History Of Venus Island Girl - The Magazine

Old Issue Of VIG

For many years, Venus Island Girl Magazine was purely a fashion and lifestyle monthly magazine for the residents and tourists of the tiny island nation of Carnipelago, whose official name is the oxymoronic "Imperial Republic of Carnipelago" and sometimes abreviated as the "IRC", and also occasionally known to Natives as "The Venus Islands."

In the 1970's, advances in full-color printing methods finally made their way to the shores of the Sea of Secrets, which is what the waters around the six islands of the tiny country are called, and looking to promote the latest fashions and appeal to a primarily female audience, several investors from the Carnival Guild began soliciting advertising and articles for their new publishing venture. The new printing presses were purchased with Guild tribal funds and the magazine set up shop behind the offices of one of the local daily newspapers, the Springfield Daily News, located in the working-class village of Springfield on the northern end of Carniville Island, the largest of the Carnipelagian islands.

The magazine was immediately popular, and prominently featured many of the most attractive women of the Acrobat Tribe, or Caseme Arvore, as models. Caseme, as the tribe is commonly called, was famous beyond the Sea of Secrets for its inventive and dazzling circus show, and through its celebrity as a tourist attraction beginning in the late 60's and early 70's had become considered somewhat of a 'ruling class' of the Islands, and from their ranks alone would come the Island's series of empresses.Her Eternal Radiance Eris II

The magazine became so popular that one of the last empresses of Carnipelago, Her Eternal Radiance Eris I, was rumored to have chosen her personal advisor on the basis of his score in an intelligence test published in 1978. Personality tests were a regular feature of the magazine, usually with the results helping you determine how adept you were as a lover, a friend, a wife, or other role. Of course, no one except the insulated and somewhat immature Eris I took the "Are You Smart" test of April 1978 seriously, and this was just one of many tone-deaf acts that led to her eventual ousting and assassination by coup d'état at the turn of the decade.

Though vanquishing the tiny nation of a figurehead that made decisions based on horoscopes and personality tests from the pages of Venus Island Girl, the coup attempt was somewhat bungled and the throne, though largely ceremonial, was handed right back to Caseme and Eris's daughter, Her Eternal Radiance Eris II, who granted amnesty to those who participated in the plot to oust her mother - which was, pretty much, everyone in Carnipelago - but did extract some retribution from the leaders of the coup, the largely licentious Circo Tulala tribe, otherwise known as the Tribe of Clowns. Circo had built a reputation for fattening their tribal funds through vice, and there were very few laws to prevent them from doing so at the time as prostitution, narcotics, public nudity, and firearms possession where completely legal. That fact alone made the islands a tourist attraction, to many, as much as its spectacular circus shows and miles of perfect beaches.

The largest of the six islands of the Imperial Republic of CarnipelagoIssuing a flurry of 'Imperial Decrees', Eris placed restrictions on all sorts of behaviors that mostly affected Circo though none were completely free from their reach. "Eris The Purple" (as she became known for reasons beyond the scope of this article) exacted a ban on the importation of foreign cars and trucks (and enlisted so-called 'Poop Squads' to deal with the excrement from horses and other beasts of burden), created areas designated for prostitution (which was previously legal anywhere), prohibited beverages and foods made with the honey or pollen of a particular indigenous species of bee (only increasing their popularity), and created a new "Morality Czar" position in her cabinet. Tribal Council, the legislative body of the small country, in part due to their eagerness to distance themselves from the bungled coup more than anything else, passed the decrees against the disenting votes of its Circo Tulala representatives, including the least popular of them all: "The Nudity Decree".

Nudity had never been part of Venus Island Girl's many pictorials, as provocative as they often were, because, alas, it was largely a fashion magazine. In fact, nudity was anything but rampant in Carnipelago, despite anyone's personal freedom to display it. To their largest group of advertisers, the handful of clothing manufacturers, importers, and retailers, this was considered a small windfall, after all, if people can't run around naked, they have to buy clothing. But the editors of this women's fashion and lifestyle magazine, and many of its contributors and photographers, considered themselves journalists, especially since Eris II's mother and predecessor had placed so much weight on their output, however ridiculous that may seem to an outsider. This was now a civil liberty issue! Even though they had previously never even considered placing photographs of naked people in their pages, they now went through each line and clause of the decree looking for ways to circumvent it.Pucky Luxx, King Of Clowns

And they were not alone. Most affected by the "Nudity Decree" was the tribal leader of Circo Tulala, Pucky Luxx, the so-called "King of Clowns." Luxx was the proprietor and headliner at the Island's most notorious nightclub, the Silver Seal. The Seal, while not technically considered a strip-club, regularly featured performances, dance and otherwise, by women clothed in nothing but their high-heels. He, too, was searching through each word of the decree to find out what he could and couldn't offer in the way of entertainment and costuming. Since Luxx was also the main shareholder in Clown Tribal, a beverage and snackfood company, and its offices were just a few blocks from the original and somewhat cramped offices of Venus Island Girl, conversations between he and the editors of the magazine began, first in passing along South Main Street in Springfield, then in lunch meetings at Clown Tribal's conference rooms, and finally in late-night sessions in the Silver Seal's Hookah Lounge. Luxx was a man who worked hard and played even harder. A bond was formed between the editors, largely Carnival Guild members, and the Circo leader, so much so, that Luxx was invited to join their Board of Directors, and eventually chair it, much to the chagrin of Her Eternal Radiance, who, like her mother, was a regular subscriber.

