#American Pin-up Calendar Collection

[theamericanpin-up]

Fritz Willis - October 1970 Harolds Casino, Reno, NV Calendar Illustration - Brown & Bigelow Calendar Co. - American Pin-up Calendar Collection

[notpulpcovers]

Bill Layne - Season's Greetings Calendar Illustration - Louis F. Dow Calendar Co. - American Pin-up Calendar Collection

[strictlyfavorites]

Roy Besser - May June 1948 Squirt Soda Calendar Advertising Illustration - American Pin-up Calendar Collection

[delguy]

Ernest Chiriaka - January 1952 Esquire Magazine Calendar Illustration - American Pin-up Calendar Collection Chiriaka was and remains the undisputed master of the brunette pinup. Other pinup artists paint beautiful women but Chiriaka's raven tressed beauties are a world apart in their glory. Seriously, his girls are the most beautiful pinups by far.

[jedivoodoochile]

Al Moore - "Skiing is Believing" - January 1950 The Esquire Girl Gatefold Illustration - American Pin-up Calendar Collection - Moore was a great replacement for Vargas as his art was different and beautiful. Moore featured the girl-next-door look in his paintings. I love the blue eyes and the matching sweater. Perfect to keep you warm for the season!

[gregarnott]

Alberto Vargas - July 1964 Playboy Magazine Vargas Girl Illustration - American Pin-up Calendar Collection

[lauragirl53]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: RIDGID TOOLS 2 YEAR PIN-UP CALENDARS 1979-1998 INCLUDING RAQUEL WELCH REDO.

[dasmuggler]

Fritz Willis - October 1970 Harolds Casino, Reno, NV Calendar Illustration - Brown & Bigelow Calendar Co. - American Pin-up Calendar Collection - One of the few Harolds calendars that I can share on the page. Both Willis and Ren Wicks produced calendars for the casino in the 70s. All were great.

[belzebubsofficial]

Steamy dreamin'.

In other news, we're pleased to inform that we’ve partnered up with Nightshift Merch to run our North American web store! 🤘 We have some new designs (as well as the 2023 pin-up calendar!) available, so please head over to nightshiftmerch.com/collections/belzebubs if you’re interested! 🙌 Our official store with Backstage Rock Shop is of course still alive and kicking, no worries. We have some other cool news brewing as well, and I hope I'll be able to shed some light on those as soon as possible. All best!

[theamericanpin-up]

K.O. Munson - "Oh - You Do Remember My Voice" - September 1945 Artist's Sketch Pad Calendar Illustration - Brown & Bigelow Calendar Co.

[wuxiaphoenix]

Worldbuilding: Some Writing References On The Little Ice Age

A reader asked for a list of what I was reading recently for an Idea. Specifically, someone dumped into a fantasy version of the 1600s near Korea. (The poor guy.) So I started pulling it together....

Er. It was a lot longer than I thought.

So. What I’ve read in the past or currently related to this includes....

Ancient Inventions, by Peter James. Ranges across the world and history up to the Middle Ages, never a lot of details but plenty of pics, and there’s bits on acupuncture, how old sewing is, and why before steam engines you wanted a waterwheel near a mine, if you could.

Several books by Conrad Totman: Early Modern Japan. Japan: An Environmental History. The Green Archipelago: Forestry in Preindustrial Japan. These books aim for an environmental slant, but they also end up covering a lot of daily life and political maneuvers because, guess what, what people do that way affects the environment! Also he is an excellent writer, with good flow.

The Culture of Civil War in Kyoto, by Mary Elizabeth Berry. Warning, this one can be a bit dark, a lot of people died in the Warring States Era, and the attitude of survivors of a whole century-plus of constant war was sometimes not healthy.

Samurai William: The Englishman Who Opened Japan, by Giles Milton. Focuses on our sailor, but gets into Japanese politics versus the rest of the world, and how that worked out for the English, Portuguese, and Dutch who wanted to trade. (The Dutch won for a lot of reasons, but mainly because they were smart enough to bring wanted products instead of broadcloth, and kept religion out of it.)

