Men's adventure

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The March 1963 cover of For Men Only promised, among other things, "Swastika Slave Girls in Argentina's No-Escape Brothel Camp!" Mensadventure.jpg
The March 1963 cover of For Men Only promised, among other things, "Swastika Slave Girls in Argentina's No-Escape Brothel Camp!"

Men's adventure is a genre of magazine that was published in the United States from the 1940s until the early 1970s. Catering to a male audience, these magazines featured pin-up girls and lurid tales of adventure that typically were promoted as true stories narrated in first-person by the participants or in an 'as told to' style. Usual stories included wartime feats of daring, exotic travel or conflict with wild animals. [1] These magazines were also colloquially called "armpit slicks", "men's sweat magazines" or "the sweats", especially by people in the magazine publishing or distribution trades.

Contents

Overview

Fawcett Publications was having some success with their slick magazine True whose stories developed more of a war focus after the U.S. entered World War II in 1941. Pulp magazine Argosy opted to switch to slick paper in 1943, and mix in more 'true' stories amidst the fiction. The other major pulps Adventure , Blue Book and Short Stories eventually followed suit. Soon new magazines joined in - Fawcett's Cavalier , Stag and Swank . During their peak in the late 1950s, approximately 130 men's adventure magazines were being published simultaneously.

The interior tales usually claimed to be true stories. [2] Women in distress were commonly featured in the painted covers or interior art, often being menaced or tortured by Nazis [3] or, in later years, Communists. Typical titles which relied on especially lurid and salacious cover illustrations include Man's Story, Men Today, World of Men, and Man's Epic.

Many of the stories were actual historical accounts of battles and the biographies and exploits of highly decorated soldiers. Several of the stories were combined and issued under various titles in paperback editions by Pyramid Books with the credit "edited by Phil Hirsch". Phil Hirsch was vice president of Pyramid Books from 1955 to 1975. [4]

In the 1970s, many of the men's adventure magazines dropped the fiction and "true action" stories, and started focusing on pictorials of nude women and non-fiction articles related to sex or current events.

Contributors

"The Soul Scorcher's Lair" by Norman Saunders from Eerie Stories number 1, August 1937. EerieStoriesVol1No1.jpg
"The Soul Scorcher's Lair" by Norman Saunders from Eerie Stories number 1, August 1937.

Artist Norman Saunders was the dean of illustrators for these magazines, occupying a position similar to that enjoyed by Margaret Brundage for the classic pulps. Charles Copeland [5] and Earl Norem were two other popular artists who worked for the Magazine Management stable of magazines. Many illustrations that were uncredited were done by Bruce Minney, [6] Norm Eastman, Gil Cohen, Mel Crair, Basil Gogos, and Vic Prezio among others. [7] James Bama contributed over 400 cover and interior illustrations for an approximate eight-year period circa 1957–1964 before turning to paperback cover illustration as his mainstay. Historical artist Mort Künstler painted many covers and illustrations for these magazines, and Playboy photographer Mario Casilli started out shooting pinups for this market.

At publisher Martin Goodman's Magazine Management Company, future best-selling humorist and author Bruce Jay Friedman was a men's sweat writer-editor, and Mario Puzo was a contributor before he became a well-known novelist. Pierre Boulle, Ray Bradbury, Erskine Caldwell, Ian Fleming, Robert F. Dorr and Mickey Spillane also contributed short stories or novel excerpts to men's adventure magazines. [8] Lawrence Block wrote prolifically for magazines of this type; some of his stories from this era were collected in The Naked and the Deadly (2023). [9]

Legacy

Paperback novels became increasingly popular in the 1950s and 1960s, and series' such as Don Pendleton's The Executioner mined a similar vein of war story, and continued on long after the magazines themselves shifted away from such fare. [10]

The title of the Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention album Weasels Ripped My Flesh was borrowed from a man-against-beast cover story in the September 1956 issue of Man's Life, [11] and the title went through another permutation when filmmaker Nathan Schiff made the horror feature Weasels Rip My Flesh (1979).

There have been attempts to revive the Argosy title, once in the 1990s, again in 2004, and finally in 2013. Soldier of Fortune carried on the tradition of war stories for a male audience. [12] A few contemporary "lad mag" periodicals such as FHM and Maxim are somewhat similar to the earlier adventure magazines, featuring a combination of glamour photography and occasional true adventure or survival stories. Publishers such as Hard Case Crime put out new and reprint paperback novels in the hard-boiled pulp tradition. Online book vendor Amazon.com uses the genre label "men's adventure" in a general sense to categorize adventure novels where the hero is an adult man to distinguish these books from "women's adventure" and "children's action & adventure."

