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| Holzman - Merchant Navy 1 |
This Hussar advert in Fizeek magazine in 1963 introduced a new artist to the gay scene, Holzman, with a 'playlet' about a nautical thief. The illustration shown is one of the opening images of the series showing the 'toughie' arriving with his kit bag. You can tell he's tough because he's got a torso-revealing, open jacket (leather?) and a cigarette drooping from his mouth. You sense he's a man with attitude although the cant of his head here is what smokers do to keep their cigarette smoke out of their own eyes. In that respect this is a neat little piece of observation by Holzman, documenting a practice that's gradually dying out. The tough is thoughtfully examining something that he's found, his seaman's papers perhaps although I suspect it's a bottle (see below).
I don't have all 16 images in this story or any information about their sequence and have therefore simply numbered them in what seems to be the logical sequence
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| Holzman - Merchant Navy 2 |
The new boy climbs on board with a long, butt enhancing stride and a determined look on his face.
The texturing of his jacket and jeans suggests they might be leather, which in the 60's was thought of as the uniform of wild bikers. However, the presence of turn-ups and the styling of the jacket with visible seams is more suggestive of denim, a more suitable material for working on a boat.
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| Holzman - Merchant Navy 3 |
Below decks, the toughie examines a bottle of alcohol which has a label promising serious gut rot. It's enough to make him drop his cigarette, which apart from being a breach of good manners, is liable to start a fire on a boat, a danger to life and limb.
Despite these shortcomings in character we are learning about, he's portrayed as a sexy beast. The 'Latin look' was quite common iconography at the time and very exotic to UK eyes. The exaggerated fleshy lips and dark-rimmed eyes seem to be borrowed from female notions of sexual allure (unfortunately for the image of gay men). A distinctive vocabulary for the male equivalent had yet to be developed (and probably wouldn't have been accepted by society at large anyway).
The straw-clad carafe of wine in the cupboard behind him is a nostalgic image from a less sophisticated era in the UK. You might also recognise the 'Heinz 57 Varieties' label on the tin on the bar, amazingly it hasn't dated in 60 years and I suppose the same is true of his fashion wear.
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| Holzman - Merchant Navy 4 |
In this image it seems that the new crewman has removed various articles to his cabin and is about to hide them in his kit bag, furtively concealing his actions from a member of the crew working on the deck just outside. It must be a hot day because everyone seems to be undressing. The enticing glimpse of flesh through the porthole is the calf of a crewman walking towards the left of the picture.
You could be forgiven for thinking here that the thievery entailed drinking the liquor and then topping up the bottle to hide the theft. However I can imagine this clever 'hidden eroticism' probably escaped the attentions of the censor and deservedly so, because it's very nicely drawn, a neglected classic.
The villain has become more Anglo-Saxon-looking in this image, but I think it is the same character. judging mainly by the turn-ups (image 2) and the presence of the two tins. The Latin look does return later but only in one special example.
The smoky effect at the left, by the way, is not the result of his dropped cigarette but a scanning effect. It has fortuitously added a nice texture of dappled light to an otherwise 'flat' image.
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| Holzman - Merchant Navy 5 |
The villain's activities are disturbed by the arrival of a 3rd crewman (also apparently wearing a leather jacket). He too starts to undress, whistling as though routinely changing into his work clothes, which judging by the porthole vision in the previous picture might consist of very few clothes indeed. The thief is horrified, presumably imagining he's about to be exposed - as a thief, according to the story line, or, in the more subversive sub-text, as a man who has problems with naked male flesh.
Holzman's picture here copies classic, film noir imagery, with the unsuspecting innocent making himself ever more vulnerable to a hidden threat of which he's unaware. The hidden eroticism in this image surrounds the ambiguous interpretation of the bottle, angled just right to suggest the villain is getting other ideas about dealing with this new arrival. The coat hook just above his head provides a more graphic hint of what he might have in mind with the backing plate suggesting a tight fit.
