Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book

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Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book

4.06 of 5 stars 4.06 · rating details · 626 ratings · 64 reviews

Animated by the stories of some of the last century's most charismatic and conniving artists, writers, and businessmen, Men of Tomorrow brilliantly demonstrates how the creators of the superheroes gained their cultural power and established a crucial place in the modern imagination. "This history of the birth of superhero comics highlights three pivotal figures. The story...more

Paperback, 384 pages

Published October 11th 2005 by Basic Books (first published 2004)

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Jan 26, 2009 Wes Freeman rated it 4 of 5 stars

Smart, concise history of how comic books became a thing and doesn't leave out any of the good stuff. Re-emphasizes the argument that all American forms of mass entertainment media in the 20th century are on permanent loan from the street culture of New York City -- a place that seems to own stock in every American cultural enterprise this side of the Civil War and will always get the big chair in the shareholder's meetings, even if the product under discussion isn't their own. Author is here to...more Smart, concise history of how comic books became a thing and doesn't leave out any of the good stuff. Re-emphasizes the argument that all American forms of mass entertainment media in the 20th century are on permanent loan from the street culture of New York City -- a place that seems to own stock in every American cultural enterprise this side of the Civil War and will always get the big chair in the shareholder's meetings, even if the product under discussion isn't their own. Author is here to tell you that comic books were made by pornographers, chiselers, and tough guys of every stripe working in sober collaboration with geeks, zealots and psychopaths to turn their most private desires into pictures of dudes wearing tights and speaking in bubbles. Manages to distill that same hustling, pre-war optimism The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay did, but its way grimier and even more zany. Protagonists are, ostensibly, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster (the creators of Superman) and Harry Donenfeld and Jack Leibowitz (the original publishers of DC Comics), but behind every name author drops (Jack Cole, Will Eisner, Jack Kirby, Gardner Fox, Gil Kane, Art Spiegelman, Charles Biro) there is surely a biography worth reading. As book isn't 1200 pages long, author has used apposite discretion in what he picks and chooses. Keeps the pace fast and in disciplined ratio to the inherent dorkiness of the story. (His perspective on the latter is another reason to read book.) The characters at the center of book, Jerry Siegel and his arch-nemisis, Jack Liebowitz, are compelling to watch -- author wisely sidesteps the temptation to characterize them as one-dimensional, big-chinned characters in a meta-comic -- as the respective heart and head of the first comic book boom. When the excitement abates, they find themselves in direct opposition to each other and the excellent chapters that follow the first comic book bust are as revealing about the nature of entertainment and the industry that supports it as any other book I know. A great book about young Americans.(less)

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Aug 17, 2009 Greg rated it 4 of 5 stars

Let me start with a couple of caveats. The focus of this book is not for everyone. It will likely be of some interest to those generally interested in popular culture and 20th century history. It's primary audience, however, consists of the geeks alluded to in the subtitle. (I count myself as a geek wannabe.)

Organized primarily around the evolution of Superman, Men of Tomorrow branches out to consider the cultural influences and the interpersonal relationships that shaped the growth of the comic...more

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Aug 04, 2012 Michelle Cristiani rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

I can't help it: I'm a natural student. So it stands to reason that with all the comics I've been reading, I'd eventually get around to reading a history of the comic industry.
I heard of this book in a review of a DC documentary I saw recently; the reviewer said you should read this instead and be done with it. I agree whole-heartedly. Jones' writing is superlative. He makes a topic that is admittedly sometimes boring - even for die-hard fans - all riveting, all the time.
The story of comics is...more

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Aug 08, 2011 Jacob Wren rated it 5 of 5 stars

Gerard Jones writes:

No other fad in entertainment has ever paralleled real-life events as closely as the superheros paralleled World War II. Superman fist drew attention in the summer of 1938, as war fears grew out of the Czechoslovakia crisis, and it was after the war really began late the next summer that the superhero fad took flight. By 1941, as America moved inevitably into the war, the heros grew rapidly in number, popularity, variety, and aggression, and some of the most popular were taki...more Gerard Jones writes:

No other fad in entertainment has ever paralleled real-life events as closely as the superheros paralleled World War II. Superman fist drew attention in the summer of 1938, as war fears grew out of the Czechoslovakia crisis, and it was after the war really began late the next summer that the superhero fad took flight. By 1941, as America moved inevitably into the war, the heros grew rapidly in number, popularity, variety, and aggression, and some of the most popular were taking on the Nazis. The last new superhero to find a big audience, Wonder Woman, hit at the end of that year, as the war finally swept across the ocean. For the next three years, sales climbed. Superman and his imitators had captured a national emotional upwelling and turned it into a shared fantasy of escape. Their first and essential market was kids, but to enjoy the towering sales they did during the war, they had to be read by innumerable adults who pretended they were just indulging the “child in us all.”