Related Research Articles

Pulp magazines were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 until around 1955. The term "pulp" derives from the wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed, due to their cheap nature. In contrast, magazines printed on higher-quality paper were called "glossies" or "slicks". The typical pulp magazine had 128 pages; it was 7 inches (18 cm) wide by 10 inches (25 cm) high, and 0.5 inches (1.3 cm) thick, with ragged, untrimmed edges. Pulps were the successors to the penny dreadfuls, dime novels, and short-fiction magazines of the 19th century.

<i>Argosy</i> (magazine) American magazine

Argosy was an American magazine, founded in 1882 as The Golden Argosy, a children's weekly, edited by Frank Munsey and published by E. G. Rideout. Munsey took over as publisher when Rideout went bankrupt in 1883, and after many struggles made the magazine profitable. He shortened the title to The Argosy in 1888 and targeted an audience of men and boys with adventure stories. In 1894 he switched it to a monthly schedule and in 1896 he eliminated all non-fiction and started using cheap pulp paper, making it the first pulp magazine. Circulation had reached half a million by 1907, and remained strong until the 1930s. The name was changed to Argosy All-Story Weekly in 1920 after the magazine merged with All-Story Weekly, another Munsey pulp, and from 1929 it became just Argosy.

<i>Weasels Ripped My Flesh</i> 1970 studio album with live elements by The Mothers of Invention

Weasels Ripped My Flesh is the eighth album by the American rock group the Mothers of Invention, and the tenth overall by Frank Zappa, released in 1970. Following the Mothers' late 1969 split, Zappa assembled two albums - Burnt Weeny Sandwich and Weasels Ripped My Flesh - from unreleased studio and live recordings by the band, as well as some outtakes/leftovers from his 1969 solo album Hot Rats. While Burnt Weeny Sandwich focuses mostly on studio recordings and tightly arranged compositions, Weasels Ripped My Flesh focuses mostly on live recordings and loose/improvisational pieces.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lesbian pulp fiction</span> Genre of fiction

Lesbian pulp fiction is a genre of lesbian literature that refers to any mid-20th century paperback novel or pulp magazine with overtly lesbian themes and content. Lesbian pulp fiction was published in the 1950s and 1960s by many of the same paperback publishing houses as other genres of fiction, including westerns, romances, and detective fiction. Because very little other literature was available for and about lesbians at this time, quite often these books were the only reference the public had for modeling what lesbians were. English professor Stephanie Foote commented on the importance of lesbian pulp novels to the lesbian identity prior to the rise of organized feminism: "Pulps have been understood as signs of a secret history of readers, and they have been valued because they have been read. The more they are read, the more they are valued, and the more they are read, the closer the relationship between the very act of circulation and reading and the construction of a lesbian community becomes…. Characters use the reading of novels as a way to understand that they are not alone." Joan Nestle refers to lesbian pulp fiction as “survival literature.” Lesbian pulp fiction provided representation for lesbian identities, brought a surge of awareness to lesbians, and created space for lesbian organizing leading up to Stonewall.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steve Holland (actor)</span> American actor

Steve Holland was an American actor and male paperback, magazine, and fashion model.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Earle K. Bergey</span> American illustrator

Earle K. Bergey was an American artist and illustrator who painted cover art for thousands of pulp fiction magazines and paperback books. One of the most prolific pulp fiction artists of the 20th century, Bergey is recognized for creating, at the height of his career in 1948, the iconic cover of Anita Loos's Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1925) for Popular Library.

Popular Publications was one of the largest publishers of pulp magazines during its existence, at one point publishing 42 different titles per month. Company titles included detective, adventure, romance, and Western fiction. They were also known for the several 'weird menace' titles. They also published several pulp hero or character pulps.

Jove Books, formerly known as Pyramid Books, is an American paperback and eBook publishing imprint, founded as an independent paperback house in 1949 by Almat Magazine Publishers. The company was sold to the Walter Reade Organization in the late 1960s. It was acquired in 1974 by Harcourt Brace which renamed it to Jove in 1977 and continued the line as an imprint. In 1979, they sold it to The Putnam Berkley Group, which is now part of the Penguin Group.

Lancer Books was a publisher of paperback books founded by Irwin Stein and Walter Zacharius that operated from 1961 through 1973. While it published stories of a number of genres, it was noted most for its science fiction and fantasy, particularly its series of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian tales, the first publication of many in paperback format. It published the controversial novel Candy by Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg, and Ted Mark's ribald series The Man from O.R.G.Y. Lancer paperbacks had a distinctive appearance, many bearing mauve or green page edging.

<i>Blue Book</i> (magazine) Former American magazine

Blue Book was a popular 20th-century American magazine with a lengthy 70-year run under various titles from 1905 to 1975. It was a sibling magazine to The Red Book Magazine and The Green Book Magazine.

