Molly Crabapple is Manhattan's Gibson Girl gone bad. She's a
talented illustrator who has worked for Screw,Playgirl
and The Wall Street Journal, and a beautiful breast-baring
performer who has appeared onstage and online at SuicideGirls.com,Nerve.com
and The
Slipper Room. I discovered her and am responsible for
her first burlesque booking at Mondo Porno; she has come a long
way since! I had so much to ask her when we finally got to talk.
ErosZine: Your online bio says you've drawn yourself
into a Turkish prison. What the hell? Tell us about that!
Molly Crabapple: When I was 18, I traveled through Kurdistan
(the south-eastern portion of Turkey bordering Iraq). In this
less-than-stable region, I decided to plunk down doodling in
my sketchbook. Immediate police detention! They said they thought
I was a spy, but I think they just wanted to talk to an easy
American girl.
Eros Zine: What made you decide to start doing burlesque?
Molly Crabapple: The bad influence of Albert Garzon. I was working
as a poster artist for Ixion
Burlesque and somehow the perfumed, be-plumed, shimmying
burlesque queens worked their magic on me. I wanted to dance
around onstage. Never mind not being able to hold a beat.
Eros Zine: So, your debut was at my bash, Mondo
Porno. How's it been going since then?
Molly Crabapple: For a non-dancer, pretty well. Two things I'm crazy
proud of? Dancing at the Coney Island Mermaid
Ball, after Todd Robbins raffled off prints of my artwork.
And my work with Beat Circus. Anyone who hasn't seen Beat Circus
should bow down before them. Imagine the most depraved, dirty
carnie music ever to ooze out of a peep-show tent. Okay, now
mix that with improv jazz. That's the Beat Circus. Besides being
musically brilliant they employ a motley crew of blockheads,
fire breathers, clowns and burlesque dancers to perform along
with them. Whenever I dance with the Circus, the music takes
me over. They're also writing a song for me. I can't even express
the honor...
Eros Zine: Who are your inspirations? Dance-wise and art-wise.
Molly Crabapple: I stole my pen and ink style from Golden Age illustrators
like Charles Dana Gibson and James Montgomery Flagg. For burlesque,
there are so many amazing dancers in New York City. I pick things
up every time I ogle them from backstage. A.V. Phibes, the former
Vulnavia, Queen of Nails, taught me how to eat fire. I'm working
on a fire act now. Let's see if it leads to the stars or the
burn ward.
Eros Zine: Did I hear you were a Suicide Girl? Do tell!
Molly Crabapple: Me and every other girl with a belly ring. SG is
great networking and one hell of a lesson in marketing-in-action.
Eros Zine: And what's your connection to those sexy Gotham Girls
Roller Derby babes?
Molly Crabapple: I met a Gotham Girl at a party and checked out their
site that night. Despite being a wuss myself, shit-kicking babes
hold a special place in my heart. So I donated enough Molly
Crabapple hot pants to outfit all three leagues. My logo. Roller
girl bottoms. Now that's prime ad space!
Eros Zine: You've illustrated for Screw and Playgirl,
as well as The Wall Street Journal. That's both high-
and low-brow. How'd you get the gigs?
Molly Crabapple: The Screw gig was my first freelance job ever.
Picture a little college sophomore, jumping up and down because
the art director of this infamous porno mag asks her to do the
cover. Other gigs? The hard way: sending out postcards, hanging
out at the Society of Illustrators and waving a sign saying
"Will Draw for Clothes" over my head. Well, maybe not the last
part.
Eros Zine: You have two separate web sites, your .com and your
.net. Are you a Gemini? Tell us about the separation.
Molly Crabapple: It's the product of my double life: respectable illustrator
by day, lascivious pinup girl by night. Well, mostly by day,
because I go to sleep by 10. I figured that art directors wouldn't
be interested in seeing me naked.
