Is It Safe? Yes And No.

Here are a couple of pictures I've done.
The first is safe for work (and is "safe" in another way, in that it's the same old, tired, predictable kind of thing I always draw).
The second, which can be seen by clicking on the "Read More" link is decidedly NOT safe for work.
Here's the first one, a picture of Scarlett Johansson (of course) wearing a dark wig:

Yep, it's a drawing, all right.  How exciting.

The second is of Playboy Playmate (December, 1989) Petra Verkaik.
I have a particular fondness for Petra, not just because of her rather impressive endowments, but for some other intangible aspect that I can't quite put a name to.
I'm not alone in that regard - she's a very popular Playmate,being the most published woman in that magazine's history.
She is still active as a model via her Web site, and still looks amazing, especially given that she's nearly 50.
In fact, in the reference photo used for the drawing I did, she was at least in her early 40s.
So, click on "Read More" if you want to see a drawing I did of very naked lady with very large breasts.

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The Case Of The Missing Playboys

Off and on from sometime around 1992 to, I think, 2004, I had a subscription to Playboy, and when I wasn’t an active subscriber I typically picked up the latest issue from the newsstand.
Naturally, because that’s what I do, I held onto them over the years, letting the stacks pile up, and so I had boxes full of them in one of my closets.
In my efforts to better organize things and clear out clutter, I decided to break out the boxes and catalog the complete list of issues that I have, with an eye towards trying to sell them online.
However, once I did so, it soon became apparent that there were a significant number that should be in my collection that were nowhere to be found.
So there’s at least one box worth that’s missing, and I’m not certain how.  I know that they weren’t lost in any of my moves, as I’m certain that I’ve had them at some point in the five years I’ve been living here – there are some specific issues that I know I had here that number among the missing – so it’s a mystery.
My best guess is that when Kathleen cleared out all of the stuff she was storing here, in the same closet where the Playboy boxes were kept, she may have inadvertently taken some of them as well.  Given that she’s long gone from my life, that would mean that those Playboys are, too.
Oh well; I guess it ultimately just means that much less clutter to have to deal with, but not knowing what happened to them is kind of annoying, and there were some in there that I had intended to hold onto.

The Marilyn Cliche

Lindsay Lohan recently posed for Playboy. Twice, actually, if I recall correctly, because someone - Playboy, Lohan, her representation, or some combination of all three - was unhappy with the first round. Because he's a tired old man who lacks imagination, and because every starlet who aspires to sexiness is similarly lacking in imagination, Hef decided to make the seven millionth trip back to the well that is Marilyn Monroe.
Let me just state upfront that even if the Marilyn-inspired pictorials weren't already a total cliche - especially for Lohan, who did a similar Marilyn recreation for another magazine a few years back - I would be bored and annoyed by the idea, because, and I know this puts me in a minority, I think that MM is overrated.  Really, really overrated.
There's no good reason whatsoever for her to be held up as some icon of sexiness or any of that nonsense.
None.
I can't be convinced otherwise.
In any case, the Lohan issue has yet to hit the stands, but the pictorial has already found its way onto the Web.
Despite the trite Marilyn tribute aspect, the pictures actually looks surprisingly good.  Good enough, in fact, that I was inspired to draw one of them.
At least it wasn't shot in grainy black and white, with her covered in sawdust and whale's blood.  All things considered, I'd rather have the Playboy photographers go with a tired old cliche than attempt anything avant garde...
(And at least there's unobstructed nudity, and she flirts with going full frontal.)
I did make a change, however; to counteract the played-out Marilyn aspect, I presented her as a redhead.  Imagine that:  Lindsay Lohan with red hair.
Check out the nude and NSFW image after the jump.

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Not As Good As I Want It To Be

Look, I drew a picture of Kelly Brook in her underwear:

It, or rather the lingerie, didn’t turn out as well as I would have liked, but I don’t know that I have the capability to do any better, so there it is.

Kelly will actually be appearing in an upcoming issue of Playboy.

That should be good news – and, honestly, it is – but I fear that, as with this picture, it won’t be as good as it should be.

Why do I say that? I’m glad (I said that) you asked.

Playboy has a pretty uneven history when it comes to celebrity (For a given value of “celebrity.” Sorry, Kelly, but you’re not exactly a household name. At least, not here in the States.) pictorials. With that history in mind, I give you…

Why Kelly Brook Posing For Playboy Might Suck:

She might not be nude.

This is something that happens altogether too often these days. Playboy, like magazines in general, is seeing reduced sales, and is pretty desperate for anything that might boost sales. One would think that would mean that they’d be sure to give potential readers what they want (such as a nude Kelly Brook), but while that makes sense, they’re also desperate enough to get “names” to pose for them that they’ll cave in to unreasonable demands such as, “I don’t want to be photographed in the nude.”

