Expecting the worst sort of rudeness from a native New Yorker, Dad was shocked by Stanton’s hospitality: private sleeping quarters stocked with whiskey and porn. Though they were from drastically different backgrounds—Stanton was a Brooklyn native who’d served in the navy—they had much in common. Dad used pseudonyms and Stanton had legally changed his name from Ernest Stanzoni. As boys, they’d both copied pages from Kaanga, a comic book that featured light bondage. They loved the 1940s matinee serial Perils of Nyoka. Their initial meeting was similar to a pair of immigrants from the Old Country discovering each other, assuaging loneliness by speaking the same language: corset and heels, rope and strap, whip and cane.
Stanton’s art and Dad’s prose were heavily influenced by a particular type of comic called a “bondage serial,” consisting of a narrative with words and art, sold through the mail a single page at a time. According to Dad’s papers, in 1952 he encountered an ad in the back of a men’s magazine for Princess Elaine’s Terrible Fate, drawn by Gene Bilbrew. Dad bought a full set, his first exposure to bondage art. He then contracted with Bizarre Inc. to create his own serial, corresponding with an editor who signed letters as “Sado Mazie.” Dad wrote and drew ten chapters. It was rejected for amateurish art, but the writing was good enough that Sado Mazie offered to swap merchandise for scripts. Insulted, Dad refused. Seven years later he tried again, submitting work to publisher Irving Klaw, and again he was rejected.
My father was astounded that Stanton knew Bilbrew and Klaw personally. Stanton was equally amazed by Dad’s encyclopedic knowledge of the fetish field. They decided to collaborate. There was no business arrangement, no legal contract, no formal division of profits and labor. They operated under an old-fashioned gentlemen’s agreement. This was partly to avoid prosecution but was also a product of their generation—they simply decided to trust each other. Stanton paid for printing and distribution in exchange for retaining all copyrights. Dad’s payment came in the form of free porn. They collaborated for twenty-five years, the longest time either man had a business partner.
There existed a sense of play in their collaboration, that of teenagers engaged in naughty behavior, delighting in the other’s contributions. Their methodology was simple. Stanton mailed Dad a sheaf of drawings photocopied from his sketchbook. After shuffling the sequence of art, Dad inserted dialogue, blocks of text, and ideas for trimming or lengthening the story. He mailed the pages back to Stanton, who called Dad to discuss. They talked as often as twice a week, both men drinking and laughing, telling stories and planning their future work.
The concept of warrior women appealed to them, which led to the creation of their popular series Blunder Broad, a parody of Wonder Woman. She battled aliens and supervillains such as Count Dastardly, Pussygirl, and Doktor Weerde. Every story ended with her capture, often bound by her own lasso. They also created a series about “princkazons,” Amazonian women with penises—essentially large-breasted transsexuals who dominated males and females alike. Dad used the name Turk Winter for all their collaborative work.
Their few nonprofessional letters had a jocular tone, filled with juvenile sex jokes and humorous comments. They made fun of each other’s accents, where they lived, and fetish preferences. If one didn’t respond in a timely manner, he was accused of “cock-teasing” the other. Reading these letters made me glad that my father had someone with whom he could loosen up and relinquish his martinet qualities. Despite having spent very little time with Stanton, Dad always referred to Eric as his best friend. I wondered if it was true until I found a note from one of Stanton’s adult children referring to Dad as Eric’s best friend.
Dad wrote faster than Stanton drew, and began his own self-publishing imprint called Winterbooks. Stanton promoted the material to his mail-order clients. Customers initially went through Stanton, which delayed fulfillment of the orders. As the volume increased, Dad began dealing directly with repeat clients. He developed a list of offerings and charged sixty dollars per book, payable in advance. In this way, both men made money by selling the same material to different customers.
By 1999 Stanton had endured a series of strokes that rendered him unable to work. He gave Dad an extensive list of American and international clients. Eric Stanton died on April 17, 1999. That same day, Dad suffered a massive heart attack, requiring emergency bypass surgery. The death of his only friend left him alone with his obsessions.