
JANE GARRETT, archivist, researcher and writer, now making her mark as a biographer with the excellent John Willie: A Bizarre Life, published by Schiffer (photo: Rik Garrett)
John Willie: A Bizarre Life – a fine new biography from Jane Garrett
NEW YEAR 2025 COVER (with revisions to page 4 added on Jan 3): Despite the extent of his influence both on fetish culture and mainstream fashion, John Willie – creator of 1950s magazine Bizarre, cartoon heroine Gwendoline and much more – is less well known than some other artists from kinky comics’ golden age. In her excellent new biography, John Willie: A Bizarre Life (Schiffer Publishing), Jane Garrett sets out to fill the gaps in our knowledge of this fetish visionary. Tony Mitchell offers an overview of the book, and discusses with Jane how she relates to the artist’s work, and what her more complete picture of his life tells us about him. An absorbing ‘long read’ to kick off the New Year!
Introduction by Tony Mitchell
COVER STORY: the front and rear jacket designs for Jane Garrett’s new biography of John Willie, published by Schiffer Publishing in the US and distributed in the UK by Gazelle Book Services
John Willie (1902–1962) — real name John Alexander Scott Coutts, and the creator of Sweet Gwendoline, the original Bizarre magazine and much more besides — has been considered a massively influential figure in fetish culture for decades now.
And yet he is still less widely known than some of his contemporaries from the golden age of fetish comic art. But perhaps 2025 will change that, given the renewed interest in him from publishers and film-makers.
A new book by Jane Garrett — John Willie: A Bizarre Life — is a thoroughly researched, beautifully written and copiously illustrated biography of the artist, out now from Schiffer Publishing in the US, and soon (or already) available in the UK and elsewhere too, depending on when you’re reading this.
This 15 x 23cm (6 x 9in) hardback volume runs to 176 pages of good quality glossy paper and includes 61 colour and b&w images. It covers Coutts’ story from birth to
death in 17 chapters, a prologue, an epilogue and a substantial notes section, all packed with fascinating detail.
Author Jane Garrett, based in the US Pacific Northwest, is an archivist and writer whose personal research focuses on the history of sexuality in America. A collector of John Willie’s work for more than 20 years, she also has experience as an artists’ model and teacher.
John Willie: A Bizarre Life is not only her first book, but is also the first book about JW to be authored by a woman. This might surprise you, given the number of women on the fetish scene known to have been inspired by the artist’s work over the years.
But it has been worth the wait. Garrett — highly literate, experienced in research and boasting a suitable level of personal interest — has delivered a fine new biography that is a joy to read and adds immeasurably to the sum of our knowledge about this fetish great.
Author interview: Jane Garrett
DISCOVERY STORY: The Adventures of Sweet Gwendoline book, left, published in New York by Bélier Press in 1974. Right: Les Humanoïdes Associés’ 1975 French edition of the same book, that, chanced upon in a Bristol comix shop, marked our editor’s own discovery of John Willie and Gwendoline.
THE FIVE IMAGES BELOW are all sample spreads from Jane’s book, provided by her publisher
In my experience, writes Tony Mitchell, John Willie’s fans often have vivid memories of their first encounter with the man’s work.
I, for example, discovered his famous cartoon damsel in distress, Gwendoline, in a French edition of US publisher Bélier Press’s The Adventures of Sweet Gwendoline cartoon series that I found in a Bristol comix shop in the late 1970s.
So I begin our interview by asking Jane Garrett about her own ‘discovery story’.
“I first discovered John Willie’s work as a high school student in the early 2000s,” she tells me. “A friend of mine took a trip to visit family in Germany and came home with Taschen’s two-volume reprint of Willie’s Bizarre magazines, which she’d picked up in a bookstore there.
“As we looked through it together, I was astonished by the fact that this material was created in the 1940s and ’50s — particularly some of the cross-dressing content and exploration of niche topics like amputee fetishism.
“At this point I was already a fan of Bettie Page, Irving Klaw, old pin-up magazines and the like, so John Willie’s work held natural appeal. He very quickly became one of my favourite artists, and I began collecting everything I could find about him.
“I also wanted to learn more about John himself — the artwork is beautiful, but who was the artist? Unfortunately, as many John Willie fans know, the biographical information available at that time was very limited.”
LEGAL INFO and contents spread (John Willie: A Bizarre Life, Schiffer Publishing)
It turns out that although John Willie: A Bizarre Life is Jane’s first book, writing figured prominently in her life long before she began that project.
“I have been writing all my life,” she explains, “and majored in English as an undergraduate student, but ultimately decided not to pursue writing full-time, and instead became an archivist and rare books librarian.
“For the past 11 years I’ve worked primarily in academic archives, which is a field I find very fulfilling. I’ve always loved history, and I enjoy doing historical research and helping other people pursue their research goals.
“I also write a lot for work — promotional materials, historical overviews, finding aids, interpretive labels for historical exhibits, and so on. In late 2015, while working in Chicago, I finally decided to pursue my John Willie research in a serious, organised way and to try to write a biography.
