Sex Files

April 20 2025

OCCASIONAL DAGWOOD

If it pops up you might as well do something useful with it.

Tijuana bibles parodied everything from film stars to popular comic characters, but Blondie creator Chic Young still must have been shocked when he saw the raunchy Dagwood in All in a Days Work, featuring his creation Dagwood Bumstead (the husband of Blondie, the eponymous character in his popular comic strip Blondie) in an x-rated turn.

Tijuana bibles had no copyright dates. They appeared during the 1920s, grew in popularity during the Great Depression, and seem to have lasted until the late 1950s or early 1960s. This one, a version that may have been restored by a graphic designer at some point, is likely from the earlier end of that range, just after Blondie debuted in national newspapers in 1930. It’s explicit, but as you know, we draw no lines of that type when it comes to vintage material. It existed, we share.

The character of Dagwood, by the way, was heir to a locomotive fortune who was disowned when he married Blondie—a flapper. We like that idea for the Great Depression. Voluntary destitution for love. Dagwood was quite a guy. We’ve highlighted these publications before, but not for a few years. To see more just click the keywords at bottom and scroll.

Great Depression, Tijuana bible, Chic Young, comic art

Sex Files

April 3 2020

THIN MAN, FAT DICK

Powell and Loy take their relationship to the next level.

The lockdown has put us in a lewd mood. So to scratch that itch, today we have William Powell and Myrna Loy, famous for the series of Thin Man movies they made during the 1930s and ’40s, starring in an x-rated Tijuana bible. It’s called Nuts to Will Hays, a reference to the Hays Code, the motion picture censorship regime that arrived on the Hollywood scene in 1930. In the comic Powell decides to become more than friends with Loy, explicitly planting his huge hairy organ into hers, to the enjoyment of both. We’re glad we ran across this—it’s a reminder to watch the entire series of Thin Man movies. We already watched the first, and nothing like this happened. We’re probably safe in assuming nothing like this happens in any them, but we can dream. See more Tijuana bibles by clicking the keywords at the bottom of this post.

Tijuana bible, Hays Code, The Thin Man, William Powell, Myrna Loy, Will Hayes

Sex Files

August 3 2019

BIBLE STUDY

Lamour lives up to her name by getting some hot island love.

We said we’d get back to Tijuana bibles soon, and true to our word here you see a blatant offense against all that is right and decent called Purple Passion in the South Seas. It stars cinema icon Dorothy Lamour and a fella named Jon Hall. You may not know him, but he was an actor also, and co-starred with Lamour in a 1937 south seas adventure called The Hurricane. The dirty-minded folks who made this booklet would have wanted it available while the film was still on people’s minds, so we’re thinking it came out that year or in early 1938.

We’re assuming you know the deal with these items. But if not you can visit our introductory post on the subject at this link. Because the column width on our website is somewhat narrow, the scans of this bible are small, which makes parts unreadable without practically putting your eyeball directly against the computer screen. Funny as that would look, it’s not recommendable, so we’ve transcribed the text where needed. If you like this one, we have others. Just click the keywords “Tijuana bible” at the bottom of the post and start scrolling. More of these to come.

Dorothy: Say Jon, aren’t you afraid that your cock will look white against your suntan?

Jon: Say! I never thought of that! Maybe I better take it out and get it to match the rest of me!*

*Transcribing the text only reinforces the fact that these things are absolutely moronic, but we love them anyway.

Tijuana bible, The Hurricane, Dorothy Lamour, Jon Hall, cinema

Sex Files

January 4 2016

RECREATIONAL TIJUANA

Crossing the border between art and pornography.

The Tijuana bibles we like best are those dealing with celebrities, like this one about Robert Mitchum and this one spoofing John Dillinger. But many of these dirty little books dealt with famous comic strip characters such as today’s Dixie Dugan send-up. In addition to being absolutely scandalous and often very funny, these eight-panel booklets show that we haven’t really changed that much in the last eighty years or so years when it comes to such variations as oral sex and dirty talk. Yes, your grandparents may well have been sixty-nining like banshees. Read a bit more about Tijuana bibles here.

Tijuana bible, Robert Mitchum, Esther Williams, Dixie Dugan

Sex Files

September 18 2014

DILL’S PICKLE

Even if the folklore is untrue, you have to give it credit for staying power.