Superheros turned the anxiety into joy. As the world plunged into conflict and disaster almost too huge to comprehend, they grabbed their readers’ darkest feelings and bounded into the sky with them. They made violence and wreckage exciting but at the same time small and containable. So flat, iconic, childlike, unreal, and absurd were those godlings in tights that no reader had to feel he was really engaging with his own angry fantasies. Superman was less a fantasy self than a god out of the machine – a sudden flash-of-color resolution to conflicts too terrible to think about. The superheros were slapstick comedians in a vaudeville of holocaust. Even in Captain America’s angriest assault on the Nazis and Superman’s darkest melodrama in Luthor’s lab, every reader over the age of eight had to laugh at them. Superheros served the purpose of slapstick comedians but on a global scale: They built fear and frustration in a containable fantasy world and then released them with a shock.

Superheros allowed adolescents and adults to slip back to the confidence and inviolability of that last moment of childhood before the anxiety of pubescence. It had been a long, nerve-wearing run for twenty years, through Prohibition and sexual revolution and economic transformation and urbanization and Depression and the rumors of war, when a naïve nation had to pretend to be adult and sophisticated. All through the 1920s and early 1930s, there had been childlike entertainment that had captured adults, but it nearly always had a cruel humor (Our Gang), strenuous melodrama (King Kong), or a melancholy sentimentality (Shirley Temple). Finally, at the end of the 1930s, in the moment of The Wizard of Oz, the American imagination retreated into the laughing, arrogant fun of the ten-year old. Superman was the physical embodiment of that fantasy of wholeness, that wondrous sense of knowing who one is and believing one can do anything, that shatters in adolescence.

Superheros were a latent-phase dream, embodying sex but invulnerable to it. They distilled that moment of swelling, big-kid pride in the new power and agility of the body, that last moment before the body begins to make its own scary demands and the world turns the mechanisms of shame against it. Superman in particular cartooned the cruelty of sex – Superman tricks Lois sadistically, but then as Clark he flings himself masochistically before her high heels – but with his famous wink at the reader, he let us know that he played every minute of it as a game. As the “Man of Tomorrow,” he has supposedly evolved beyond sexual entanglements, but in fact he was the man of the day before yesterday, looking at the agonies of adolescence with the superior sneer of a little brother spying on his sister. After the frenzied sexual questioning of the Twenties and the cynicism of sex and economics in the early Depression, and with the draft now bringing on another huge dislocation, the superhero was a welcome island of prepubescence.

Superheros were also an expression of a rising American thrill. All the queasiness of the Depression was about to be blown away in a great and terrible battle, and as much as most people shook their heads about the horror of the war, there was a hunger for it, too. The war meant not survival and dirty compromise but utter triumph or utter disaster. It meant unity of purpose too, and the superheros embodied that in their polychrome simplicity: Superman, Captain America and Wonder Woman were the most distinct individuals imaginable, but at the same time, each of them was all of us. The rarely spoken hunger for war was especially sharp for the children of immigrants and of the polyglot cities. A nation dominated for a generation by isolationist, prohibitionist, and small-town WASPs was about to plunge into the world, led by its cockiest, most sophisticated progressives. America had won the last war. Since then it had only grown in size, influence, and industrial capacity. It had held itself back from world events as fascism spread, but Roosevelt’s voters knew how powerful the country was. America was playing Clark Kent. It was time to rip off the suit.
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May 11, 2013 Hamish rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