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| Holzman - Merchant Navy 6 |
The crisis seems to be precipitated by the arrival of a third man. He appears to be the skipper of the vessel, previously glimpsed through the porthole in picture 3 and now revealed to be dressed only in a cap, skimpy slip and sea boots (the last a worrying link to the contents of the bottle!). At this point the undressing crewman has lowered his underpants. In fact they are nowhere to be seen, presumably lost in the folds of his jeans, unless they're ripped to pieces on the floor.
The villain's reaction seems a bit over the top. In the story plotline he seems to think that his exposure as a thief is imminent and so goes into self-defence mode, smashing the bottle to use as a weapon
(or it could be that he's suddenly revolted by the thought of sampling it's contents!)
Alternatively, in the delicious ambiguity that pervades this story, the young skipper's sexy appearance here offers an explanation of the actions of the villain back in picture 3. His panicky reaction now is triggered by the rapidly accumulating male nudity and the sudden prospect that he might be about to witness something unspeakable going on between these two men, whom, we should remember, didn't know he was there until he announced himself by smashing the bottle.
There used to be a accepted legal principle of 'homosexual panic', i.e. a fear of being in imminent danger of being raped by a homosexual. This was advanced as a legitimate excuse for assaulting gay men and even killing them. In some cases the reaction hid the fear of having his own, secret, homosexual leanings exposed. This concept perversely confers a power on gay men over straights that is erotically appealing, if entirely fanciful.
Holzman's rendering of the hunky skipper is masterly but some severe cropping seems has gone on, spoiling the depiction of his crewmate. The villain's aggressive act has been converted into a disembodied eerie 'manifestation'. This may have been intentional, to amplify the sense of panic and the shock to the sailors. It might even allude to an explosion of a different kind. However, it was also common practice in this period to publish incomplete images in order to encourage viewers to buy the full artwork.
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| Holzman - Merchant Navy 7 |
Somewhat surprisingly, the villain chooses to confront the defenceless, nearly naked seaman with the bottle rather than the Captain. It's him (or his nudity) that he finds most threatening, or it could be that this crewman has challenged him or is attempting to calm him*. Interestingly, his jeans have now dropped round his ankles and the villain is suddenly sporting a recognisable manifestation of excitement in his jeans rather than the generalised bulge seen occasionally in the preceding pictures.
*Perhaps Holzman simply thought it made a better picture. Whatever the case it's a great image using a challenging viewpoint. The quality of these pictures in both technical and dramatic terms is certainly on a par with the emerging stars of this era - Tom of Finland and Etienne.
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| Holzman - Merchant Navy 8 |
The captain intervenes with a mighty upper cut. By this time, his half-undressed crewmate is down on the floor, on his knees (and with bare ass raised in a classic, passive pose). The broken bottle is nowhere to be seen, suggesting that he managed to disarm the villain before he could do any damage with it.
Holzman has included the coat hook (from picture 4) in this image, positioning it a short distance from the villain's half-open mouth. It sort of matches the sweep of the Captain's fist and suggests there's an erotic consequence in store for him, but is slightly off-piste in the circumstances.
I don't have a satisfactory copy of this picture but it's too important to leave out.
The cartoonised version below gives a neater sense of how the original might have looked.
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| Holzman - Merchant Navy 8 (AI variant) |
This more balanced variant gives a better sense of the drama of the moment. It also brings out the nudity of the fallen sailor, almost seeming to suggest that the other men are fighting over him (hence, I suppose, the presence of the phallic coat hook, which, in a bizarre AI tweak, is suddenly dripping!).
However, we can also see more clearly that the fallen sailor's arm is entwined with the villain's foot, confirming his active role in overpowering him.
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| Holzman - Merchant Navy 9 |
The thief is down but not yet out as the crewmates pile onto him. The captain's hands are clasped tightly together round the villain's neck and he is struggling manfully to detach them. The second crew member, having disentangled himself completely from his jeans and underpants, has grabbed the villain's free arm and is pulling it into his uncovered crotch, where it can't cause any mischief but feels nice.
Ominously for the villain, his flies have come undone and his Y-fronts are pushing up through the gap and being nuzzled by the skipper's shin (entirely accidentally, I dare say). His choice of underwear makes the bulge in picture 6 improbable, although the picture below shows they are not a very tight fit, so maybe it was an escaper.
