You two stop fighting. I don't love either of you. I only sleep with you for the body heat.
We have another issue of Adam magazine today, the sixty-sixth example of this Aussie treasure we've uploaded to our website, with a cover illustrating Ken Welsh's tale, “A Friend in Greed.” Welsh has done well in the past, but not this time. In the story, a couple of thieves who are sent by a mastermind to perform risky robberies, only to receive a minimal slice of the take as payment, decide to cheat their boss, but immediately turn on each other. This happens thanks to the liberally shared sexual favors of a femme fatale, as seen in the cover art. In the story she didn't wear a tiger-striped minidress, but we appreciate the artistic license. Unfortunately, “A Friend in Greed” is short on tension and scant on effort, hardly worth the illustration. We can't believe this is the same Welsh who wrote the excellent “Dirge for Darling.”
The highlight of the issue turned out to be Jules Archer's, “The Wildest Gun in the West.” It's supposed to be a factual story, and tells how two cowboys with a grudge to settle worked together to dig a grave seven feet deep, four feet wide, and eight feet long, then dropped into the hole to have a close-quarters knife fight to the death. The idea was that neither would have to bother burying the other after the fight. Just push some dirt in and leave. Easier said than done, since both are wounded before the matter is settled, but indeed one cowboy is left behind while the other rides back to town, pretty much naked because he had to use his clothes as bandages. Did it really happen? Well the word “fact” is used loosely in these men's adventure magazines, but we guess anything is possible when it comes to the old west. Thirty-plus scans below.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1939—Batman Debuts
In Detective Comics #27, DC Comics publishes its second major superhero, Batman, who becomes one of the most popular comic book characters of all time, and then a popular camp television series starring Adam West, and lastly a multi-million dollar movie franchise starring Michael Keaton, then George Clooney, and finally Christian Bale. 1953—Crick and Watson Publish DNA Results
British scientists James D Watson and Francis Crick publish an article detailing their discovery of the existence and structure of deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, in Nature magazine. Their findings answer one of the oldest and most fundamental questions of biology, that of how living things reproduce themselves. 1967—First Space Program Casualty Occurs
Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov dies in Soyuz 1 when, during re-entry into Earth's atmosphere after more than ten successful orbits, the capsule's main parachute fails to deploy properly, and the backup chute becomes entangled in the first. The capsule's descent is slowed, but it still hits the ground at about 90 mph, at which point it bursts into flames. Komarov is the first human to die during a space mission. 1986—Otto Preminger Dies
Austro–Hungarian film director Otto Preminger, who directed such eternal classics as Laura, Anatomy of a Murder, Carmen Jones, The Man with the Golden Arm, and Stalag 17, and for his efforts earned a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, dies in New York City, aged 80, from cancer and Alzheimer's disease. 1998—James Earl Ray Dies
The convicted assassin of American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., petty criminal James Earl Ray, dies in prison of hepatitis aged 70, protesting his innocence as he had for decades. Members of the King family who supported Ray's fight to clear his name believed the U.S. Government had been involved in Dr. King's killing, but with Ray's death such questions became moot.
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