It's a Man's World: Men's Adventure Magazines - The Postwar Pulps [Hardcover]

Who would expect to see such a lavish all-color book about this down-market corner of American publishing, not me but I'm interested in visual popular culture and `It's a Man's World' is really quite a fascinating study of these `slicks', produced from 1950 to 1970. They were edited by a small group of men who put out over six thousand issues of about a hundred and thirty titles. The leading publishers, Magazine Management went bust in 1975 and this particular male market slid predictably into soft porn.

The book rightly concentrates on the garish, dazzling covers, fortunately they all retain the logos and unbelievable cover lines and there are hundreds to pore over. Each cover (many shown life size) has a caption with the publishing date and where known, the artist's name. Leading illustrators like Mort Kunstler, Norm Eastman and Norman Saunders have a magnificent showing through all the pages. These covers were the USP of this particular market, a few of the magazines inside pages are shown and it seems clear to me that most of the editorial budgets were spent on the cover art. No matter what the title, it would sell better if some female, who always seemed unable to do up all the buttons on her blouse, was in a distressing situation just about to be rescued by a nearby white hunk.

One chapter, The Sadistic Burlesque, covers the titles that are most sought after today. The paintings show sadistic extremes, mostly by Nazis or Commies, yet they were displayed on newsstands across the nation to be bought by any male. Perhaps for obvious reasons many of these covers have no artist credit. The cover lines are equally suggestive, the February 1963 issue of `Men Today' promised `Brides of agony in the cave of horror', `Soft maidens for the monster devil fish' and `Love captive of Castro's execution squad harlots'. Needless to say all the `true' articles in these magazines were made up.

I found `It's a Man's World' covered the post war pulps in detail and certainly worth getting if you are curious about popular art and culture but also have a look at Men's Adventure Magazines this is a super chunky book with over a thousand covers in color and because of this I think it is much better than 'It's a Man's World'. Now that these titles are (fortunately) gone men can read about themselves in The Von Hoffmann Bros.' Big Damn Book of Sheer Manliness and I doubt that the male authors of this book would be seen dead reading the `armpit slicks', they would be too busy being real men.

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

I've collected old magazines all of my life. I first saw issues of the Post-War Men's magazines depicted in this book when I was a kid in the early sixties. The covers struck me as the ne plus ultra of lurid adventure illustration. Classic paperback and pulp covers were often outrageous, but the Men's mags trumped them by being so far over-the-top as to be impervious to parody. Every mockery of macho adventure literature you've ever seen falls far short of the extremes routinely depicted on these covers.
Today the magazines are insanely hard to find, and often disappointing when finally located. The stories within the wild covers are generally puffed-up true-life stories with little to interest the modern reader. The only real reason to get them is their blindingly vivid covers.
And now you can get hundreds of them, lovingly reproduced in this book. I'm stunned to find the post-war Men's mags, surely the lowest ghetto of over-the-counter magazines, given such a thorough and glossy examination. Images are grouped by topic, often creating an effect of mingled humor and astonishment, as when a two-page spread shows a collection of different covers, each depicting a shirtless, battered he-man being attacked by a different species of vermin. Leeches, bats, rats, lizards, lobsters (!), and finally a full page shot of a wide-eyed, unshaven face covered with ants the size of Twinkies. And the images are arresting not only in their lurid extremes, but in how shockingly well-rendered most of them are.
There is nothing else like the Men's mags of the post-war era. And there is no other book like this one. This is a remarkable document of American publishing's most outrageous period. I never thought I'd see anything like it.

Continuing with the exploration of culture, this is another jewel in the Feral House crown. There are only a few interviews, and they are rather outdated. Nonetheless, if you're a collector, this should be an invaluable reference. Lots and lots of reproductions of covers and some interior illustrations. Also, there is a small guide/checklist at the end to get you started.