The rumor about John Dillinger’s enormous penis has been debunked often enough that we don’t need to bother, but the interesting question remaining is how the rumor got started in the first place. Nobody knows, but this Tijuana bible entitled A Hasty Exit may be the first depiction of Dillinger with an oversized member. Tijuana bibles often starred famous and infamous people, and all the men had enormous rods, because what’s the point of a dirty book otherwise?

But still, this is a curious artifact, considering the folklore surrounding Big John’s dilly of a pickle. It doesn’t have a copyright, but it has for many years been grouped with other bibles dating from the 1930s. We’re putting it at 1934 or after because the Evelyn character here probably is supposed to be Dillinger’s girlfriend Evelyn Frechette, who was unknown to the wider public until her April 1934 arrest. The Captain Tracy character is, of course Dick Tracy. Dilly and Dick get freaky, below. See more Tijuana bibles by clicking here, here, or here.

Tijuana bible, John Dillinger, Evelyn Frechette, Dick Tracy

Sex Files

July 27 2012

GOOFING AROUND

Robert Mitchum is the butt of a very dirty joke.

So, here’s the Robert Mitchum booklet cited in the July 1957 Hush-Hush in the above post. The article describes it as the lowest form of filth and its maker or makers as degenerate profiteers. Pretty hard to argue with that. Consider it a warning. It’s called Goof Butts, and it references Mitchum’s arrest for marijuana possession in 1948. Assuming the creators of the book wanted to strike while the iron was hot, so to speak, they probably published it around the same time. Enjoy.

Robert Mitchum, Tijuana bible, nudity

Hollywoodland

July 27 2012

HUSH HOUR

Sleazy tabloid exposes the nationwide trade in even sleazier Tijuana bibles.

It’s been a while since we’ve featured Hush-Hush, but it’s one of our favorite high-end mid-century tabloids, so today we have a newly scanned issue from this month 1957. We learn that Ingrid Bergman called Ed Sullivan a liar for falsely claiming she was booked on his show, and that Phil Silvers was terrified that he would lose his fame, and that Eartha Kitt was destined to forever be lonely because she was interested only in white men.

But the fun story here is the one headed: “Movie Stars Victimized By Smut, Inc.” The article is about Tijuana bibles, and the many celebs who had been unknowingly featured in them. We’ve already posted a few bibles, thus you probably already know that they’re pornographic eight-page comic booklets sold clandestinely in drug stores and soda fountains. Their makers felt free to borrow the likenesses of public figures of the day, and Hush-Hush offers up examples starring Bob Hope, Marie Wilson, Robert Mitchum and others. The article describes them as “unbelievably filthy booklets showing the basest sexual acts and perversions.”

Well, true enough. Their distribution was so worrisome that the FBI got involved, and while the feds did manage to make some arrests, the flow of booklets remained pretty much uninterrupted. We can only assume that Hush-Hush’s exposé made them even more popular, which is kind of how it works with porn, right? Someone gets on their soapbox about it and people walk away thinking, Hmm, I better see one of these with my own eyes. Of course, Hush-Hush didn’t dare reprint the interior pages, but we have no such inhibitions here at Pulp Intl. See the next post, and see here.

FBI, Hush-Hush, Phil Silvers, Marie Wilson, Robert Mitchum, Bob Hope, Eartha Kitt, Phil Silvers, Karen Sharpe, Ingrid Bergman, Ed Sullivan, Marilyn Monroe, Yul Brenner, Orson Welles, Porfirio Rubirosa, Tijuana bible, tabloid

Musiquarium, Sex Files

February 16 2011

ELVIS THE PELVIS

He’s just a hunk a hunk of burnin’ love.

A while back we promised to dig up some more info on Tijuana bibles, and today, prompted by an e-mail we received, we’ve decided to share a bit of what we learned. By at least one estimate, more than two-thousand different bibles were published in the U.S. between 1930 and 1950. They were copied and sold, spreading from city to city, distributed from dealer to dealer and dealer to customer in exactly the same fashion as illicit drugs. According to author and critic R.C. Harvey, many young men actually learned about sex from these books, or at least learned there were more variations than they had imagined. And cultural critic Gershon Legman believes that mainstream comic books evolved from Tijuana bibles.