Eros Zine: Well, you might be wrong about that! Are your illustrations
an extension of your psyche?
Molly Crabapple: If I do them for myself, yes indeed. When away from
civilization, I like being unnecessarily mean. My pictures allow
me to be as snarky and vicious as I want without getting punched.
Mix in silliness, Victorian clothes, bizarre sex fantasies and
a love of detail straight out of a Where's Waldo book,
and you've got my work.
I've got a comic book avatar: Girlthing. You can recognize her
as the tiny thing in the pink sundress causing mischief along
the margins of my work. As a fan said, girlthing is unbridled
id.
Eros Zine: Do you have any fetishes?
Molly Crabapple: Wifebeaters. In an ideal universe, all men would
wear them. Ah, that sweet cotton, tracing the curve of a muscled,
tattooed shoulder. Be still my aching heart.
Eros Zine: A lot of your photos are very period. Do you have
a preference for nostalgia or bygone eras?
Molly Crabapple: Part of the reason I have so many Victorian photos
is that it's just how I look. I've got this big-eyed mug and
this big-boobed body. No one ever casts me as a domme. But yeah,
I love 1890-1930.
One of the cool things about New York in 2005 is the freedom
to co-opt the aesthetics of other times without bothering with
their hang-ups or values. So you can have corsets, speakeasy
jazz and hookahs but also birth control and universal suffrage.
Modernity's grand.
Eros Zine: You perform burlesque solo and with Ixion. They're
very period as well. Any comments on era-specific performance?
Feel free to wax poetic here...
Molly Crabapple: Wax poetic? Don't encourage me! One very era-specific
thing I love about Ixion is live music. Dancing to a CD never
compares to shimmying next to a belting blues queen like Lex
Grey. And all hail revivals of old burlesque traditions: the
wine bath, Dirty Martini's fan dances, shticky carnie barkers
between the acts.
Eros Zine: Okay, are those corsets all yours? How many
do you have?
Molly Crabapple: Five. Best one's pink latex by Vex. Got it in exchange
for illustrating their T-shirts.
Eros Zine: Sorry, but you have great boobs! Do you ever feel
like, you know, I am my boobs? (I often do....)
Molly Crabapple: Ah, now I know why you hired me!
Eros Zine: I see you've posed for James
Graham, who is a friend of mine. What was it like working
with him?
Molly Crabapple: We did an Alice in Wonderland shoot. I hadn't eaten
the whole day, but bought all these fancy cupcakes to use as
props. James has pictures of me devouring those suckers in black
and white high contrast.
Eros Zine: You've worked with a whole slew of photographers,
many of the "usual suspects," but also many I've never heard
of. Tell us about some of them and how you found them -- or
they found you.
Molly Crabapple: My favorite non-scene photographer is Burke Heffner.
We hooked up through a Craig'sList ad. Burke's the photographic
mastermind behind DangerDame.com.
A brutal, eight-hour shoot in packing peanuts and a crate yielded
the only pictures of a Molly Realdoll. Now that's a commentary
on objectification! Burke directed Revolver,
the best trailer not to have a movie (it stars his ravishing
girlfriend Veronica Varlow). If any millionaires are reading
this, please go to the site and give Burke lots of money so
he can make a full-length movie and I can munch popcorn and
watch it.
Other killer guys who deserve shout-outs? Aaron Hawks, Aeric
Meredith Goujon, Walter William Pearl.
Eros Zine: Any interesting tidbits about your childhood? Loss
of virginity? College lesbian encounters?
Molly Crabapple: Childhood? Gothy, sullen, with an unfortunate crush
on Kurt Cobain. My mother kept all my 7th grade poetry for the
sole purpose of mocking me later.
Eros Zine: Any revelations, confessions or filthy gossip?
Molly Crabapple: Some people say I had an affair with a certain infamous
New York alt-comedienne. But, until you can prove it, my lips
are sealed.
• EROTICA / ZINE
