Madame Natasha

I've always lived a very quiet life. I ain't never did no wrong... except for that triple negative just now. But, until last year, I always had an uneasy feeling that something was missing, and I could never quite articulate what it was.


It was this Black Widow pin up by Bill Everett, rendered in india ink on 14" x 21" day-glo red posterboard. I didn't realize that I "needed" it because I didn't know it existed. It's unpublished, as far as I know. Maybe it appeared in a fanzine?


During a fourteen month period in 1970 and 1971 Bill Everett inked 71 pages featuring the Black Widow, and created one pin-up himself, published in Daredevil #81 (see additional images). I've been seeking the DD #81 pin-up for years. This red Madame Natasha is thus a second, and heretofore unknown all-Everett Black Widow. My guess is that Wild Bill created it in the spring of 1971. But, who knows?


Given the freedom of penciling and inking these two pin-ups, Everett created some quirky artwork. Maybe Bill created it for his own pleasure (it had a thumbtack hole prior to conservation), or to offer to Jim Steranko for his "Steranko History of Comics." We may never know. But, I have an unsupportable theory: Everett created this Madame Natasha to get it out of his system.


Bear with me here. My guess is that Stan Lee, or perhaps Everett's one-time roommate Roy Thomas asked Bill to sexy up his rendering of the Black Widow in Amazing Adventures. Maybe it was Bill's idea, but hoo boy... he drew a sexy Black Widow in those comics. Too sexy for the comics code, as Everett's sensuous Natasha was slathered with white-out prior to publication, to protect concupiscent youngsters from moral depravity (I am living proof that IT DIDN'T WORK). This is also tragic in a historical context, as printing the panels with curvy Russian Natasha Romanoff as rendered might have ended the cold war two decades earlier.


So, what do you do when your impossibly alluring Black Widow pages keep coming back censored, and you have a fresh bottle of india ink and a spare piece of 14" x 21" day-glo red posterboard hanging around? Damn right.


One night I was layin' down,
I heard mama 'n papa talkin'
I heard papa tell mama,
"Let that boy draw boobies,
It's in him, and it got to come out"
And I felt so good,
Drew some boobies just the same.
~ "Boobie Chillen," John Lee Hooker