Pinup Girls Around the World

by Jim Silke

Pinups Around the World gathers a second serving of the stunning work of pinup artists across continents and through time. With over 100 contemporary artists from the United States, Europe, Australia, Japan, and China included, this collection follows up the previous edition ( Past and Present ) with even more captivating pinup art designs. The result is an unrivaled look at every different direction pinup art design has taken since the heady days of Bettie Page. More than 200 images from the best practitioners portray the influences of the greats, such as Gil Elvgren and Olivia De Berardinis, but also show new trends, including a revival in 1980s-influenced line work in the vein of Patrick Nagel, and of biomech-influenced approaches. Every image is accompanied by a caption detailing the artist, name of work, and major influences , making this an invaluable source of information and inspiration for all graphic artists and cartoonists in the genre. Previously considered taboo, pinup women continue to grow in popularity in the art community. The current appeal of old pinup art is the unpretentious, often naive, and joyful whimsy that celebrates the sensuality of the women depicted. Whether they’re real or imaginary, pinup women are a celebration of feminine sexuality . The sheer breadth and span of pinup art today is amazing and every major genre is represented within, For the pinup aficionado and artist, this non-stop, eye-popping book is an essential source of inspiration .

Genres: Art

175 pages, Hardcover

Published September 8, 2020

About the author

Jim Silke was an American graphic designer, screenwriter, and comic book artist. He wrote the scripts for Sahara and King Solomon's Mines. In 1994, he created the comic book limited series Rascals in Paradise.
Over the course of his career, Silke was nominated for four Grammy Awards for best album design. He won in 1962 for his cover for Judy at Carnegie Hall.

Reviews

[Paige Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

We start with a conservative pinup in a sweater dress that looks like she’d ride a rocket in a Vault Cola ad. The intro is short, with the obvious mention of Bettie Page and explaining the process of how they collage favorite outfits together from the internet for inspiration. The Kindle sample is not formatted correctly so I fear I am missing out on a lot, as there are many tiny images of just parchment paper.

Then we get a bullet point timeline of where famous pin up images started in 1800s fashion catalogues and propaganda, the info rather rudimentary like something out of a high school hobbyist’s power point. I really like the color palette in the bathroom haircutting scene. That’s more vouyeristic and mundane than a typical pinup image. There was definite diversity in ads that looked like they could be advertising cutting edge MAC makeup in Paris the first yr it launched and then jungle theme shoots that look like they could be a porn DVD cover in the 90s or 80s.

A quarter in, we get very modern with pink hair, tattoos, and bodycon or club dresses. The cultural bits are the most poetic and interesting though we o my get a nibble. I’d have like to have seen more Asian and Brazilian art as I’ve not see any in the pinup style before.

The futuristic sort of chrome/spacey aesthetic seemed too clashing and cheesey. The more cartoony drawings seemed lower skill enough not to be included but the walking of snakes one was cute. Calling Miss Incredible a modern pinup felt laughable. The Hell on Wheels girl seemed very Classic American tattoo-esque, so that could’ve been something to write on. We kind of get around there with rockabilly and those type of designs you see turning Disney princess into tatted, guaged, pierced baddies.

They keep mentioning cheesecake girls, which I’m not sure what it refers to—the pale complexions and sweet, red streaked faces? I enjoy the horror and noir images more than I thought I would. Especially the girl in a lab coat with a chainsaw, very cute Frankenstein adjacent. Just lacking in much substance or linear themes. Quality not always the same and I definitely didn’t feel it was worldly. It was too base level and we didn’t get much more than Bettie Page look alikes though I’m surprised there was no mention of Dita Von Tease or any African art, any ancient sculpture or modern movie inspirations. I didn’t even see freckled or bespectacled girls hardly so things felt mostly cookie cutter. The artistic drawings were best like the magician-like cutouts of a silhouette or the girl tied to a domme boot.

[Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I accessed a digital review copy of this book from the publisher through Edelweiss.
I felt like I was expecting more out of the book than I got from both the title and the intro paragraphs for each section. With the "around the world", I expected more of a "here are the styles/examples from x place in the world". With the section introductions I expected to see pictures of the examples that were listed or commentary on the the pictures that were there to show how they fit. Also, while it was nice to see contemporary artists, I would have expected to also see some older examples.

[Seher · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thank you Edelweiss for the chance to read and review this!

Pinups around the world, doesn’t have much to read in it. The little there is, doesn’t read well because the formatting of the book was terrible.

Its a nice collection of images of pinups, although I’m sure there must be many more styles out there. There just wasn’t as much information or history as I thought there should be. It was just hey, here’s a few paras and now here are pictures.

[Nik Havert · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a lot of pinups by the same artists in different themed chapters. There are no classic pinups here, but there are some modern ones done in classic styles.

Also, why is this book listed as being by Jim Silke? Yes, he's a great pinup artist, but there isn't a single piece of his work in this book.

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bunch of pinups from around the world like the title says. There are all more recent but most have a retro feel to them. There's nothing really risque about these. It's all pretty tame especially compared to what you could find within five minutes of an internet search. Most of the art is really god with a few exceptions of a few art styles.