“I don’t recall what exactly spurred my decision, except that I had become frustrated with the amount of conflicting information swirling around and felt compelled to get to the bottom of things as best I could.
“I travelled to the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University, which is the United States’ premier archival repository for materials related to human sexuality.
“The Kinsey was a great starting point for my research, and I recommend it to anyone who wishes to learn more about significant figures, events, and publications in erotic history.
“It took some time to write the book as I had to limit my research and writing to evenings and weekends, outside my normal work schedule (and I did a lot of research, uncovering a great deal of surprising information).”
BEGINNINGS: ‘It all started with a princess…’ (John Willie: A Bizarre Life, Schiffer Publishing)
How did the publishing deal with Schiffer come about?
“By 2022, I felt I had written enough to produce a solid pitch. I knew Schiffer was willing to publish this sort of content since I owned several books of theirs on ‘outsider’ topics, including some books by 1950s pin-up photographer Bunny Yeager (published before her death in 2014).
“I followed their pitch guidelines and they responded, expressing interest in the project. Schiffer employs an excellent design team, and they really worked to create a beautiful book full of fun details that I think is worthy of John Willie.”
I think it is too. But I’m also interested to get Jane’s take on why women, especially, seem to like JW’s work so much.
So I ask how she reacts to suggestions that he conveys femininity more delicately and sensitively; that there’s more romanticism in his approach to fetishism and BDSM; that he appears respectful of women and the importance of consent; and that his own cross-
dressing might be evidence of a ‘feminine side’ that women might find more relatable.
“I agree with much of what you’ve said,” Jane responds. “For me personally, much of the appeal of John Willie’s work stems from the realism and attention to detail in rope bindings, costume, hair, and make-up.
“The women he draws are exceptionally beautiful and fashionable — I think many women (myself included) would love to own a wardrobe designed by John Willie!
“He also draws women of different ‘types’, be they submissive or dominant or simply lovely-to-look-at pin-ups. So it’s an accessible entry point to bondage/fetish for a range of people.
ACHILLES: For Slaves of Fashion (John Willie: A Bizarre Life, Schiffer Publishing)
“And certainly his personal affection for women comes through in his work. While conducting research, I was relieved to find repeated examples of John emphasising the importance of consent and mutual enjoyment in sexual activities.
“His attitude was remarkably progressive for a man born in 1902. I think his willingness to speak openly and supportively about cross-dressing is another great example of that progressive outlook.”
This brings us to the first text in John Willie: A Bizarre Life. Jane’s Prologue begins by referring (surprisingly, you might think) to some horrific events that happened during the artist’s later years in Los Angeles.
In the late 1950s, Harvey Glatman — tagged the Lonely Hearts Killer and the Glamour Girl Slayer by newspapers — was convicted of the rape and murder of three woman and the abduction of a fourth.
Crucially, part of the evidence against him was his interest in and use of bondage, and his possession of bondage imagery, at a time when the US was in the grip of a moral panic over the supposed dangers of exposure to kinky material. And this explains Jane’s rationale for her prologue’s approach:
“I wanted to kick off the book by placing John Willie’s life and work in historical context.
“Nowadays, we see his artwork on t-shirts, greeting cards and the like. It’s easy to forget just how subversive and shocking this material was at the time of its creation.
“I also wanted to explore why that was the case. Bondage was a foreign concept to many Americans when Harvey Glatman murdered his victims in the 1950s.
“As a result it came under intense scrutiny, not unlike the Satanic Panic of the 1980s or the perceived links between school shootings and violent video games here in the United States in the 1990s and early 2000s.”
BETTIE PAGE Bizarre No14 cover – see also p2 (John Willie: A Bizarre Life, Schiffer Publishing)
The prologue ends with Jane declaring that John Willie and co ‘can be credited with helping to usher in the sexual revolution of the 1960s and ’70s. He didn’t live to see it, but he helped create a community for a generation of sexual outsiders’.
As well as establishing, from the start, Willie’s most important contribution to modern fetish culture, the author says: “I definitely wanted the book to appeal to a broad audience and perhaps expand John Willie’s name recognition beyond the core group of existing fans.
“My goal when writing the book was to create a biography that was rigorously researched, but not academic in tone.
“I wanted it to be accessible to a wide range of people — longtime fans and newcomers alike — and I wanted to explore some of the major historical events that shaped John Willie’s life and work in way that would make sense to a general audience.
“My hope was that even if someone has never heard of John Willie, they can pick the book up and come away from it feeling that they have learned something worthwhile.
“And I also wanted people like me, who’ve been John Willie freaks for decades, to come away from the book feeling they had learned a lot of new information that they had never read before.”
The first few chapters of her book deal with Coutts’ early years. He was born in Singapore on December 9 1902, schooled in the UK, underwent army officer training at Sandhurst and joined the Royal Scots Regiment in 1923. He married for the first time in 1925, but travelled to Australia alone in 1926 and was divorced by 1930.
READ MORE – GO TO PAGE 2 OF 4JIU JITSU ad in Bizarre used to justify bondage image (John Willie: A Bizarre Life, Schiffer Publishing)
Tags: Artists, Bondage, Book Releases, Fetish Photography, Fetish Pioneers