| Vintage Pulp | Aug 17 2021 |
Every day and overtime on Sundays.
Above: an Australian promo poster for The Flesh Is Weak, the 1957 John Derek/Milly Vitale vehicle we discussed earlier this month. Shorter version: Derek tricks Vitale into hauling her flesh out to the street to work at the oldest profession. There's no Australian release date for it, but it probably didn't play Down Under until 1958. Read more and see the amazing French promo here.
| Vintage Pulp | Jun 29 2021 |
Unless they're framed and sent to prison for life. In that case a few tears are understandable.
Above is a rare and vibrant Australian full bleed (i.e. borderless) promo poster from RKO Radio Pictures A/SIA for Dick Powell's classic film noir Cry Danger, released Down Under today in 1951. We wrote about this flick back in February, so if you're curious just have a look at this link.
AustraliaRKO Radio PicturesCry DangerDick PowellRhonda FlemingWilliam ErdmanWilliam Conradposter artcinemafilm noir
| Vintage Pulp | Jun 25 2021 |
I can feel you getting tense, baby. Just loosen up. This'll be great, I promise.
Sometimes the thing you're searching for finds you, especially in mid-century fiction. There were several covers produced for Day Keene's thriller Hunt the Killer, but the three used by Phantom Books were basically identical, and you see them above. The first came in 1951, the second in 1952, and the Phantom Classics edition in 1958. You see how the art was leached of its vividness with each subsequent release. It changes form too. The gaffing hook disappeared on the last cover. Did that happen because it was too violent, or too phallic, or both? We've yet to find a satisfactory explanation for why art changed this way for a company publishing the same book multiple times. Clearly they couldn't have lost rights to the original art, or else how could they have legally copied it? But if they had the rights, why use these progressively simpler versions? In this case we suspect Phantom wanted the cover to change with each edition to give it the sense of being a new product, but that's just a guess. The truth remains a mystery for now. In any case, interesting covers for Mr. Keene.
| Vintage Pulp | May 30 2021 |
Please not his face! I like to sit on that!
The Pulp Intl. girlfriends thought our little subhead was vulgar, but that happens sometimes, because they have far more class than us. Sometimes they ask us why so many of our quips and puns are sexual. We're like, “Have you looked at the covers?” The sexual subtext is nearly always there. We just run with it. Anyway, here we have another issue of Adam magazine, this one published in May 1962, and we've lost count, is it the seventieth we've uploaded? *runs downstairs to consult researchers chained in windowless basement room* Yep, that's right. Seventy. We have probably thirty more unposted, and about a dozen we bought from Australia that may or may not arrive if the person who accidentally ended up with them really relinquishes them. Long story.
What's a short story is “Blood of a Gladiator,” which the above art by Phil Belbin was painted to illustrate. The tale is by Damon Mills and deals with a down-and-out ex-boxer who gets involved in a scheme to manage a hot new fighter and get him a title shot by any means necessary. Naturally there's a femme fatale. There always is. She's the sister of another fighter, and she complicates matters greatly, as femmes fatales always do. “Blood of a Gladiator” isn't the only boxing inside Adam, as the editors also offer readers a detailed story on American welterweight Freddie Dawson, aka the Dark Destroyer, who's remembered in Australia for decimating the ranks of local fighters while touring Down Under between 1950 and 1954. You also get a story on crocs (there's always a story on crocs), some unknown models, and plenty of cartoons. We have twenty-five scans below.
| Vintage Pulp | May 26 2021 |
Just slow down. Where I come from it's called polygamy and people say it's bad. I see now they're wrong, but I still need a minute.