Pretty fascinating, pretty absorbing. Not quite an all-encompassing portrait of the golden age of comics; Jones focuses on a few key figures and tells their stories in detail, while giving only brief sketches of others. At first this irritated me, but as I got deeper into the book I realized that it was a wise choice on Jones' part. If he tried to cover everything, it would have felt like a pedantic slog. Instead, he sticks to the most important and memorable people and it gives the book a stron...more

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Jan 08, 2011 Nicky rated it 4 of 5 stars

I have read Men of Tomorrow a couple of times and use it for research and a starting point for my own research. What I like best about the book is that it is not only easy to read and very well written but I love the fact that Gerard places the history of comic books within the larger frame of historical events. It makes so much of the history more compelling and understandable. I know Gerard because there is information about my grandfather, Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson in this book. The inf...more

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Jan 19, 2009 Geoff Hyatt rated it 4 of 5 stars

"This was the bed in which the comic book was conceived: counter-cultural, lowbrow, idealistic, prurient, pretentious, mercenary, forward-looking, and ephemeral, all in the same instant."

Jones covers a lot of ground in this well-researched, heartfelt, and sometimes all-over-the-map look at the seedy fusion of art and commerce that created our first superhero comics. The book is at its strongest when it explores the confluence of immigrant imagination and rough street culture that brought about i...more

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Feb 09, 2011 victoria.p rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: comics

recommended by Amberlynne.

I enjoyed this, though the writing was a little clunky, and the lack of women (and the mostly poor treatment of the women who appear) in the story made it less interesting to me overall. Still, the confluence of 20th C. NYC history, the mob, the early days of SF/F fandom, and pop culture makes this a really interesting read, and if you've read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, some of it will seem familiar (but lacking Chabon's fantastic prose).

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Jul 07, 2009 Larissa rated it 3 of 5 stars

Definitely more of a social history of the conditions that allowed superhero comics to come into existence than a discussion of the form itself, so the book probably works best for those who are already knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the "internal" development of comics. That said, the breezy style and and compelling vignettes of early twentieth-century America make this a quick and enjoyable read, and Jones makes convincing arguments for how particular sets of historical circumstances gen...more

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Apr 15, 2010 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction-read

I read this as background for Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. Research soon turned into fascination with the true story of the origins of the comic book and the superheroes that made the genre a cultural phenomenon. Well written and documented, Men of Tomorrow is an important social history of the comic book in America. Jones has done a fine job of interweaving the stories of the creators (writers and artists) and the publishing entrepreneurs who made the comic bo...more

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May 08, 2013 Eddy Allen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: arts-and-historical

Animated by the stories of some of the last century's most charismatic and conniving artists, writers, and businessmen, Men of Tomorrow brilliantly demonstrates how the creators of the superheroes gained their cultural power and established a crucial place in the modern imagination. "This history of the birth of superhero comics highlights three pivotal figures. The story begins early in the last century, on the Lower East Side, where Harry Donenfeld rises from the streets to become the king of...more

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Aug 05, 2007 Paul rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book, Gerard Jones, Basic Books, 2004

This book is a history of that ubiquitous part of contemporary American adolescent life, the comic book.

In the early part of the 20th Century, there were an entire generation of male geeks and outsiders who enjoyed reading this crazy literature called science fiction. Mainly Jewish, and usually living in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, they combined their fantasies and youthful traumas into the sq...more Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book, Gerard Jones, Basic Books, 2004

This book is a history of that ubiquitous part of contemporary American adolescent life, the comic book.

In the early part of the 20th Century, there were an entire generation of male geeks and outsiders who enjoyed reading this crazy literature called science fiction. Mainly Jewish, and usually living in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, they combined their fantasies and youthful traumas into the square-jawed heroes who are now a central part of pop culture.

A central part of this book are Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, a couple of kids from Cleveland who created the first superhero, Superman. They learned, the hard way, that hard-nosed businessmen of questionable reputations, like pornographer and bootlegger Harry Donnenfeld, now ran the business. In the beginning, Siegel and Shuster signed away the rights to their creation (standard procedure). It took until the 1970s, just before the first Superman movie, for the pair to get official recognition, and something like a reasonable amount of money, for Superman.

