BizarreComix.com! John Willie Presents Bizarre, Bizarre Magazine, Bizarre Comix Artist Eric Stanton, Jim, Ruiz, Eneg, Mario!

John Alexander Scott Coutts was born in Singapore in 1902; and in 1903 just a year later moved to England where he grew up and was in educated in English schools. John Alexander Scott Coutts stood out at a very early age, with his natural talent for drawing, but with schooling finished in England, Coutts chose another completely different direction in his new found freedom in life - Coutts, at 19 was admitted to Sandhurst, an English Military School in 1921, to be trained as an English Officer. In 1923, Coutts was selected and promoted to the Royal Scots Regiment as Lieutenant 2nd Class. Coutts' fancy and passion for "Women In Distress" soon began to develop, as in 1925 Coutts met a young woman who was working in a "Nightclub" as a "Hostess." Coutts, in pygmalion style, tried to set free and the rescue the young woman from the "Nightclub" and its "Environment" through a planned marriage. Very gentlemenly and very romantic of course, but unfortunately also without the approval of his military officer in command and the Royal Scots Regiment, nor his parents. The consequences from all sides were, that Coutts would have to leave the Royal Scots Regiment, and — most likely with the scandal at hand — was "banned" to Australia by his father and family where Coutts became the ‘Jack-Of-All-Trades and a Master Of None’ of Sydney.

In the 1930s, John Willie self-taught himself anatomical drawing while living in Australia and made a living as a laborer and sign-painter. In or about 1932, when Willie entered the McNaught Shoe Shop in Sydney, Australia is thought to be the time that Coutts had his first contact with the Fetish Sub Culture. McNaught Shoe Shop in Sydney manufactured high-heel fetish shoes and published photographs and ads in "London Life" at the time. In 1935, drawings by Coutts were published in "London Life" for the first time. In the fashion and shoe industry, the credit for the creation of the first stiletto high heel is given to Coutts, as in Willie's Bizarre Volume 2 in 1946 (Page 45), there appeared a watercolor painting of a lady in a "Hobble Skirt", wide brim hat, and a pair oxfords with very high (about 6 inches) and sporting thin "Stiletto High Heels." There is no doubt that this painting depicted the first "Stiletto High Heel" which later was adopted by the shoe industry and the fetish culture. The painting was also curiously dated 1910. One can only speculate that if John Willie did the painting himself, then he imagined, dreamed or actually saw this woman in 1910, when he was only eight years old. Otherwise, someone else may have painted the picture in 1910 and the picture somehow ended up in John Willie's possession by 1946. Willie also came into contact with the local bdsm and fetish scene in Sydney, taking his first steps and attempts at experimenting with and in the direction of bondage photography — with, among others, the model Holly Anna Faram, with whom he married in December 1942. It was 1942 when Willie started his first mail-order company; apart from bondage and fetish pictures, Willie also offered shoes and boots with extremely high heel, that Wilie designed and made himself from the craft he had learned from the McNaught Shoe Shop in Sydney.

In 1945, leaving his wife and marriage behind, Willie moved from Australia to Canada where he made residence for about a year and in 1946, he moved to New York City where Willie published his first Magazine, a Bondage and Fetish magazine "Bizarre" published from 1946 to 1959 (in comparision and competition with the artist Gene Bilbrew aka ENEG's "Exotique" Magazine, published from 1956 to 1959.) Bizarre Volume 2 was first published and appeared first in 1946; however, Bizarre Volume 1 was not published until after Bizarre Volume 13 in 1954. The reason is unknown for the Volume numbering has led to much speculation from superstition to a marketing ploy by Willie who admitted later that the "Reader Letters" about Volume One were written by him as is practice now from magazines to web site testimonials as a self promotional commerical ploy. Bizarre, after a slow start, eventually became fairly successful, but Willie, being more of an visionaire and artist than a businessman, was unable to commercially benefit from the success of Bizarre. In 1956, after having published Bizarre for the first twenty issues by himself, sold Bizarre to a friend of his, who would then go on to publish Bizarre for another six issues. After the sale of Bizarre in 1956 in 1957 John Willie moved to Los Angeles and continued and expanded his mail order business; and created his best bondage and fetish photographs. One of his models, Judy Ann Dull, had the dubious honor of becoming the first victim of serial killer Harvey Glatman.

