One of the more mysterious bondage artists was Erich von Götha, a master of contemporary erotic comics who utilized numerous painting and illustration styles to recount his salacious stories. Yet despite working as an artist for over 20 years, he continually shunned the media limelight, prefering to remain an aloof enigma.
He seemingly drew himself into many of his strips as a bald, monocled, crop-wielding, self-styled “Baron.” This apparent German/Prussian aristocrat was, in fact, the British illustrator and comic book artist Robin Ray. The artist started out contributing to early editions of Dr. Tuppy Owens’ The Sex Maniac’s Diary in the mid-1970s. He later went on to produce his own groundbreaking British magazine, Torrid, in the early ’80s, much as John Willie had done in the ’40s with Bizarre. Only 16 issues of Torrid were published, but they featured the work of top erotic UK cartoonist Lynn Paula Russell, achieved a legendary cult following, and are now highly prized collectibles. Looking back on the series, Ray reminisced, “It was hard graft, like any strip cartoon, but fun.”
Robin Ray also worked under the pseudonyms Baldur Grimm and Robbins, and the majority of his work featured bondage and sadomasochistic themes. His four-volume series The Troubles of Janice was originally written by a “mysterious Italian” whom Ray never met, and who ultimately gave up the project and returned the artwork to the English artist. The 72 pages sat in Ray’s drawers for two years before a French publisher, Lionel Roc, released it and it became an international bestseller. The story is a combination of two classic S&M tales—Justine and The Story of O—that were popular with bondage artists. After this impressive debut in France, Ray’s work was subsequently published in the erotic comic anthology BéDé Adult.
Other popular works by Ray include Twenty, its sequel Twenty 2, and The Insatiable Curiosity of Sophie. In A Very Special Prison, von Götha examines sexual slavery and how captivity can be liberating, when a beautiful blonde finds herself giving in to the whims of her captors. Cecilia’s Dream sees another beautiful blonde shocked at her treatment by the residents of two fantasy worlds—the aristocrats and savages of a medieval kingdom—while her perverse husband enlists her in modern-day sex games. As with much of Ray’s comic work, this S&M fantasy never sees Cecilia really hurt, and the dream-within-a-dream structure emphasizes that all of her adventures are just fantasies.
Ray, in his Baron von Götha persona, developed the concept of “Sextopia”—“a place inside our heads” where “things always work out… Here, women like to screw men quite promiscuously, and men treat women rather well in addition to bonking them.” It is this world that Ray continues to explore in his comic strips.
Ray’s work is on a par with other great European erotic artists such as Milo Manara and Magnus, and his crisp, clear lines and lightness of touch with paint and brush have ensured a long and loyal following. Ironically, von Götha’s work is better known in Continental Europe and America than in his home country of Great Britain, where most of his work remained unpublished until the Erotic Print Society released several of his books in April 2007. Götha’s work is currently enjoying a minor revival, having been exhibited in Paris, Bologna, and at the Mondo Bizzarro Gallery in Rome, Italy, where his art is fêted, and highly collectable among erotic comic connoisseurs.
An exquistely painted cover to von Götha’s self-published 1980s magazine, Torrid, circa 1982.
Another von Götha cover to Torrid. The artist/publisher only produced 16 issues and no longer owns either the original art or copies of the magazine.
A scene from Twenty 2, the sequel to Götha’s graphic novel Twenty. “My work will never appear in the Tate Modern, I’m quite convinced,” joked the artist on his own website.
Von Götha’s cover art for the English-language version of The Troubles of Janice #1 clearly reveals the story’s central BDSM theme.
