Thursday, March 13, 2014
Playboy Femlins! (PART ONE)
Yes, the Femlins have invaded AEET! For those unfamiliar, Femlins were created by illustrative genius LeRoy Neiman in the mid 50's to visually spice up the Party Jokes page of Playboy magazine. These mischievous female gremlins appeared in every single issue since they were created, playfully, and nakedly, interacting with a wide range of props and people, sometimes photographed as clay sculptures for cover appearances, and on a few other occasions even as live models (see the scan at the very end of the post.) You could even buy Femlins statues and other random merchandise like mugs and ashtrays bearing their adorably bared images! I'll have more Femlins for you in the next post, because when I started scanning them (at 600% no less!) I seriously couldn't stop-- they're all so freakin' cute!!!
Femlins, now I know what they were/are called.
ReplyDeleteanother mystery solved thanks to "and Everything Else Too".
I've loved these cuties pretty much my entire life, and have only just recently learned threy're called "femlins" too!
Deleteman! i love how even though they're mischievous they always look so happy! they are incredibly cute.
ReplyDeleteof course i love the one on the record and the one eating the fried chicken! and the one lighting the match! but man they all made me smile.
really neat!
Nice! I want to start smoking a pipe just so I can get a tiny naked Femlin to light it for me.
ReplyDeletegreat illos!
ReplyDeletePART TWO coming up with even more amazing Femlins! Thanks for the comments :)
ReplyDeleteFantastic curation! More than anything else--more than centerfolds or bunny keys or terry cloth wardrobes--these clip art girls are the iconic and eternal evocation of the Playboy cultural thing to me. Their design is just superb, those gloves and stockings both evoking the kind of broken classical sculpture we have long used to epitomize female beauty as well as a surefire monochromatic key to visualizing complex figure drawing that is only a quarter of an inch tall. I, too, was unfamiliar with the name Femlins before today, and I didn't know there were porcelain dolls, either.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe this hasn't already been mentioned, but I'll do it: I love the barber pole striped paper straw in the first illustration. Also all the other ones with girls curled inside cocktail glasses. Fantastic stuff.
Wait, are they stockings?! I always they were super tight thigh high boots
ReplyDeleteI always pictured them as stockings with black high-heeled pumps. Thigh-high boots always seemed a little witchy and slutty to me, not "cute" like the Femlins.
ReplyDeleteI'm stickin with thigh high go go boots-- they are female gremlins after all ;)
ReplyDeleteYou may be right! Though since they don't have zippers I think they are probably of the painted-on latex variety. Or maybe dark chocolate? I never shy away from witchy and I don't really recognize the concept of slutty.
ReplyDeleteI can't stop thinking about bare lady legs dipped in chocolate now!
DeleteWell there are thigh high boot styles that don't require zippers... modern day femlins in the Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black (band) can certainly show you examples via google
ReplyDelete