We love Adam magazine's South Seas stories. Even the ones that aren't particularly good have the bonus of being exotic to gringos like us. Geoffrey Allen's tale “M'Kutu Island” is a good example. You see an illustration for it on the cover of this May 1978 issue. It deals with a boat journey in the Pacific, a storm, a shipwreck, and a stranding on a tropical isle occupied by Amazonian type beauties. The women on M'Kutu Island have male slaves and use them for mating, but the men are wasting away because the women have enormous sexual appetites. The sailors don't realize that at first, and are like giggling schoolboys when they realize they're going to get all the strange they could ever desire, but when they can't meet the constant sexual demands they get to repairing their boat fast so they can get the hell off the island. Do they make it? Does it matter? Only the fantasy was important to readers, we suspect. Elsewhere in the magazine you get a table-of-contents shot of beloved British glamour model Stephanie Marrian, and a multi-page feature of equally popular British model Jane Warner. Seems as if Adam's Aussie publishers had a hotline direct to the motherland's top nudie photographers. We can think of worse people to have on the other end of the phone. We have thirty-plus scans below.
| Vintage Pulp | May 18 2021 |
What is it with men? Why can't I find one who likes cats?
Like clockwork we return to master illustrator Robert McGinnis, as any paperback art site must. Here you see a cover for The Hellcat by Australian author Carter Brown, aka Alan Yates, for Signet Books, 1962. We showed you a Dutch cover for this years ago, which you can see here.
| Vintage Pulp | Apr 17 2021 |
I really hope they keep this up. It's only when men are busy fighting over me that they leave me alone.
Above is another issue Adam magazine, published April 1970, with the type of cover art that is a trademark of the brand. It's pretty hard to keep thinking of quips for these when every cover features two or three men fighting and a femme fatale standing apart from the action. Somehow we've managed to do it sixty-eight times. Inside you get a signed illustration from Jack Waugh, numerous stories and models, and, just above, a slight variation on the time-honored desert island cartoon, a tradition we commemorated in exhaustive detail last year. Check here for fifty more examples.
| Vintage Pulp | Mar 31 2021 |
But Dad, you said we were here to show them what the outside world has to offer!
Today's issue of Adam magazine, the sixty-seventh we've shared, was published this month in 1977, and has an interesting cover illustrating J.W. Anderson's adventure tale, “The Valley of Kaha.” Adam has a unique style of covers, nearly all painted by either Phil Belbin or Jack Waugh, but this example is unusually nice, we think, with its monochrome background meant to capture the look of jungle mists. Those mists are supposed to be in New Guinea, and in Anderson's story a rich, cruel, and aging industrialist catches wind of a legend that makes him think he can find the fountain of youth. Does he find it? We have no worries telling you, since the story is so obscure. He does indeed, and it turns him into a baby. We love a short story that has a punchline. Actually, he goes even further than infancy. Eventually he plain disappears—pop! The story isn't well written, but it amused the hell out of us. Also amusing, on the final pages of the issue are topless archers. You'll probably assume the text explaining why they're topless was omitted by us, but you'll be wrong. Adam offered no explanation. And really, who needs one? Scans below.
AustraliaNew GuineaAdam MagazinePhil BelbinJack WaughWalter StackpoolJ.W. Andersonmagazine artliterature
| Vintage Pulp | Feb 23 2021 |
Horwitz Publications puts a Hollywood starlet to bed.
Above is a cover from Australian imprint Horwitz Publications for Marc Brody's thriller Lay Out My Lady, published in 1956. We've long featured Horwitz covers because they used photo-illustrations of famous or soon-to-be-famous actresses. This time the company chose U.S. actress and beneficiary of lucky genes Joi Lansing, clad in the sort of extravagant bedtime wear that was popular during the era, and whose time-defying beauty we've marveled over here and here. And here too. The face in the background is also an altered photo, though not of Lansing. We can't identify her. If you have any ideas feel free to inform us.
Moving on to Marc Brody, he was both the author and star of these yarns, and claimed to be an intrepid crime reporter. That would be fascinating if it were true, but it wasn't. He was actually author William H. Williams, aka Bill Williams, and he wrote novels while sitting in a shed in his garden, which is about as far from the mean streets as anyone can get. But you have to give him credit—he churned out something like eighty of these books. We'll be revisiting him later. In the meantime you can see a bit more from him—including photo-illustrations of another beautiful actress—at this link.
AustraliaHorwitz PublicationsMarc BrodyWilliam H. WilliamsBill WilliamsJoi Lansingcover artliterature
| Vintage Pulp | Dec 23 2020 |
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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