Possibilities? You’re not kidding! I could hardly contain my excitement as, back in August, I read the e-mail from Bélier Press publisher JB Rund, announcing his plan to release the ultimate collection of photography by the great John Willie in time for Christmas!

Willie — the pseudonym of John Alexander Scott Coutts (1902–1962) — is best known today as editor/publisher of the groundbreaking Bizarre magazine of the 1940s and ’50s, and as creator of cartoon bondage heroine Gwendoline.

But as Rund asserts — and the book’s 1,360-plus photographs spread across 472 pages surely confirm — Coutts was also the true pioneer of the entire bondage photography genre.

In Rund’s undoubtedly expert opinion, only Irving Klaw (the man who made Bettie Page into a bondage star and published a lot of Willie’s work) could perhaps share that credit — although Klaw’s talents were more in promoting and selling such content than in its actual creation.

Rund’s dedication to Coutts’ oeuvre has been a virtually lifelong affair. As he reveals in the fascinating 15-page autobiography at the end of Possibilities, he discovered ‘John Willie’ after he began frequenting the “wondrous” Times Square bookstores he had discovered as a young teenager in the mid-1950s.

(Although they’re long gone now, when I got my first trip to New York as a music journalist on Sounds in the late ’70s, many of those stores between 7^th and 8^th Avenues were still trading. As indeed was Movie Star News, Irving Klaw’s photo business at 212 East 14^th Street, then run by his sister Paula Klaw Kramer.)

From the start of his adult life, Rund, a native of New York City, worked for or had associations with various publishing companies. Finally, in 1972, he was offered the chance by Grove Press to realise his long-held ambition to curate a collection of his hero’s work for a book, The Adventures of Sweet Gwendoline.

Unfortunately, Grove pulled out. But Rund managed to find a lawyer partner who helped him set up his own publishing business to produce the book. He wanted to call it Aries Press after his birth sign (though he insists: “I don’t believe in any of that crap”). But that name was taken so he settled on the French word for ram: bélier. And so in late 1972, Bélier Press was born.

In early 1973, with $500 borrowed from a friend, Rund was able to purchase the assets, including copyrights and trademarks, of John Coutts’ Bizarre Publish Company from Coutts’ successor, identified only as ‘R.E.B.’.

(This naming style, used throughout Possibilities, is a carry-over from Coutts’ own convention for protecting the identities of various kinky associates and customers.)

“At the time,” says Rund, “I didn’t realise the significance of that acquisition; it turned out to be the best investment I ever made.”

Indeed, down the years, it has allowed him not only to publish much of Willie’s oeuvre but also to take successful actions against various other publishers who have infringed Bélier’s copyright or otherwise taken liberties with the great man’s work.

Still seeking a publisher for Gwendoline, Rund was introduced in 1974 to a German interested in publishing a German-language edition of the project. This offered the opportunity to co-print German and American editions in Germany (albeit sans photos that would have got the book into trouble with US Customs), so Rund took it.

Rund borrowed more money to pay for the American edition to be shipped to him, and suddenly he was a publisher in his own right, with a stock of books to sell.

“Gwendoline turned out to be a bigger success than I could ever have imagined,” he says.

The first American edition, published on December 9, 1974 (Coutts’ birthday) went through four printings and eventually sold over 26,000 copies.

It was translated into French, German and Italian and, as Rund can’t resist telling us in his non-word-mincing style, “in 1984 was made into a very bad motion picture — The Perils of Gwendoline, directed by Juste Jaeckin”.

This first Gwendoline book was, I’m sure, many a (then) younger perv’s introduction to the art of John Willie — myself included. The copy I acquired was the softback French edition published by famous graphic novel specialists Les Humanoïdes Associés.

I found it in the late ’70s in a comic shop in Bristol where, once again, my music journo work had taken me on an assignment. (Never let it be said that I did not exploit the opportunities created by that job!)