Amy Kaufman HUGH Hefner didnt get a lot of hugs as a kid. He grew up in a repressed Midwestern puritan home,and his parents were strict. He couldnt ask them about the things he saw at his favourite movie theatre in Chicagolike the confusing censorship codes,or why an adult married couple in a film had to sleep in separate twin beds. So he began questioning these ideas on his ownthrough comic books. During his junior year in high school,Hefner began his own comic autobiography,documenting the events of his life through his own drawings. What I was doing,in effect,was putting myself in an imaginative world where I put myself centre stage, he recalled. It was through his early comicswhich are being published for the first time in Hugh Hefners Playboy,released domestically last month by Taschenthat Hefner first began to cement his identity. To really tell my story in an interesting way,the part that I wanted to include in the bookthe part that intrigued mewas what came before. The origins from where the inspiration came from: my creative life as a boy, he said. During an interview at the Playboy Mansion last week,Hefner,83,was,of course,wearing his trademark silk pajamas even in the afternoon. A square of fabric from old pairs of his pajamas is included in the beginning of each of the 1,500 limited edition copies of the collection,which comes in a plexiglass box,weighs 50 pounds and retails for $1,300. The work chronicles the first 25 years of Playboy,including the most renowned centrefold spreads,Marilyn Monroes nude portrait and,most surprisingly,keepsakes from Hefners childhood. Somewhere within the 3,500 pages,there is an image of Hefner in the 70s,surrounded by friends and then-girlfriend Barbi Benton,who is strumming a guitar. Quite frankly,my early life is fresher in my mind than last Tuesday, he said. Sauntering upstairs,Hefner pointed out the relics of his childhoodpersonally inscribed art from comic book artist Milton Caniff,Boris Karloff characters,Flash Gordon cartoons. There were artifacts everywhere: pictures that had yet to be hung and gifts sent from fans cluttering the corners of the room. On a round couch rested a mountain of stuffed animals gifted by past girlfriends. In another wing of the home,Hefners archivist,Stephen Martinez,works in an attic-like space collating the monthly happenings of his employers life into binders; there are now more than 2,000. The archives are no doubt reminders of how Playboys place in the cultural landscape has shifted since he founded the magazine in 1953. Though parts of the Playboy brand remain popular,including Girls Next Door,the E! reality show featuring Hef and his ladies,the magazines circulation has plummeted. Instead of worrying about the magazines future,Hefner prefers to focus on how the project he started on a dollar and a dream became the single most influential magazine in the 20th century. I reflect on that and spend time thinking about that. I dont sit around thinking about Gee,what happened to the new generation and they dont read enough and why is the Internet replacing books? he said.
