Classic Beefcake Mag "Physique Pictorial" Is Making A Comeback
A Kickstarter campaign has been launched to bring back one of the first homoerotic magazines to ever be sold on newsstands.
Physique Pictorial was first started in 1951 by photographer Bob Mizer, who was looking for a place to showcase his black-and-white homoerotic portraits of bodybuilders in g-strings.
A few years earlier, Mizer was actually sentenced to nine months at a work camp for distributing the "obscene material" through the mail, as it broke the laws against homosexuality and pornography that were common in that time. But after he was set free, he created the magazine as a way to distribute his photography, and branded it as a men's fitness publication so that it would be legal to sell on newsstands.
As laws against pornography began to ease up, Mizer began to print male nudes in the publication, eventually including some of Tom of Finland's homoerotic art, as well.
Physique Pictorial ceased publication in 1990, with Mizer dying two years later, but now photographer Dennis Bell is resurrecting the mag to help honor its late creator.
Bell purchased all of Mizer's work and has launched a Kickstarter campaign to revive the magazine. The campaign already surpassed its goal of $10,000, and issue #42 is set to be released this month.
The relaunch will feature Mizer's unseen photographs, as well as work from current male-physique photographers, and Bell says it will contain a lot more diversity than the original.
“Times have changed, and while we will remain true to Mizer’s ethos in Physique Pictorial, we’ll also show the many men of color that he photographed," Bell told Unicorn Booty . "It is a major misconception that Bob didn’t photograph black men, in fact, he even ‘dated’ one for decades. Our modern portfolios will showcase [men of color] as well."