J. Allen St. John: The Beefcake and Phallic Images of Tarzan

In spite of his aristocratic name, J. Allen St. John was born in Chicago in 1872, when it was still a small town, and lived there throughout his life, except for studying in New York and Paris.


But his imagination went far afield beginning in 1916, when he was offered the cover and interior illustrations for Edgar Rice Burroughs' Beasts of Tarzan

An opportunity to draw muscular, half-naked men?  He had found his dream job!

One that lasted for the next thirty years, through dozens of Tarzan books, plus some of the Venus and Mars series.

St. John's extremely-muscular, mostly-naked men and blatant phallic imagery also enlivened the covers of Weird Tales, The Blue Book, and Amazing Stories.

He influenced a generation of beefcake science fiction and fantasy artists, such as Frank Franzetta.

He only wrote one novel of his own, The Face in the Pool: A Faerie Tale (1905).  It's a standard Medieval "boy meets girl" fantasy: "He came to the tower where the Princess Astrella's golden head at the window served as a gleaming beacon to those who would rescue here."

So her head revolves, or what?

Better stick to illustrations.











St. John always tried to get his male figures as naked as possible, negotiating as many phallic images as possible.  Is this a giant snake or a penis come to life?

More after the break

Raphael De Santo: Pulp Illustrator of Muscular Men

I found this book at a used bookstore in Davenport, Iowa: Gods and Demons (Greek, Roman, Nordic, Celtic, Indian), published by  Lyon Library sometime in the 1960s.

The cover illustrations: a very muscular Zeus, an eagle about to eat the liver of  a very muscular Prometheus, and a fully-clothed Pandora about to open the box that unleashes evil upon the world.

Who was emphasizing the male beauty?

The author was Manuel Komroff, an American writer of Russian ancestry (1890-1974), author of 45 novels, editor of many more, including an edition of The Travels of Marco Polo.  One of his novels, Coronet, sold a million copies.

Th illustrator was Rafael DeSoto (1904-1992).  Born in Puerto Rico, DeSoto went to a Catholic seminary before moving to New York in 1923 to dedicate himself to art.

He soon found his niche illustrating the colorful, beefcake and cheesecake-heavy covers of pulp magazines, such as Black Book Detective, Weird Tales, and The Spider.  

For Men Only contained buddy-bonding adventure stories interspliced with "nonfiction" about dames.

This is an interior illustration of a man being attacked by carnivorous lizards.

He also did some paperback book covers, mostly for science fiction.

In 1964 he retired from illustration to teach and work on his paintings.

Not a lot of gay connection in his life: he was married twice, and made his living in the overtly heterosexist pulp market.  But still, his interest in the male form is obvious.