The 1930s saw an explosion in comic book popularity. Even the shadiest, two-bit publisher could put out the worst schlock ever created, and it would be vacuumed up by the public. A seemingly infinite number of superheroes came before the public, teamed up with every other superhero, fighting any villain that could be put on paper. Some combinations worked, while others failed. Hitler and the Nazis provided a ready-made villain during the 1940s, which saw the public turn away from superheroes. Wartime paper restrictions put most publishers out of business; those that remained put out crime stories, westerns, and horror stories, to name a few. In the 1950s, Congress discovered the comic book. They were accused of corrupting America’s youth, especially the horror stories.

For the artists in the industry, working conditions were little better than a sweatshop. For instance, if 64 pages of material were due at the printer in three days, there was no possibility of leaving the office until those pages were done. With such time constraints, many details were left out of panels and chunks were taken from other stories, even if the two had nothing to do with each other.

This book is excellent. Anyone who has ever read an old superhero comic book, or a newer "independent" comic, should read this book. It’s also recommended for those interested in early 20th Century pop culture.

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Jan 01, 2013 Williwaw rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is a wonderful book. If you liked Chabon's Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, you will find it extremely interesting, because much of Chabon's source material will become evident.

Jones is an excellent writer, and he tells a great story. He starts out with the origins of the comic book publishing industry, and then focuses on the woeful tale of Siegel and Shuster, the creators of Superman.

Even if you are not much into superheroes (and I'm definitely not), this book should hold your interest...more

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Aug 05, 2012 John Porcellino rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: comics, history

Fascinating look at the early, incredibly strange days of the Comic Book, featuring such luminaries and weirdos as Siegel and Shuster, Stan Lee, Kirby, Eisner, Pop Gaines and his son, Bob Kane, Bill Finger, and plenty more. The story includes cheap printing, trucking, organized crime, and the Kefauver hearings and subsequent "Comics Code." By turns sad, funny, and infuriating, this is a well-written and riveting account that reads as American History 101 for comic book fans.

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Oct 03, 2007 Paolo rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Everyone.

Amazing book so far. Reads with the same economy & pulse & vividness of a 30s newspaper, but with tons of love for the Jewish artists who invented the American superhero comic book. But what I dont get in the early sections on Donnenfeld & Jacobstein & the Lower East Side ethnic enclave narratives, is how on earth absolutely zero reference can be made to Chinatown & the citizens forced to live inside it. C'mon, you're gonna point out the Jewish, Irish, and Italian neighborhoo...more

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Nov 24, 2012 Ethan Young rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone who loves comics and history.

Probably the definitive non-fiction book on Siegel and Shuster, creators of Superman. Not only do you learn about the creators' lives, but the birth of the comic industry as well. There are some truly heartbreaking moments in the book, which any struggling creator can identity with (of course, the stakes are higher when your creation is the most recognizable comic icon for 50 years).

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Nov 11, 2010 Brady Dale rated it 5 of 5 stars

Look, this book is amazing even if you're not interested in comics. If you're interested in the history of publishing, in the evolution of intellectual property... hell, if you just think the last 100 years were really an amazing time and want a fascinating perspective on them, check out this book. This is a mind blowingly awesome book. I loooooooved it. Loved. Loved. Loved.

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Mar 30, 2012 Sarah rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

Gerard Jones' enthusiastic narrative about the geeks, gangsters and outcasts that built the comic book medium fell into my lap through a friend. And I kept the book from him for three years after he loaned it to me.

This is not a strictly cultural longview. If you want that, read The Ten-Cent Plague. This is a book by an insider (Jones wrote Green Lantern once upon a time) about the insiders who made money and art off their work in newspapers and funny books, starting in the 1930s. He has a good...more

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Oct 15, 2007 Dan rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: EVERYONE who enjoyed Kavalier & Clay

I read this a few months before I read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and I think I benefited from it. This book is the "real life" version (inspiration) of Chabon's novel - essentially following Jerry Siegel (and to an extent, Joe Schuster), all through the Golden Age of comics and beyond. Along the way we get stories from all of the major workhouses in New York, including some great anecdotes about Will Eisner (like his marathon run to finish a comic with his bullpen in he middl...more

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Feb 16, 2009 Tom English rated it 5 of 5 stars

An engaging account of the dreamers (predominantly Jewish) who created a uniquely American art form, and the social and economic climate that fostered the phenomenal popularity of the superhero. You don't need to be a comics buff to enjoy this thoroughly researched history, which zips along one of the best novels.