1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, by Charles C. Mann. Have read from local libraries, sometime want to get a reference copy. Covers the ecological consequences of Columbus and everyone sailing after him, with consequences that rocked around the world as new plants, animals, and diseases spread.

A book on a Japanese diving village which I cannot find the name for, darn it. For all I know it was a very small press thing; it was in an EPA library, of all places. It was black-and-white photography of the people, what they did, and how they lived. Maybe 60-odd pages? If you ever read my fanfic “Shadows in Starlight” and wondered where I got the fishing village that saved Obi-Wan and Kenshin out of a scrape, it’s from this book, as well as the next one.

Fishing Villages in Tokugawa Japan, by Arne Kalland. Unfortunately, this one appears to be out of print. I hope my copy made it through the move. A lot of dry anthropological detail, but it covers how plain old ordinary fisherfolk lived in those times, including their farming and salt-making.

Everyday Life in Joseon Korea. Got this a couple months ago; it’s a translated collection of essays by Korean historians, and is Exactly What It Says On The Tin. It’s got a whole farming calendar, things people ate, how they traded, how they made salt, why you wanted to be a translator if you could, and a bunch of political shenanigans to boot.  

Ginseng and Borderland, by Seonmin Kim. Also a recent acquisition. Mostly about the Joseon Dynasty’s interactions with the Qing Empire, and how they leveraged being a dependent kingdom in a kind of political judo to keep Chinese armies off their border. So a little later than I’m aiming, but it does bring up “what the situation was in Ming before things got messy”. And it’s about ginseng, and the lengths people go to get it, and that is just plain interesting.

Side note here: If you study biogeography at all, there is an interesting biological hiccup in what species are where that no one’s quite pinned down the reason for yet. In short: there are a lot of species in Eastern Asia (including Japan) that have related species in the Southeastern U.S. For example, while crocodiles are across the globe, there are only two species of alligators: American and Chinese. There are three species of wisteria; Chinese, Japanese, and American. And depending who you ask, there are only two or three species of ginseng. Native to - have you guessed yet? - East Asia, historically Manchuria/Northern Korea... and the one in the Appalachians (also in Wisconsin). So if you’ve spent time in the Southeast, there’s... how to put it... a baseline familiarity about the environment over there.

Global Crisis: War, Climate Change, & Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century by Geoffrey Parker. This one I’ve got now, and am making my way through.

Kindle samples I’ve read, and I want the whole book of, include:

Flowering Plums and Curio Cabinets, by Sunglim Kim. From the way the book’s presented on Amazon you’d think it was a dry academic analysis of art styles. For all I know what’s past the sample might have some of that, but the start, at least, has tons of bits of info on who was making art, why, where they lived, and what businesses and people could be found where in Hanseong (modern-day Seoul). So it’s potentially a treasure trove of details. Interesting.

A Global History of Ginseng: Imperialism, Modernity and Orientalism, by Heasim Sul. Again, ginseng and history.

Catholics and Anti-Catholicism in Chosŏn Korea by Don Baker and Franklin Rausch. So far an interesting look on the Confucian mindset, and what problems there were with it; some of which led to conversions to Catholicism in Joseon Korea. Only Confucianism was considered the basis of the state, and things got very messy.

The Gunpowder Age: China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History, by Tonio Andrade. Covers gunpowder, how it developed, and why there was eventually a split between Europe and China in tech. The author thinks the main problem may have been the Qing Empire had too few enemies, until it suddenly had too many enemies. And thus lost the institutional military skills and know-how needed to keep militaries innovating.

Bringing Whales Ashore: Oceans and the Environment of Early Modern Japan, by Jakobina K. Arch. Where Conrad Totman covered “The Green Archipelago” of Early Modern Japan, and how it kept pressing against its ecological limits, this book wants to cover the “Aquamarine Archipelago” and explore how Japan exploited marine resources through the Tokugawa age on.

The Great East Asian War and the Birth of the Korean Nation by JaHyun Kim Haboush, William Haboush, and Jisoo Kim. Covers the Imjin War, the surprising amount of ordinary people rising in militias, and how that got people of the Joseon Dynasty to start thinking of themselves as a nation instead of just a kingdom.

