The Little Book of Tom. Cops & Robbers

Hardcover,
14 x 19.5 cm,
0.41 kg,
192 pages

Criminal justice never looked so good as in this pocket-sized collection of Tom of Finland’s favorite tightly uniformed cops and suitably butch criminals. Multi-panel comics and single-panel drawings and paintings are contextualized with sketches, reference images, and personal photos of Tom.

The uniforms of the California Highway Patrol motorcyclists were his favorite: tan and tight, with high boots and soft black leather gauntlet gloves. He created his own uniform variants as well, a cross between military and civilian police gear, and invented suitably butch criminals for his cops to apprehend, though once apprehended the power struggle could go either way. Tom was determined to show top and bottom as equally masculine roles, and his cops were as likely to end up happily speared by criminal cock as delivering corrective coitus. Though criticized by some for what appeared to be a glorification of power, Tom was always quick to remind that the world he created was a fantasy world, where anything was possible, and everything was consensual—even in prison.