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| Holzman - Merchant Navy 10 |
The sailors turn the villain upside down, perhaps hoping to see what will fall out of his pockets, which is the traditional way of exposing a thief in kids' comics. It has the effect here of pulling his jeans off anyway, which will enable them to conduct a more thorough search (or something like that). Losing his pants also makes it a tad more difficult for him to run off, but I suspect that being undressed by these men is only going to intensify that instinct.
You may think you've seen this picture before and you'd be right if you're a regular visitor to this blog, because exactly the same picture appears in my article on the Art of Cas. The same that is, except that it is signed there by Cas. Cas and Holzman are the same person.
Another Cas-Holzman picture can be seen at the mitchmen Royale Studio blog in the 'Timeline' post section 63.1. It's in an ad, emblazoned with the Cas logo, but a contact address has been positioned on top of the original Holzman signature. The background to this name changing is a mystery. Perhaps something to do with publisher's exclusivity.
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| Holzman - Merchant Navy 11 |
Finally the villain seems to have collapsed, or at any rate he has stopped resisting. The crewmen lift him bodily almost as if intending to pitch him overboard. Their bulging trunks symbolically almost touch in a sort of low five (or three) you might call it . Apparently the stripper has managed to put his underpants back on. The enhancement and clarification of this image has brought the villain's underpants into stark relief, stretched tight round his buttocks and deep between them.
The clues to what is actually about to happen to him can be seen behind them.
This picture and 13 below have both been retrieved from small thumbnails in Hussar ads, hence the inferior, fuzzy quality. They suffice to allow us to understand what is going on, however.
If any reader can supply better versions, please get in touch!
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| Holzman - Merchant Navy 12 |
The skipper's fleshy physique does not disappoint in this picture but his face has now transformed rather unpleasantly into an appearance similar to that of the villain when he arrives at the boat. This seems to be a look chosen by Cas to represent nastiness and it's been gradually developing in the Captain in the preceding pictures, like something out of Dorian Gray.
Cas seems to be playing with a very dubious stereotype of foreignness here and unnecessarily so since it would perfectly OK for the cute, hunky, young man in picture 6 to maintain order on his own boat without turning into a demon. I suppose there's a certain satisfaction in the villain being 'out-nastied', having underestimated his intended victims. The crewmate steps up for his own crack of the whip next.
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| Holzman - Merchant Navy 13 |
The villain must have struggled energetically during the Captain's assault because the two sailors have now tied him down over the barrel with his arms and legs spread wide. The sailor who was earlier threatened with the broken bottle stands astride him with the miscreant's head between his legs. He pulls it up by the hair so it's snugly wedged in his crotch, almost face upwards here so it gets the fullest experience. He proceeds to flog him himself with the knotted rope, no doubt enjoying the villain's struggling movements between his thighs which seem to be dislodging his already skimpy trunks.
The skipper watches them, flexing his muscles triumphantly. He even seems to be rubbing his packet with his left hand, but that may be wishful thinking on my part!
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| Holzman - Merchant Navy 14 |
In this final image, again recovered from an advert thumbnail, the punishment seems to finished. The scene has shifted to a bedroom with a washbasin in the corner and the chastised villain meekly seeks the comfort of a cushion to sit on, on the bed. He's now without any underpants at all and there's a faint suggestion of criss-cross weals on his buttocks. It's possible that a bare-ass final spanking was the subject of one of the two missing images.
His two adversaries stand, lording it over him, with undisguised enlargements on their pants. One of them is resting his arm on a long pole which faintly suggests the punishment may even have reached into internal regions in some shape or form. The Captain, restored to normal handsomeness, breaks out the liquor that seems to have been the root cause of the problem. The villain hasn't got much to celebrate but it doesn't look like he's free to go just yet . You sense the affair is not yet over.
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These images were obtained from the internet and some from TimInVermont
and enhanced by mitchmen where my logo has been added.
more about artists featured by Royale and Hussar
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