It happened with Olivia Munn. It happened with…what’s her name. Heidi Montag? Something like that.

This is, quite frankly, unacceptable. I don’t care how desperate you are, Playboy. There’s only one acceptable response when someone agrees to pose for a pictorial but does not agree to pose nude: “Okay, well, here’s the number for Maxim. Give us a call when you want to pose for Playboy.”

Grow some balls, for crying out loud.

When she posed – non-nude – for Playboy, Olivia Munn talked about what an “honor” it was to be on the cover without having to pose nude inside.

This is an “honor” shared by people like Paris Hilton, for god’s sake.

Edited to add: When Paris was on the cover, she not only didn't appear nude in that issue, she wasn't the subject of a pictorial. There was a picture of her in there - I believe it was their annual “Music and Sex” issue - but it wasn't one that she actually posed for specifically for them; it was some picture that Playboy purchased the rights to. There actually was a celebrity pictorial that month: Debbie Gibson. That seems like adding insult to injury for poor Debbie Gibson. Not only is your career in the crapper, but you pose nude for Playboy - fully-nude, I believe - and you not only don't get the cover, you lose the cover to Paris Hilton, who, again, didn't even pose for the magazine.

Hell, Sally Field got the cover, and she didn’t appear in a pictorial at all; she was that month’s Playboy Interview subject.

They even went so far as to put Jessica Alba on the cover when she didn’t appear in the magazine at all.

Quite frankly, I’d rather that celebrities not appear in the magazine at all than appear non-nude. I mean, it’s freakin’ Playboy.

She might just be topless.

Don’t get me wrong: Kelly Brook topless = teh awesome.

But..I’ve seen that before. I mean, I will happily see it again, it’s just that I’d like to see the whole package, you know?

Again, this is all too common with celebrity pictorials, and, is unacceptable. Don’t follow in the footsteps of people like Charisma Carpenter, Kelly; follow in the fully-nude footsteps of people like Tia Carrere and Kristy Swanson.

As an aside, a while back Playboy did a pictorial featuring some of Kelly’s fellow busty Britons such as Keeley Hazell and Lucy Pinder. They appear topless all of the time, but never fully-nude, so I’d hoped that the Playboy appearance would be the exception to that rule.

Turns out it wasn’t. In fact, it wasn’t even a proper pictorial at all; Playboy simply bought some existing topless pictures of Lucy et al. that had appeared in other magazines. That’s not quite, as they say across the pond, cricket, as far as I’m concerned.

Playboy celebrity photographers hate women.

Or maybe they hate the readers of Playboy. Whatever the case, it’s clear that they have no interest in making the women they photograph look their best.

Being a photographer for Playboy should be one of the greatest jobs ever. And with someone like Kelly, most of your work has already been taken care of for you, as the main function of your job is to make your subject look beautiful and sexy.

You don’t need to be an artist, because your subject is already a work of art.

Unfortunately, the last thing a celebrity pictorial photographer tries to do is actually make his subject look beautiful and sexy. In fact, he will try his hardest to make her look absolutely terrible. He’ll cover her from head to toe in dirty crankcase oil, or mud, or will tar and feather her and put her in clown shoes.

Whatever it takes to detract from rather than enhance her natural beauty, that is what the photographer will do.

And, because he’s an “artist,” as a finishing touch he’ll use the grainiest black and white film he can find, because who would want to see pictures of someone like Cindy Crawford, as an example, in vibrant, full-color? Some of the pictorials I’ve seen look like they were taken with a Civil War-era daguerreotype.

The photographer may not be in the same Zip Code when taking the pictures.

When Tara Reid appeared in Playboy – merely topless – it seems that the photographer was so terrified that the notoriously wild starlet might have some sort of STD that he was afraid to breathe the same air as she was breathing. In each picture she was so far off in the distance that it seemed that the pictures were taken from the International Space Station.

With Kelly, there’s every chance that the photos will actually be that little message you get on Google Maps when they don’t have an image of a particular area at a suitable resolution.

So that’s why Kelly Brook appearing in Playboy may not be as good as it should be. If she’s dressed like a Muslim woman in Saudi Arabia and drenched in pig’s blood, with photos taken using one of those boxes for viewing an eclipse, taken from a distance so far away that it will take 10,000 years for the light reflected off of her to reach us, I’ll be very surprised.

Ultimately, I guess what I’m saying is that, a good percentage of the time, Playboy sucks, and I don’t think the odds favor them not sucking this time.

Up next, the thrilling conclusion to Homecoming 1 & 2. Will Jon complain about the U.P. some more? Will he make it back to Virginia? What startling adventures lie in store for you? Check back soon and find the answers to these questions and others that you wouldn’t have thought – or cared – to ask!