And there’s at least a half-dozen more samples on Ming, Qing, and Joseon Korea I haven’t gotten to quite yet....

*Stares at list.*

...You know that face you make when you realize you could drop a thousand on Amazon, easy, and barely make a Wishlist dent? Yeah, I’m making that face.

(Especially if I got some of the DVDs I want for story research. Dr. Jin and Live Up To Your Name, to list two. Timetravel isekai! With doctors!)

So! Hope this might come in handy; either for direct research, or for people trying to get a handle on “what do I look for to research history beyond politics?”

[jedivoodoochile]

Alberto Vargas - "Ruth Fallows 1925 Ziegfeld Follies" - January 1964 Playboy Magazine "The Vargas Girl" Illustration - A Nostalgic Portfolio by Vargas - American Pin-up Calendar Collection - Playboy ran this series of Vargas' early art in 1964. There were eight illustrations from the Ziegfeld Follies included in the magazine. Vargas had already started contributing his art to the magazine in 1961, where he would paint the Vargas Girls until 1977. A man who shared his art with many generations for over 50 years.

[lovemesomesurveys]

Have you ever had a really bad haircut? I didn’t think so at the time, but looking back at some of my haircuts I’m like...yikes. lol. Did you ever order any clothes from the Alloy catalogue? No. What brand, color, and type is your favorite eyeliner? CoverGirl brand. I only use black.  Do you wear eyeliner? When I actually wear makeup, yeah. 

Was there ever a time in your life when you couldn’t cry? I mean, yeah. Sometimes the tears just won’t come.

What’s your favorite type of yogurt? Not a fan of yogurt. What posters did you have on your wall as a teenager? The ones from those teeny bop magazines like J14, Tiger Beat, etc. What are your favorite type of calendars? The Alexander Skarsgard one I have. ;) And ones with cute photos of puppies.  Do you have a full-length mirror? Yeah. When was the last time you bought stamps? I’ve never bought stamps. Do you have any overdue library books right now? No. I haven’t been to the library in several years. How often do you do laundry? It gets done about once a week. Do you have a piggy bank? No. Do you remember your locker combinations from high school? I didn’t have one. What’s your favorite DIY crafts youtube channel? I don’t watch any DIY YouTube channels. Could you spend hours on pinterest? I hardly ever go on there, honestly.  Do you own plaid pants? I have a pair of plaid leggings. Have you ever had to wear a school uniform? The preschool I went to did, lol. What was your high school’s mascot? Nah. What were your high school’s team colors? Who were your best friends in high school? I had a few people I hung out with at school, but I didn’t really have a best friend honestly. Towards the middle of my senior year I did reconnect with a former best friend from middle school; though, and we ended up becoming close again. We were best friends up until about 4 years ago.

