In the visual culture of BDSM, fetish, and adult images, illustration, comics, and related picture-making are their own line. The work is for adult viewers. Some of it is a still body. Some of it records risky body practices such as suspension and body modification. It is not a how-to. From early underground comics to contemporary queer fine art, the artists used different media for power and desire.
Japanese erotic art has a deep root in kinbaku. Nobuyoshi Araki’s work is Japanese erotica sitting against that rope look. In the wider line of Japanese SM, femdom, and kinbaku, Sadao Hasegawa, Namio Harukawa, and Seiu Ito set much of the visual standard.
American underground bondage illustration was laid down by people including Gene Bilbrew and Robert Bishop. John Willie is the other name you cannot skip: the magazine Bizarre, and the bondage cartoon Sweet Gwendoline. Eric Stanton carried femdom and bondage comics a long way. Further reading is Richard Pérez Seves, Eric Stanton & the History of the Bizarre Underground, Schiffer, 2018, ISBN 978-0764355424. Bill Ward started from mid-century pin-up and leaned the work toward fetish. Rex and Bill Schmeling drew gay leather SM illustration.
In photography, one group runs from leather fine art and fashion power to ritual body modification: Robert Mapplethorpe, Ken Marcus, Helmut Newton, Barbara Nitke, Daido Moriyama, and Fakir Musafar. Eric Kroll and Roy Stuart are known for explicit fetish stills. Peter Acworth documented studio BDSM pictures, especially in the Kink.com years. Monica Majoli is a direction in contemporary queer SM fine art.
Illustration and comics keep splitting. Erich von Götha de la Rosière drew European SM illustration. Franco Saudelli is known for Italian bondage cartoons. Jeff Gord made engineered extreme-bondage images. Michael Manning made narrative comics about latex and fetish. Stjepan Sejic tells BDSM stories in graphic novels; the work is Sunstone. Sunstone is the book, not a publisher. Sardax is a contemporary femdom illustrator. Satine Phoenix is an artist and an educator in kink and bondage art.
Charles Guyette was an early maker of fetish photographs and mail-order images. Joe Shuster is a name in the history of underground fetish illustration.