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Jan 01, 2008 Nate rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: people who like american history, jewish history, comic books, etc.

This is some good nonfiction right here about the personalities who were present at the birth of the comic book industry in the thirties, that takes you all the way up until most of them died all the way in the 80's. The style is engaging and some of the stories are just downright fascinating. Particularly tragic, but well-told, is the ongoing subplot of Siegel and Shuster's lifelong battle to get royalties and credits for their initial creation of Superman.

Without question, this was a great boo...more

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Jan 31, 2010 Martin rated it 4 of 5 stars

I dug this book, being a comic guy and all that. It didn't try too hard to make a lot of social implication claims. Made a case for social awkwardness, but hey, geek is in the title. By and large good read with some interesting stuff about gangsters, jews, pornography and capitalism.

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Mar 13, 2012 Katharine Tapley rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A few weeks ago I visited friends, the husband being a Jewish scholar and bookseller who said to me "Your husband said you're into comic books. Here you go!". A gift, not a loan. He's a great guy.

This is fascinating! It's a history of Immigration, of American Jewish culture in the Depression, and how it led up to the creation of Superman and Batman and their ilk. It's surprising how few pages I am into it (41) and how much I feel I've gotten out of it. Normally, I'm a pretty fast reader, but thi...more

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Nov 29, 2009 Mary rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was a fascinating and well researched look at the intricate history of how comic books became popular, and the often nasty machinations in the background. Anyone with an interest in popular culture and cultural history would find this book worth reading.

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Sep 17, 2012 Abhisek Roy rated it 5 of 5 stars

One book that all Superhero Comic lovers should read. The entire process of how Superheroes came into being has been depicted beautifully keeping a flavour of reading a novel intact. One of the best Comic Book histories I have read.

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Sep 14, 2010 Dan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, super-heroes, graphic-novels, books-about-books

A fairly complete history of the comic book genre of the 20th Century featuring all the key players like Schuster, Siegel, Lee, Kirby and many more. Very well written and a worthwhile read for any true comic book fan out there!

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Nov 04, 2009 Jesse rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: him, us

Although this book didn't have much to say about the pulp heroes or their creators, its exhaustive treatment of the business side of things (from mega-mergers to rumored handshake deals) and nuanced profiles of businessmen like Jack Liebowitz, Harry Donenfeld and Bob Kane made it worthwhile.

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Nov 20, 2008 Ryan rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: girlfriends of guys who like comics

if you are into comics give this a read it. its really informative and entertaining. if you liked kavalier and clay read this for the true story of the invention of the comic book.

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Dec 30, 2007 Phayvanh rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: pop culture junkies

Shelves: reviews, comix, reportage

It only took me a few days to read the advance copy of this book, which I think didn't had all the photos included in it. This is a very well-written history of the comics industry,told in context of the rise of printed media in the early to mid 20 century. How comics transformed from adult entertainment into youth culture.

To illustrate the hopes and failings of the new industry, Gerard Jones uses the inspiring, yet ultimately sad story of Jerome Seigel and Joseph Schuster,creators of Superman...more

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Jan 31, 2012 Tristan Yi rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shazam! I just finished reading this book, and it was freaking amazing. The art, the power, the beauty of it all. This book is a masterpiece of geekdom, history, philosophy, and the American dream.

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About Gerard Jones

Gerard Jones is an award-winning American author and comic book writer. From 1987 to 2001, Jones wrote many comic books for Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Dark Horse Comics, Viz Media, Malibu Comics and other publishers; including Green Lantern, Justice League, Prime, Ultraforce, El Diablo, Wonder Man, Martian Manhunter, Elongated Man, The Shadow, Pokémon, and Batman.

Jones is author of the Eisner Award...more

More about Gerard Jones...

Books by Gerard Jones

Killing Monsters: Our Children's Need For Fantasy, Heroism, and Make-Believe Violence

The Comic Book Heroes: The First History of Modern Comic Books - From the Silver Age to the Present

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“American men had made do for so long with smiling chorines and sweet titillation in their sleazy magazine that no one realised how hungry they were to have their sex mixed with terror and blood.” — 2 people liked it

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