Sally The Sleuth

I see that some shrill bureaucrat with the Eu wants to ban "sexist" advertising on TV. Well, allrighty then. It should be a simple matter to extend this to print, and then we will bid a very fond "adieu" to many dear friends of my youth....The Land O' Lakes Maiden, The White Rock Nymph, jeez, maybe even the Morton Salt Girl .

Hopefully, I won't live to see it. All of this reminds me of Roger Ebert's remark that Emmanuelle was filmed "back when people actually enjoyed sex". Almost (but not quite) needless to say, this line of reasoning, if we can deem it such, is what led to John Ashcroft draping the immodest statuary in the Justice Department. Taken to it's logical conclusion, we shouldn't have to endure such frankly prurient works as the Venus De Milo, Michaelangelo's David, or the entire ouvre of Toulouse-Lautrec, Rubens and Beardsley either.

Which brings me at last to Sally The Sleuth. While creator Adolphe Barreaux may not rank with Rubens he wasn't a bad little artist, at least by pulp standards. Or maybe I just dig it. Sally first appeared in 1934 in the pages of Spicy Detective magazine, a publication that thrived on at least implying sex and usually in the context of a little kinky rape-fetish-bondage situation -all three at the same time, if possible. Although quite chaste by today's standards, Sally apparently packed a wallop in it's day, as did the better-drawn British equivalent Jane.

Those who need a little more of Sally can find her charms in various reprint formats.