Erich von Götha is the best-known pseudonym of British illustrator and comic-book artist Robin Ray (born 1924, Wimbledon, London). He has also used the name Baldur Grimm as an alter ego. Ray built an international reputation on erotic—and especially sadomasochistic—comics and paintings: rope, ritual, period costume, and power scenes drawn with a polished, almost classical line. He has had solo shows such as Sweat Tears & Reflections at Mondo Bizarro Gallery in Bologna and work tied to the Paris publication of The Secret Notebooks of Janice at Larmes d’Eros. Talisman Fine Art represents him and distributes prints. For BDSM art collectors, von Götha sits in the European SM illustration tradition that runs from de Sade-era fantasy through modern adult comics.
Training and advertising years
Ray studied drawing and painting for four years at St Martins art school in London, then worked in London advertising agencies as a designer and copywriter. He took three years out to teach graphic design at Ealing School of Art. A chance meeting with English sex therapist, campaigner, writer, and former adult model Tuppy Owens led to the Sex Maniac’s Diary, a striking commercial success that sold mainly to women. Their publisher then suggested an erotic comic, Torrid, which appeared irregularly through the 1980s. Ray has described Torrid as little more than a hobby with total creative freedom in the first flush of Swinging London energy—freedom that shaped the frank SM tone of his strips.
Publishers, theft, and the French market
He stopped the original Torrid run after discovering that publishers were selling strips from the first sixteen issues without his knowledge; those strips later appeared in the French magazines YES and Bédé Adult. Publisher Lionel Roc then vigorously promoted his work in France. Ray became widely known for Conte à Rebours (for YES)—a sci-fi story made oddly hard to follow by the circumstances of its translation—and for Crimes et Délits (the series after Georges Lévis), including his illustrated section on Rasputin. The French adult-comics market is where many international readers first met the von Götha name.
The Troubles of Janice and other serials
His most famous work is The Troubles of Janice, set in the era of the Marquis de Sade. It spans four albums; the first appeared in 1980 and the cycle was a close collaboration with French writer, historian, and collector Bernard Joubert. A luxury edition of all four albums was published in 2008 by Dynamite. English versions of Janice and of his other serial story Twenty were published in the 2000s by the Erotic Print Society. Period setting, aristocratic cruelty, and elaborate SM set pieces made Janice a reference title for readers who want historical-flavored sadomasochism rather than contemporary dungeon realism.
Paintings, commissions, and biography
Since the 1980s Ray has produced many erotic paintings for friends and collectors and has published several books with Larmes d’Eros in Paris. He continues to make prints and commissions, usually erotic and often with mythological themes. In 2016 Dynamite released a comprehensive biography by Joubert—collaborator, translator, and longtime friend—that used humor and abundant illustration to correct a life story that had been “weirdly transformed” in the rumor mill. For adult-art audiences, Erich von Götha remains a key British name in continental SM comics: St Martins craft, advertising polish, Torrid freedom, French serial fame, and de Sade-era Janice as the signature cycle.
