Gene Bilbrew

Eugene "Gene" Bilbrew (Los Angeles, 29 giugno 1923 – Manhattan, 1º maggio 1974) è stato un illustratore e fumettista statunitense, noto per le sue opere nell'ambito dell'arte fetish. Nel corso della carriera ha utilizzato vari pseudonimi, tra i quali ENEG, Van Rod, e Bondy.
Iniziò la sua carriera lavorando per il Los Angeles Sentinel, un giornale afroamericano, per il quale ha illustrato la striscia a fumetti The Bronze Bomber collaborando con Bill Alexander. Ha scritto anche la serie Hercules per la rivista Health Magazine. Per tutta la sua vita Bilbrew ha lavorato in modo indipendente per la comunità afroamericana, per esempio realizzando la copertina di diversi libri dedicati alla lotteria.
All'inizio degli anni 1950 divenne l'assistente del fumettista Will Eisner, il creatore di The Spirit, lavorando alla pubblicazione della serie umoristica per bambini Clifford in sostituzione del creatore originario Jules Feiffer che venne arruolato nell'esercito. In quegli anni, dopo essere diventato amico di Eric Stanton, Bilbrew cominciò a lavorare per la Movie Star News di Irving Klaw consacrandosi come artista fetish. Tra il 1956 e il 1959 pubblicò anche molte illustrazioni per la rivista Exotique.
Nel 1974 morì per overdose di eroina nel retro di un negozio di libri a Times Square.

Eugene "Gene" Bilbrew (June 29, 1923 – May 1974) was an African-American cartoonist and fetish artist and was among the most prolific illustrators of sexually oriented pulp fiction book covers. In addition to signing his work with his own name, he drew under a range of pseudonyms, including ENEG ("Gene" spelled backwards), Van Rod, and Bondy.

Early life

Bilbrew was born in Los Angeles in 1923 and showed an early talent for drawing and performed with the Basin Street Boys as a singer.

Career

He began his career at the Los Angeles Sentinel, an African-American newspaper, where he illustrated the comic strip series The Bronze Bomber that he coauthored with Bill Alexander. The Bronze Bomber was the first black superhero. He also wrote the series Hercules in Health Magazine. Throughout his life, he took freelance assignments within the African American community, for instance producing modernized cover art for Victorian-era lottery numbers books such as the Gypsy Witch Dream Book and Old Aunt Dinah's Dream Book for the Wholesale Sales Corp.
Around 1950 Bilbrew became an assistant to the hugely influential comics artist Will Eisner, on The Spirit where Bilbrew took over the back-up series Clifford—a little-kid humour page—after its originator Jules Feiffer was drafted into the army.
Bilbrew's later notability came when he became a fetish artist at Irving Klaw's Movie Star News/Nutrix company. He also had many illustrations published in Exotique, a fetish magazine between 1956 and 1959.

Death

When his career waned with the coming of relaxed censorship laws in the 1960s, he increased his use of heroin. At the age of 50 Gene Bilbrew died of an overdose and was found in the back of a mob-owned 42nd Street adult bookstore in May, 1974.

Satin Satellite, art of Gene Bilbrew