Eric Stanton

Early life and career

Stanton was born and raised in New York City. In 2013, comics historian Ger Apeldoorn uncovered a military-themed daily panel, Tin Hats, distributed by the Bell Syndicate, credited simply "Stanton" but bearing a signature matching that found on Stanton's later work. It was syndicated from July 27, 1942 to November 18, 1944, beginning when Stanton was not quite 16. In 1948 and 1949, he was an art assistant to Boody Rogers on Sparky Watts for Columbia, or Babe for Prize Comics, supplying plot ideas. He began specializing in erotic bondage comics, which publisher Irving Klaw ran in his magazine Movie Star News. He then attended the Cartoonists and Illustrators School from 1954 to 1956, studying under comics artist Jerry Robinson and others. One classmate was future Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko. Another was Gene Bilbrew, whom he introduced to Klaw.

From 1958 to either 1966 or 1968 (accounts differ), Stanton shared a Manhattan studio at 43rd Street and Eighth Avenue with noted comic book artist Steve Ditko. When either artist was under deadline pressure, it was not uncommon for them to pitch in and help the other with his assignment. Ditko biographer Blake Bell, without citing sources, said, "At one time in history, Ditko denied ever touching Stanton's work, even though Stanton himself said they would each dabble in each other's art; mainly spot-inking", and the introduction to one book of Stanton's work says, "Eric Stanton drew his pictures in India ink, and they were then hand-coloured by Ditko". In a 1988 interview with Theakston, Stanton recalled that although his contribution to Spider-Man was "almost nil", he and Ditko had "worked on storyboards together and I added a few ideas. But the whole thing was created by Steve on his own... I think I added the business about the webs coming out of his hands".

Later career

After Klaw died in 1966, Stanton supported himself by self-publishing and distributing his work to a quasi-underground network of subscribers and patrons. His mimeographed/photocopied Stantoons comic-book series continued to his death in 1999 and featured many of his best-known post-Klaw concepts, including the superheroine Blunder Broad, and the Amazon-like Princkazons.

Blunder Broad

Stanton created Blunder Broad in the 1970s with writer Andrew J. Offutt (AKA Turk Winter), for use in a great number of pornographic BDSM stories, published over the years in black and white. A parody of Wonder Woman, Blunder Broad is an inept superheroine who continually fails in her missions and is invariably raped and tortured by her enemies, who include a lesbian supervillainess variably called Leopard Lady, Pussycat Galore, or Cheetah, and her male sidekick Count Dastardly. Blunder Broad can be deprived of her super strength when subjected to cunnilingus.

Princkazons

With "Lady Princker", Stanton and Shaltis (as well as Alan Throne and Winter) created the Princkazons storyline in which women around the world grew oversized female penises, or "princks". These women also grew taller and stronger than men and began dominating and humiliating the men in public, including facesitting, urophagia, coprophagia and anal and oral rape.

Legacy

Beginning in the mid-1970s, Belier Press, a New York publisher of vintage erotica, reprinted many of Stanton's comic serials in its 24-volume Bizarre Comix series. Titles, mainly from the 1950s and 1960s, include: Dianna's Ordeal, Perils of Dianna, Priscilla: Queen of Escapes, Poor Pamela, Bound in Leather, Duchess of the Bastille, Bizarre Museum, Pleasure Bound, Rita's School of Discipline, Mrs. Tyrant's Finishing School, Fifi Chastises Her Maids, A Hazardous Journey, Helga's Search for Slaves, Madame Discipline, and Girls' Figure Training Academy.

In addition to books about his work, Stanton's art was reprinted in the 1990s in comic books from Fantagraphics Books' imprint Eros Comix: The Kinky Hook (1991), Sweeter Gwen (1992), Confidential TV (1994), and Tops and Bottoms # 1 - 4 (1997). Individual issues were subtitled "Bound Beauty" (# 1), "Lady in Charge" (# 2), "Broken Engagement" (# 3), "Broken Engagement 2" (# 4).

The German publisher Taschen Verlag has published several collections.