Edward Mortelmans (1915–2008) was an English artist and illustrator. His primary modes of expression were watercolor and black and white line drawings. He is best known for illustrating some books by Gerald Durrell, and covers for books by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert F. Dorr</span>

Robert F. Dorr was an American author and retired senior diplomat who wrote and published over 70 books, hundreds of short stories, and numerous contemporary non-fiction articles on international affairs, military issues, and the Vietnam War. He headed the weekly "Back Talk" opinion column for the Military Times newspaper and the monthly "Washington Watch" feature of Aerospace America. He was also the technical editor of Air Power History, the journal of the Air Force Historical Foundation, and was Washington correspondent for the discontinued World Air Power Journal.

Henry James O'Brien Bedford-Jones was a Canadian-American historical, adventure fantasy, science fiction, crime and Western writer who became a naturalized United States citizen in 1908.

<i>Munseys Magazine</i> American magazine (1889–1929)

Munsey's Magazine was an American magazine founded by Frank Munsey in 1889 as Munsey's Weekly, a humor magazine edited by John Kendrick Bangs. It was unsuccessful, and by late 1891 had lost $100,000. Munsey converted it into an illustrated general monthly in October of that year, retitled Munsey's Magazine and priced at twenty-five cents. Richard Titherington became the editor, and remained in that role throughout the magazine's existence. In 1893 Munsey cut the price to ten cents. This brought him into conflict with the American News Company, which had a near-monopoly on magazine distribution, as they were unwilling to handle the magazine at the price Munsey proposed. Munsey started his own distribution company and was quickly successful: the first ten cent issue began with a print run of 20,000 copies but eventually sold 60,000, and within a year circulation had risen to over a quarter of a million copies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Walter M. Baumhofer</span> American illustrator

Walter Martin Baumhofer was an American illustrator notable for his cover paintings seen on the pulp magazines of Street & Smith and other publishers.

Bruce Minney was an American artist who worked in a variety of media. He was a commercial illustrator for over 40 years producing paintings for men’s adventure magazines, paperbacks, and storyboards. Later he moved to ceramics and won numerous awards for his efforts. His most recent work included collages and paintings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John McDermott (American artist)</span> American illustrator and writer

John McDermott, also known under the pen names J.M. Ryan and Mariner, was an American illustrator and author noted for action and adventure illustrations. McDermott worked as an in-between and effects animator for Walt Disney Studios and as a US Marine combat artist, before establishing himself as a cover illustrator for 1950s paperbacks and pulp magazines such as Argosy, American Weekly, and Outdoor Life. Under his J.M. Ryan pen name, he wrote the novels The Rat Factory (1971), a derogatory satire of Walt Disney and the Disney studio; Brooks Wilson Ltd (1967), on which the 1970 film Loving was based; and Mother's Day (1969) about Ma Barker. Under his own name, he novelized director-writer Bo Widerberg's screenplay for the 1971 film Joe Hill, which would be his final published book.

Rudolph Belarski was an American graphic artist known for his cover art depicting aerial combat for magazines such as Wings, Dare Devil Aces, and War Birds. He also drew science fiction covers for Argosy in the 1930s and covers for mystery and detective novels.

Lawrence Sterne Stevens was an American pulp fantasy and science fiction illustrator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emmett Watson (illustrator)</span> American artist and illustrator

Emmett St. Clair Watson, Jr. was an American illustrator whose works appeared in popular magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post, Judge, Collier's, and Life, and also in pulp magazines such as Argosy, Railroad Stories, and Detective Fiction Weekly.

References

  1. Strausbaugh, John (December 9, 2004). "Oh, Those Pulpy Days of 'Weasels Ripped My Flesh'". The New York Times. Retrieved December 7, 2011.
  2. Osgerby, Bill (2001), Playboys in paradise: masculinity, youth and leisure-style in modern America, Berg, p. 76, ISBN   978-1-85973-453-7
  3. Abrams, Nathan; Hughes, Julie (2000), Containing America: cultural production and consumption in Fifties America, Continuum International Publishing Group, p. 135, ISBN   978-1-902459-06-6
  4. "Happy 80th, Phil Hirsch! (War anthologies & joke books)". Archived from the original on 2012-02-14. Retrieved 2008-11-03.
  5. "Lynn Munroe Books".
  6. "Men's "sweat magazine" cover paintings from the Oberg Collection – Part 3: Originals by Bruce Minney, Walter Popp and Vic Prezio". 7 May 2011.
  7. Parfrey, Adam, et al. It's a Man's World: Men's Adventure Magazines, the Postwar Pulps (Feral House, 2003) ISBN   0-922915-81-4
  8. "The FictionMags Index".
  9. The Naked and the Deadly: Lawrence Block in Men's Adventure Magazines, May 23, 2023, ISBN 9781943444632
  10. Don D'Ammassa. 2009. The Encyclopedia of Adventure Fiction.
  11. Freund, Charles Paul (November 1, 2003). "Weasels ripped our flesh: the forgotten world of men's adventure magazines". Reason. Retrieved December 7, 2011.
  12. Peterson, Ivar (September 23, 1985). "Mercenary Magazine Widens Appeal". The New York Times. Retrieved December 7, 2011.

Further reading