Gene Bilbrew (1923-1974) was an African-American cartoonist and fetish artist who almost exclusively worked in the femdom and bondage genres, and ruled the “soft-core hardboiled” pulp fiction community of 1950s Times Square. After failing to make it as a singer for the R&B one-hit-wonder Basin Street Boys, Bilbrew made a name for himself as the creator of the first black superhero, the Bronze Bomber that was published as a comic strip in the Los Angeles Sentinel. Through his mentor, the fetish art pioneer Eric Stanton whom he met while attending Cartoonists and Illustrators School, he came into contact with fetish illustrating. He was sold immediately and from then on completely dedicated himself to this “bizarre art” producing work for many of the most notable underground publishers Leonard Burtman, the Sturman Brothers, Edward Mishkin Stanley Malkin and Irving Klaw.