Deximo Zincavage - Photographer for Venus Island Girl - 1980 - 1992With his chairmanship of Venus Island Girl came significant financial support and with that investment came power. He sensed that the earnest editors of the magazine strived to be more than just publishers of a magazine craved by teenage girls more than any other demograph, and unleashed them, letting them write more than just stories about fish recipes, the latest bangles and baubles, and comparative fabric manufacturing techniques. It is not easy for an aspiring writer to find work in a tiny country in the middle of nowhere. Most of the writers were just happy to have jobs writing at all, and signed on to the magazine to make a living at what they like best, even if the content they were paid to deliver was not their first choice. The freedom came with one major caviat: That he would have final say over the pictorials that usually featured some attractive model or models wearing the latest fashions in a country that knew only one season and that season was summer. He brought in his own photographer, the young paparazzi Deximo Zincavage, to photograph a new cadre of models, now shying away from the lithe, trim and petite acrobats that usually filled the pages, and recruiting the more voluptuous, buxom, and curvacious type of Carnipelagian women, much like those who wowed wealthy tourist and native alike at the Silver Seal.

If there was a risk of alienating their core audience, Luxx and the reinvigorated Venus Island Girl staff seemed not to care. These were heady days in the tiny republic and the Imperial Decrees had made patriots of many, whether in their support or opposition. One thing is for certain, they knew each line of the Nudity Decree by heart. For all its detail about what parts of the human body could and couldn't be exposed, even bringing terms like 'vulva,' 'aeriola', and 'glans' into the daily dinner table discussions of Island families, it never made mention of the types of fabric that were considered suitable coverage for the now-bannished body parts. And this was made clear in one historic edition when the country's leading actress agreed to grace the cover of the first Luxx-influenced edition.

Venus Island Girl Cover - January 1985 - Sami Sunshine

Sami Tizzi-Nash, or Sami Sunshine, as she was known somewhat sardonically due to her often less-than-pleasant personality (but with enough of a sense of humor to adopt the name herself), had just returned to her tiny island home after a breif stint of supporting actress roles in relatively minor American movies, perhaps finally deciding that the life of being adored as a big fish in a small bowl was preferable to being bait for, as she put it, 'skuzball producers' in Hollywood. She was happy to be interviewed about the epiphany that renewed her love for Carnipelago and even allowed Zincavage to coax her into a tight, fishnet minidress. Unaware of the magazine's new direction, and its scouring of the Nudity Decree (which she ironically was a public supporter of), Sami posed in the dress, never thinking that it would ultimately grace the cover. While she easily forgave Luxx for the editorial decision, and privately loved the photographs, she never forgave Zincavage who she claimed acted just like, well, the kind of 'skuzball' she was leaving behind. Sami Sunshine

The dress left almost nothing to the imagination, so to speak, but it was legal! And immensely popular, as well, at least in terms of new subscriptions and kiosk sales. Sami was already a hero to many young Carnipelagian girls as someone who'd achieved more than any other woman from their country had, however limited that achievement might seem in a larger superpower country like the United States of America, where Carnipelago was all but unknown. The Venus Island Girl cover and the pictorial that spread across eight pages of the edition was just as popular, understandibly, with the male population of Carnipelago and soon the kiosks were running out of stock and the press operators were working overtime. The issue hit the stands right at the peak of Carnipelago's tourist cycle, and most of them were there for the 'eye candy' to begin with. Subscriptions were also coming in from (relatively) nearby countries like Coctesia, and even a half-dozen or so from California, most likely skuzball producers.

The articles, surprisingly enough, given the freedom offered the staff by their new Chairman of the Board, were remarkably similiar to the usual fare: an article about new ways to prepare piefish (a local specialty), renovating living quarters on a small boat, and the latest styles in bikinis. That would eventually change as the months went by, but initially, the only thing particularly noteworthy about the January 1985 "Hot Summer Edition" was Sami.

Deciding to push the parameters even further, making the periodical a tribute to what he called the 'natural voluptuence' of his island home, Luxx soon invited many of his most popular dancers to grace the pages of the magazine, and expanded the periodical sections. There was now a monthly centerfold, 'as naked as not-naked would allow' as he would put it, and eventually photo shoots that paid no heed to fashion or which company provided whatever g-string or thong or slingshot the model was wearing. "Beauty for beauty's sake is the only sake for beauty," he would say, in his own often surreal and almost undecipherable way. Of course, he didn't care what his writers wrote. It was easy to give them their freedom, knowing that the images were what were going to be paying the bills from now on.

Venus Island Girl Headquarters - 10 High Street, Carniville ProperAnd pay the bills they did. Before the year was over, the increase in revenue from the transformed periodical funded a gleaming new five-story office building in the most affluent section of Carniville, the capital of Carnipelago, at 10 High Street, right next door to Roxy Theatre, a moviehouse once dedicated to pornography that now, in the post Nudity Decree era of the Eris II, offers locally produced and Circo Tulala-funded feature films and plays, many of them starring none other than Sami Sunshine.

This website is an attempt to offer the Natural Voluptuence of the Lost Islands of Carnipelago to a world that's never had the pleasure before. For more information about Carnipelago and its people and stories, please visit TheSilverSeal.com.

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