Who was your first boyfriend or girlfriend? His name is Derek. Have you ever been to Chicago? No. If yes, what do you like best about it? Have you ever stayed in a hostel? No. Would you rather sleep on the top bunk or bottom bunk? I’d have to choose the bottom bunk.  Do you love camping? I’ve never been, but I have zero desire to try it. Doesn’t interest me at all.  Would you rather sleep in a tent or under the stars? I wouldn’t go camping.  What insects are you afraid of? Um, ALL of them. Have you ever had a secret admirer that left you notes? No. Are you close with your cousins? I used to be with some of them. Not anymore, though. I became distant and withdrawn from everyone. Are you close to any aunts or uncles? One of them. Are you close to your grandparents? I was with my maternal grandparents. I was very close to my grandma, she was my best friend. Sadly, both of them passed away over 10 years ago. My paternal grandparents are fortunately still alive, but I don’t have the same relationship with them as I did with my other grandparents. It’s not a bad one at all, I love them, but we’re just not as close. Who betrayed your trust? People. Who was your first best friend (apart from a sibling)? How about a cousin? ha. What was your favorite thing to do at sleepovers when you were younger? My cousins and I stayed up late watching movies, snacking, and just hanging out. What kind of popcorn is your favorite? Extra buttery with salt. Also, this one theater I go to has this garlic parm seasoning you can add that is delicious.  Does your town have a big fountain in it? Yeah. What is your town known for? Nothing good. Do you currently live in the city you grew up in? Yes. What’s one way in which you’re behind the times? I don’t get the appeal of TikTok haha. What’s one way in which you’re still a child? I just still kinda feel like one in some ways. I feel...stunted? I don’t know.  What’s one way in which you’re old? I’m 30 years old so that’s one way, ha. Also, I was around for dial-up internet. :O lol. Those days of AOL were horrible. You were kicked off all the time and you couldn’t be on if someone was on the phone. The torture. Do you feel old or young? Or do you feel both at different times? Both at different times. I’m always like, “waaah I’m so old”, but like I said I also feel younger than I am.  How old are you? I’ve mentioned this already. Do you know what you want to do for your next birthday? Nope and I don’t care. It’s a long way to go for one, but also it’s just whatever. I don’t get excited about my birthday anymore. If yes, what is it? What is the last new thing you discovered that was really good? I’ve been watching new stuff on Netflix and Hulu lately and catching up on some others. What would be the best surprise you could receive right now? I’d love if we were able to go on like a week long vacay or something, ha. Do you usually forgive when someone hurts your or try to get revenge? I’m not revengeful at all. Were there any subjects in school that were really easy for you? English. If so, what? Dude, you never need to ask me for more information. Look how long all my answers are lol <<< Lol, right?  Did you ever skip a grade or get held back a grade? No. What time of day were you born? In the evening. What is the best hairstyle you’ve ever had? Dyeing my hair red. Do you think you look better with dyed hair or natural hair? I much prefer dyed hair, particularly the red.  Do you think your look better with curly hair or straight hair? I like when it’s pin straight. Do you have bangs? No. I did for majority of my life, though. I kinda want to get them again. *shrug* Do you think you look better with bangs or without? The bangs hide my fivehead hahah. Do you think you look better with long hair or short? I mean, I look like crap no matter what, but I prefer my long hair. What’s your favorite rock band? I couldn’t possibly choose. When it comes to music, movies, and books I can’t choose a favorite cause so much I like. Who’s your favorite country singer? I like country, but I don’t have a particular favorite, really. Do you ever listen to Celtic music? No. Do you listen to Hillsong? No. Did you try the unicorn frappuccino, and if yes, were you a fan? I didn’t try it.   Have you ever won a contest? Yes. Have you ever wanted to be a model, actress, singer, or dancer? In high school I wished I could be on the dance team, ha. I also wish I had any singing ability at all, but alas.   When you look at your baby pictures, do you recognize yourself? No. Babies just look like ugly old aliens. I do not think I look like that at all. <<< Hahah aww! I thought I was a cute baby... not sure what happened as I got older, ha. I look back and I don’t see much resemblance to myself. Now I just see a troll. Has your hair color changed since you were a toddler? No, my natural hair is still dark brown. I dye it red, though. Do you wear matching socks? Yes. How many drawers does your dresser have? 3. I need a bigger one. Do you own an American flag shirt? I have one that has the American flag design on some of the shirt. Do you own a British flag shirt? No. Do you have a seashell collection? No. Do you have a rock collection? I do, actually. Do you decorate for Halloween? Yeah. What is your favorite thing to do in the pool? I don’t like getting in the pool. Flamingos or pineapples? Uh not sure what the relation is, but I guess flamingos cause I don’t like pineapples. Cacti or seashells? Seashells. Maple tree or palm tree? Maple tree. Dreamcatcher or wind chimes? Wind chimes. Have you ever taken a picture at the perfect moment? Yeah. Do you have a crush right now? No. What color was your first car? I haven’t had a car. I don’t drive. Was your first car used or new? Do you have a car now? What color(s) eyeshadow do you wear the most? I haven’t worn eyeshadow in such a long time, but when I did I usually went for like brown shades. Sometimes I’d venture out and use different colors.

[lauragirl53]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: RIDGID TOOLS 2 YEAR PIN-UP CALENDARS 1979-1998 INCLUDING RAQUEL WELCH REDO.

[theamericanpin-up]

Duane Bryers - September/October 1967 Hilda Calendar Illustration - Brown & Bigelow Calendar Co. - American Pin-up Calendar Collection