Back in 1977, Los Angeles artist Jeffrey Kerns created The First X-Rated Coloring Book. Well before adult coloring books became a national fad, Kerns took porno chic in an entirely new and sophisticated direction. An admitted pothead, Jeff joked that part of the inspiration for the project came “from some good LSD.” Conceptual art was popular, and Jeff came up with idea of a pop art object, a la Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s soup can. Putting on his Aubrey Beardsley artist cap, Jeff turned out 23 black-and-white line drawings — exquisite appropriations of historically important erotic art from around the world from Greek pottery to Egyptian friezes and Japanese wood block prints to even the American invention of pop

art. Adding a phallic frankness that would have made Oscar Wilde blush, the first edition, utilizing offset lithography, launched with a limited edition of 5,000 copies.

The road to success was not without a few bumps and grinds. The Binney & Smith Company, which owned the Crayola Crayons brand, sent Jeff a cease-and-desist letter, objecting to the book’s cover design which parodied their box of crayons. The U.S. Post Office refused to allow Jeff to sell the book by mail. And after a woman in Michigan objected, Waldenbooks returned all of their copies of The First X-Rated Coloring Book from their chain of stores.

But the book still attracted lots of appreciative attention. The Brentano’s bookstore in Beverly Hills featured a pyramid of the books in its window. Museum book stores around the country also featured the book, which Jeff hoped could serve as an educational tool, using the innocent form of a coloring book for parents to introduce their children to various art

traditions. But because the book was initially banned by the Post Office and dropped by Waldenbooks, Jeff turned to notorious Hustler publisher Larry Flynt for help with distribution. Flynt was delighted to buy 1500 copies himself.

And so Jeff embarked on a second edition of the book, which introduced several changes: Jeff added a green stripe to the book’s cover to distinguish it from the Crayola box. And since the Post Office said Jeff could not mail it at book rates because it didn’t have text, he added a delightful fictional story about his beginnings as an artist to the blank pages behind each image. (In the first edition, the back pages were intentionally left blank so that the images were suitable for framing.) The second edition also became famous among the Hollywood celebrity set, earning enthusiastic quotes from Los Angeles Times columnist Joyce Haber and Truman Capote.

Meanwhile, Jeff’s own life took a new direction. After getting sober, he embarked on a new career as a creative director, creating such iconic movie posters as those for Titanic, The Doors, Runaway Bride, The Sum of All Fears and The Brave One. Nearly fifty years later, adult coloring books have become widely popular. A friend of Jeff’s, browsing Amazon and

eBay, discovered that The First X-Rated Coloring Book had become a collector’s item, selling for as much as $800 a copy. And after quitting the Hollywood grind to retire to Palm Springs, Jeff found he still possessed a few boxes of pristine books from both editions. And so he has decided to offer The First X-Rated Coloring Book as an unique limited edition, signed and numbered by the artist himself.

And now you can enjoy your own of The First X-Rated Coloring Book. So get out your Pentel pens, rainbow Sharpies and colored pencils — and maybe even a joint. And travel back, in Rocky and Bullwinkle’s Wayback Machine, to the era of Gucci toilet paper and the infamous Pet Rock.