The dark side of Superman: Fetish art from Joe Shuster

Well, maybe not Superman qua Superman, but some of the figures look mighty familiar. If you ever wanted to see what Lois Lane would look like scantily dressed, or what it might be like to see The Man of Steel being flogged, you might want to check it out.

Damn, that guy could not draw: what is up with Lois’ breasts? One of them seems to start about half-way down her arm, the other is rather disturbingly sort of looped over from behind her shoulder. And her feet seem to have been subjected to some bizarre Chinese binding.

The corner of the flogging table looks like it’s digging into Supe’s right shoulder blade. That’s gotta hurt.

The feet, anyway, are pretty typical of that time. Vargas Girls have feet like that, for instance.

Everybody needs a hobby, I guess.

Hobby? Actually, I suspect that this was one of the more lucrative lines of artistic endeavor.

I flipped through this at the comics shop last week, and it’s lovely. Shuster wasn’t the world’s greatest draughtsman, but it’s beside the point. The same energy and vigor that hit you in the chest in the early Superman strips are here, but they aim a little lower.

–Cliffy