In 1965,
Tom of Finland
began flirting with the idea of
an ongoing character for his panel stories, the ultimate Tom’s Man
. He tried out a blond named Vicky—a common male name in Finland—followed by a Tarzan-inspired Jack. Then in 1968 Tom settled on
Kake, a dark-haired, mustached leatherman
who often wore a tight white T-shirt bearing the motto “Fucker.” Kake lived up to this moniker, a sort of post-Stonewall, hyper-masculine Johnny Appleseed
traveling the world on his motorcycle to
spread the seeds of liberated, mutually satisfying, ecstatically explicit gay sex
. Tom lived out many of his most personal fantasies through Kake, and Kake’s international fans made him the template for what came to be known as the gay clone look of the 1970s. Between 1968 and 1986, Tom published
26 episodes of Kake adventures
, most as 20-page booklets.
Tom of Finland – The Complete Kake Comics
collects all of these stories in one volume
. Return with Kake to the days when men were men, sex was carefree, and everyone wore a big thick mustache.