Naked as a Jaybird and loving it
A true milestone in fine art publishing. Excerpt from the book by Dian Hanson
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"Jaybird as an entity ceased to exist after 1968", says Bob Reitman. "Before, they had their own offices, separate from the girlie titles. After that time we were making it in a little corner of the office. All the nudists were gone."
After the nudist exodus there was no impediment to the creativity of Reitman's crotch. The girlie magazines were producing so much income Luros turned the operation completely over to his creative staff and stopped coming to the office. Freed from any pressure to be profitable Jaybird became the office toy, at last allowed to live up to its silly title. Frankenstein menaced "nudists" on the cover of Jaybird Happening December '68; Jaybird Experiences December '69 featured a couple in space helmets. The naked dentistry cover of the January '69 Jaybird Nude/Image was a high point of thematic confusion and the 1969 calendar whereon two girls frolicked with a chimp is today one of the most collectable Jaybird items.
"I'd gather together our photographers in my office and noodle and between us we'd come up with spreads we'd like to see, then they'd shoot them to order," said Reitman. Of the goofy gimmicks and bizarre props he says, "The photographers pretty much did what they wanted and had fun."
When Bob Reitman explained these circumstances Jaybird came clear for me. In my 25 years making erotic magazines I've seen the planets of creativity, intelligence, humor and most crucial, absent adult supervision, line up just a few times. The result is predictably bizarre, funny and unprofitable. The archetype was a magazine called Sluts and Slobs, which produced a single issue featuring an erotic vomiting centerfold, made by four men whose combined IQs topped 600, and whose sales bottomed at 14%, a figure so low it became an industry bogeyman employed by publishers to frighten young editors out of excess imagination. This magazine is, of course, hugely collectable today.
Jaybird, growing weirder and wilder, careened into the '70s. Reitman left in '71 when Luros refused to pay him a quarter million in owed book royalties. A use, you see, was found for all those extra photos Milt told Johnny Castano to take when the couples started getting it on. They went into big glossy picture books called the Sex And The Law Series, books so sumptuous, so scholarly; the elegant Brentanos' bookstore on New York's 5th Avenue displayed them in its windows. They were full of photos of human sexual expression and edited by that noted psychologist Robert Reitman. The publisher was the newly formed Academy Press, a company that didn't bear Luros's name, but produced books on his presses, filled with his photos.
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]
"Jaybird as an entity ceased to exist after 1968", says Bob Reitman. "Before, they had their own offices, separate from the girlie titles. After that time we were making it in a little corner of the office. All the nudists were gone."
After the nudist exodus there was no impediment to the creativity of Reitman's crotch. The girlie magazines were producing so much income Luros turned the operation completely over to his creative staff and stopped coming to the office. Freed from any pressure to be profitable Jaybird became the office toy, at last allowed to live up to its silly title. Frankenstein menaced "nudists" on the cover of Jaybird Happening December '68; Jaybird Experiences December '69 featured a couple in space helmets. The naked dentistry cover of the January '69 Jaybird Nude/Image was a high point of thematic confusion and the 1969 calendar whereon two girls frolicked with a chimp is today one of the most collectable Jaybird items.
"I'd gather together our photographers in my office and noodle and between us we'd come up with spreads we'd like to see, then they'd shoot them to order," said Reitman. Of the goofy gimmicks and bizarre props he says, "The photographers pretty much did what they wanted and had fun."
When Bob Reitman explained these circumstances Jaybird came clear for me. In my 25 years making erotic magazines I've seen the planets of creativity, intelligence, humor and most crucial, absent adult supervision, line up just a few times. The result is predictably bizarre, funny and unprofitable. The archetype was a magazine called Sluts and Slobs, which produced a single issue featuring an erotic vomiting centerfold, made by four men whose combined IQs topped 600, and whose sales bottomed at 14%, a figure so low it became an industry bogeyman employed by publishers to frighten young editors out of excess imagination. This magazine is, of course, hugely collectable today.
Jaybird, growing weirder and wilder, careened into the '70s. Reitman left in '71 when Luros refused to pay him a quarter million in owed book royalties. A use, you see, was found for all those extra photos Milt told Johnny Castano to take when the couples started getting it on. They went into big glossy picture books called the Sex And The Law Series, books so sumptuous, so scholarly; the elegant Brentanos' bookstore on New York's 5th Avenue displayed them in its windows. They were full of photos of human sexual expression and edited by that noted psychologist Robert Reitman. The publisher was the newly formed Academy Press, a company that didn't bear Luros's name, but produced books on his presses, filled with his photos.
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]