To supplement Willie's income and lifestyle Willie contributed to gentlemen's magazines such as London Life, Flirt and Wink -- publications with Cosmo covers that enticed readers with headlines like "Spanking for Wives" and "She Strips to Conquer." Willie as did many niche artist and photographers of the day, also created private fantasy stories commissioned by mail-order customers either by request of the commissioner in a step by step outline or at the fancy of Willie. Willie was a old fashioned gentleman, intelligent, stylish, and possessed a very British sense of humor, satire, and style. Contradictory to the "Willie Stereotype" image of the women unfriendliness and debasement, sadism, that too often still stereotype to the male (dominant) sm-lover, John Willie was the personifcation of the great admirer and lover of feminine women; and Willie detested real violence and sadism with a passion.

Willie, as a bondage artist, was best known for his character of Sweet Gwendoline, which Willie drew in a clear and anatomically correct style that influenced later artists such as ENEG and Eric Stanton. Other Willie characters include U69 (censored to U89 in some editions) as the raven-haired dominatrix who ties up Gwendoline and Sir Dystic d'Arcy, the only male character and probably a statement and parody of Willie himself, his fantasies, and in retrospect a self analytical graphic display. First published by Irving Klaw, Klaw forced Stanton to paint clothes over the whip marks on the originals of "The Escape Artist" and "The Missing Princess". Typically, English type slapstick comedy underscored Willie's serial cartoons -- with the villain Sir Dystic D'Arcy drawing Gwendoline into "spine chilling melodramas placing her in pungent peril." In Willie's "Diary of a French Maid" series and depictions of D'Arcy's upper-crusty companion, a vixenish "Countess," it is clear the illustrator defected from his bourgeois homeland. "The facade of breeding and etiquette is bared; underneath their couture, the "Ma'mselle" and the Countess are sadistic nymphos. The French maid and the farm-raised Gwendoline may be wild, but they stand by their man and you can bring them home to meet Mother." Other works by Willie during this time were "Pauline's Peril" and "Hairbreadth Harry."

In April of 1961, doctors discovered a brain tumor in John Willie; and Willie stopped all of his business shortly thereafter. John Willie sent all of his customers a farewell letter, and destroyed the customer client file with the names and addresses of customers and clients for their discretion and to protext their anonymity, along with all the photo negatives of his lifetime works. After giving all the drawings that still remained in his possession to a friend, with the explicit request by Willie to his friend to destroy them — which that friend fortunately never did - John Willie left for Catel, on the British Isle of Guernsey in February 1962, to live with one of his sisters. On the 5th of August, 1962, he died in his sleep.

John Willie "The Pioneer"; "The Visionaire"; "The Entrepreneur." The timeless and ground setting Willie artworks and photography depicted acts and fashions that were truly bizarre for most novices to the art of bondage and fetish in any era. The acts and fashions involved the use of items such as leather hoods and outfits, gags, restraints, corsetts; and high heels. The bondage acts and fashions Willie depicted in photograph and in art were and are practiced by thousands of willing BDSM and Fetish Lovers all over the world for over the past 50 years. In retrospect, John Willie was a true visionaire and one of the major historical figures in BDSM and Fetish Wear. John Willie, the Entrepreneur set the standard and the stage for the model Sear & Roebuck Prototype "Underground Mail Order Business" beginning in the 1930s into the 1960s. The "Underground Mail Order Model" was embraced and used by all the artists of the time: Bill Ward; Gil Fox; Eric Stanton; Gene Bilrew aka Eneg, Von Rod, and G. Boundy; and even Irving Klaw who brought it forward and perfected it to the massive scale that he used it for Betti Paige and the volumes of works that Irving Klaw produced.