In that e-mail we mentioned, we were asked about a bible cover we posted called Sex Slave. Would it be possible to post the entire book? Sure, no problem, we’ve posted it below. When was it made? No copyright, sorry, but since Elvis stars we can assume it was sometime after he achieved true fame, so let’s say post-1955. That’s also after the TJ bible heyday, which may be why Sex Slave deviates from the normal eight-page format. It’s also unorthodox in that it’s highly editorial, and doesn’t offer much in the way of clinical explicitness. In fact it’s almost chaste—well, as chaste as an x-rated tract about forced anal sex with the King can be. We will of course post another of these publications at a later date. In the meantime, click keyword “Tijuana bible” below to see our past offerings.

Tijuana bible, R.C. Harvey, Gershon Legman, Elvis Presley

Sex Files, Vintage Pulp

September 23 2010

BIBLICAL EPICS

Search and ye shall receive.

We posted assorted Tijuana bible pages last September, and in January posted a complete booklet. Since then those two pages have been among the most searched on Pulp Intl., according to our analytics. So, because we like to give our readers what they search for (and because we like traffic), we decided to share another couple of bibles today. For info on what exactly these dirty little books are, check the links in the text.
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Tijuana bible

Sex Files, Vintage Pulp

January 21 2010

BOLD TESTAMENT

Tijuana bibles pushed back against the conservative sexual mores of the times.

Well, we’re glad to see somebody finally went and put together a website of Tijuana bibles. The site (now defunct) was called tijuanabibles.org. Above you see six covers from their collection, and below is the entirety of a raunchy and racially charged Esther Williams bible entitled Get a Li’l Like the Fishes Do. We had doubts about posting it, but whenever we self-censor we end up kicking ourselves later, so this time we decided screw it. We consider ourselves mainly a history site, and censoring history is always a bad idea. Consider that a content warning. Anyway, Esther Williams was of course a famous swimmer who used her skills in an acting career, so the underwater theme of her bible is a play on her many aquatic roles. It was probably printed in the late 1940s, a time during which its IR content would have gotten the hood and noose crowd pretty riled up. But they would have been clueless whom to blame, because, as we discussed before, these American-made books may have been called Tijuana bibles for the sole purpose of misdirecting crusading citizens and curious authorities.

Tijuana bible, Esther Williams, Dorothy Lamour, John Dillinger

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

November 6

1935—Parker Brothers Buys Monopoly

The board game company Parker Brothers acquires the forerunner patents for Monopoly from Elizabeth Magie, who had designed the game (originally called The Landlord’s Game) to demonstrate the economic ill effects of land monopolism and the use of land value tax as a remedy for them. Parker Brothers quickly turns Monopoly into the biggest selling board game in America.

November 6

1991—Gene Tierney Passes Away

American actress Gene Tierney, one of the great beauties in Hollywood history and star of the seminal film noir Laura, dies in Houston, Texas of emphysema. Tierney had begun smoking while young as a way to help lower her high voice, and was hooked on cigarettes the rest of her life.

November 5

1937—Hitler Reveals His Plans for Lebensraum

Adolf Hitler holds a secret meeting with Nazi officials and states his intention to acquire “lebensraum,” or living space for Germany. An old German concept that dated from 1901, Hitler had written of it in Mein Kampf, and now possessed the power to implement it. Basically the idea, as Hitler saw it, was for the Nazis to kill, deport, or enslave the Polish, Russian and other Slavic populations to the east, whom they considered inferior, and to repopulate those lands with a Germanic upper class.

November 5

1991—Fred MacMurray Dies

American actor Fred MacMurray dies of pneumonia related to leukemia. While most remember him as a television actor, earlier in his career he starred in 1944’s Double Indemnity, one of the greatest films noir ever made.

November 4

1955—Cy Young Dies

American baseball player Cy Young, who had amassed 511 wins pitching for five different teams from 1890 to 1911, dies at the age of 88. Today Major League Baseball’s yearly award given to the best pitcher of each season is named after Young.

November 4

1970—Feral Child Found in Los Angeles

A thirteen year-old child who had been kept locked in a room for her entire life is found in the Los Angeles house of her parents. The child, named Genie, could only speak twenty words and was not able even to walk normally because she had spent her life strapped to a potty chair during the day and bound in a sleeping bag at night. Genie ended up in a series of foster homes and was given language training but after years of effort by various benefactors never reached a point where she could interact normally in society.