Tijuana bible

Tijuana bibles (also known as eight-pagers, Tillie-and-Mac books, Jiggs-and-Maggie books, Jo-Jo books, bluesies, blue-bibles, gray-backs, and two-by-fours) were palm-sized pornographic comic books produced in the United States from the 1920s to the early 1960s. Their popularity peaked during the Great Depression era. Most Tijuana bibles were obscene parodies of popular newspaper comic strips at the time, such as "Blondie", "Barney Google", "Moon Mullins", "Popeye", "Tillie the Toiler", "The Katzenjammer Kids", "Dick Tracy", "Little Orphan Annie", and "Bringing Up Father". Others made use of characters based on popular movie and sports stars of the day such as Mae West, W.C. Fields, Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, The Marx Brothers, Cary Grant, Jean Harlow, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Joe Louis, sometimes with names only subtly changed. Before World War II, almost all the stories were humorous, cartoon versions of well-known dirty jokes that had been making the rounds for decades. The artists, writers, and publishers of these booklets generally remained anonymous as their publication was illegal and clandestine. The quality of the artwork varied widely. The subjects consisted of explicit sexual escapades, usually featuring well-known newspaper comic strip characters, movie stars, and (rarely) political figures, invariably used without respect for either copyright or libel law and without permission. Tijuana bibles featured ethnic stereotypes found in popular culture at the time, although one Tijuana bible ("You Nazi Man") concluded on a serious note with a brief message from the publisher pleading for greater tolerance in Germany for the Jews. The typical bible was an eight-panel comic strip in a wallet-sized format with black print on cheap white paper and running eight pages in length. Tillie and Mac are thought to have been the first Tijuana bible stars, along with Maggie and Jiggs from the popular newspaper strip Bringing Up Father. Tillie was soon followed by Winnie Winkle, Dumb Dora, Dixie Dugan, Fritzi Ritz, Ella Cinders, and other familiar comic strip characters stamped in the same mold.