I don't generally collect postcards, though I have a few and there is one specific series which I am attempting to acquire.

This card is not in said series. However, it is, just as the seller claimed, adorable; so I got it.

(I've seen four other images that seem to be from this same session; they are not particularly appealing.)

Somewhat to my surprise, I was recently able to get a copy of House of Tears (creditted to Harold Kane and illustrated anonymously by Joe Shuster).

At some point, I'd like to scan the thing,[1] but I don't want to damage it in the process of scanning, and the volume is bound in a way such that it does not naturally open flat. For now, I'll offer a verbal description.

The book is 20 sheets folded into five gatherings[2] to make a total of 80 pages. The gatherings are bound together by three staples, running from front to back but near the fold. A cover of dull-yellow paper, textured like parchment, is wrapped around these pages and glued to them at the fold. The volume is about 5 3/8 in × 8 in × 3/16 in (13.7 cm × 20.3 cm × .5 cm); I'd guess that it were printed on 8½-by-11 sheets before binding and trimming.

There are 65 pages of text that were almost certainly set with an elite[3] typewriter. There are ten full-page, black-and-white interior illustrations, two more than the eight that I discovered on-line. Both are plainly also by Shuster. One of these shows a fellow in a suit standing close behind a woman in a classic French maid's outfit; the other shows three women, one upon a throne-like chair, one in a dress lifting up her skirt to expose her lingerie, and the third behind her, apparently yanking or pinching her ear and dressed in a maid's outfit.

Although I've not read the story, it is apparently about a wealthy Illinois man who hires a Scottish woman to be the governess for his 15-year-old daughter, rather hoping that the governess will turn-out to be a dominatrix, and discovering that this is, indeed, the case. I cannot help but be amused at the thought of a household of Americans trying to figure-out what the H_ll a Scottish dominatrix is demanding of them, but a cursory investigation suggests that Miss Phyllis neither speaks Scots nor has a note-worthy accent. What I do see is a lot of space given over to sound-effects.

    Whshshshshshs...craaaaaaaccccckkkk...
pfffffffff-f-f-f-f-...wha-a-a-a-a-a-cckkkk
thwaaaaaccccckkkkkk.......

I'm not sure what that was, and perhaps I'm just better-off not knowing.

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[1] No copyright registration was made, as this would have identified a person or a business entity that could be traced to owners, and those involved in production of this work could have been prosecuted under anti-pornography laws. It might be a fine thing to reverse the consequences of past censorship, and allow claims that could not have been registered to be made, but I believe that this particular work would then be orphaned.

[2] A gathering is a group of sheets stacked and folded together. The term signature is frequently mis-applied to gatherings.

[3] twelve characters per inch

Craig Yoe's book, Secret Identity, revealed that Joe Shuster, the original artist and co-creätor of Superman, had during a low point in his life provided illustrations for a sado-masochistic series, Nights of Horror, and for three one-shot sado-masochistic fantasies, Rod Rule, Hollywood Detective, and Continental. I am therefore surprised that no one seems to have reported on the artist for House of Tears, by Harold Kane.

I found those illustrations on the WWWeb this morning. In some cases, they were creditted to Harold Kane; in others they were not creditted at all. A search of Google for pages containing both Harold Kane or House of Tears and Shuster or Schuster produced only false positives.

I don't know whether House of Tears had further illustrations. But, in any event, it seems that Shuster's underground oeuvre is larger than previously recognized.

A stereotype ex libris book-plate that I got to-day: This image is by Andre Louis Armand Rassenfosse (1862 – 1934). I've had an eye out for one of this particular design for quite a while.

This stereotype ex libris book-plate would probably not be of much interest to me except that it was designed by Karel Šimůnek (1869 – 1942), the very same artist who did this lithographic book-plate a copy of which I acquired on 16 July.

I prefer the lithograph, in part because what the woman in the stereotype appears to be doing cannot be good for the book. And, while raised bands on the spine of a book might have peculiar užitečnost to a nemrava, they were an artefact of better-quality book-binding (though sometimes false bands are used to counterfeit such book-binding), and hence of what may be expected to be a more valuable volume.

Here's a lithographic ex libris book-plate that I got yester-day: The artist is Karel Šimůnek (1869 – 1942), and the plate is from 1925. The image is about 106mm (4.2in) × 100mm (3.9in).

I got a print the other day of what I think will someday be regarded as a significant masterpiece of Twenty-First Century Erotica:

The print that I got is giclée;[1] the original is in graphite, gesso, watercolour crayon, and nail enamel. Intermediate between simple reproductions and the original, Weltman has also embellished some giclée reproductions; these can be found at Art @ Large and at Artbreak.

Ms Weltman mailed the print, well packaged, to me on the same morning that I'd ordered it.

Weltman's work has been featured or otherwise exhibited in various museums and art shows, and anthologized in collections such as World's Greatest Erotic Art of Today v 2. She's provided illustrations for magazines articles and books, including The Mammoth Book of Kama Sutra by Maxim Jakubowski.[2]

Weltman's own site is sophi's grand empire She also has a presence on MyArtSpace.com.

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[1] Giclée /ʒiːˈkleɪ/ reproduces an image, from digitized form, using a high-quality ink-jet printer and archival inks.

[2] I just have to hope that this book does not concern the sexual congress of furry elephants.