostly for their style and dynamic presentation, as comics they didn’t work as well as Willie’s. I was least attracted to the short stories in Exotique but I think that is mostly because of my bent. I can see how they’d appeal to some. The stories are much better written and actually hold together compared to Klaw’s booklets, which got him in trouble with federal authorities.

I know very little about Burtman except that he was an entrepreneur whose continued production of photographs, booklets, and magazines well past the 1950s. There are members of the community today who have fond memories of him as a person.

And, of course, there’s the style.

John Willie’s Bizarre has on the whole a much softer style. Leather was pretty much confined to shoes (and sometimes boots). Ruffled blouses appealed to Willie. Imagery was devoted to beautiful women and less than handsome men in his comics. Men don’t often appear in Bizarre except as narrative points of view.

Leonard Burtman’s Exotique has a harder style. Lots of leather wear. Beautiful women but presented with a distance. Showgirls as in the Harrison magazines with a wall of sorts between them and the audience.  Or Dommes who are harsh to their male and female submissives.

There are a lot of male and female submissives in Exotique. One audience was the submissive male and it’s appealing to have in one’s mind the image of a 1950s male in high heels doing the dishes while his stern mistress looks on. That is so at odds with the prevailing mainstream narrative of the time of the strong male with a fawning female sidekick.

There are a lot of strong, imperious females in Exotique. More so than in Bizarre though Willie’s world view was much more inclusive than I believe Burtman’s was.

Gene Bilbrew was the primary comic artist and his panels are always dynamic, unfortunately I find the stories less so. Eric Stanton was another artist whose work appears often as stand alone graphics, usually his well-drawn women. Bilbrew and Stanton were the artists whose work became best known in that world of fetish publications.

There are also a large number of full page photographs of women, often in lingerie as one would find in Harrison magazines (and men’s magazines such as Gala) of that same time. Burtman was a photographer and I believe many of these photographs were taken by him.

In a way it’s sad that Willie’s vision of a possible world mostly is in the background now whereas Burtman’s, more grounded on the world that already existed, is what we know today. I don’t think Willie expected anything different. The secret world was always more appealing to him.

It’s still fun to dip into Exotique years later. I keep the reprint on the shelf and I did buy prints of a couple of Burtman’s photographs. Willie, however, is never far away. I have a number of Willie’s photographs and copies of Bizarre, almost nothing original of Burtman’s.

Vintage copies of Exotique can be found online on EBay as can this Taschen reprint (it’s also available through booksellers like AbeBooks).