Red and black tattoo of the cartoon character Betty Boop in a red dress, surrounded by kiss marks and stars, on a lower leg.

Betty Boop with kiss marks and stars on a calf

Traditional · Calf · Colour · Photo

The tattoo shows the cartoon character Betty Boop standing in a billowing red dress, with her hands clasped and her knees slightly bent. Red kiss marks, red stars and the words BETTY BOOP surround her on a pale background of skin. Bold black outlines define the figure and hair, while the dress, lips and stars are filled with solid red ink, and the photograph is taken straight on.

Traditional Calf Cartoon character Lip Star Lettering

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ivy,

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You will not believe what Mr Hollis made us do on Tuesday. The inking room was sent home at four because rain had got through the roof again, so we carried the cels up to the market arcade where the light is good enough to check the lines. Dripping awnings, a man selling paraffin from a barrow, and me holding a sheet of celluloid over a wet cardboard box while the girl from the next bench held the umbrella.

The cel was the one with the dress, you know the one, where she lifts her skirt and bends at the knee as if the wind has caught her unawares. Sid painted the red in three coats so it would not look flat on the screen. Each time a coat went on he sucked his teeth and said the red was too much like a pillar box, and each time I told him that was the point. Red is the only colour that comes off the screen like a shout.

Then the rain stopped and the stallholders came out to shake their sheets. A little boy in a sailor suit pressed his nose to the cel and asked if she was real. I said she was the most real thing we had all week. He asked whether she would kiss him. I said she kissed everyone and nobody, and he went off happy with sticky hands in his pockets.

I have left the cel with the woman who sells hot chestnuts, since she has the only dry corner in the arcade. She says the ink will hold. Write soon, and tell Mum the red stays on even in the wet.