Customer Reviews

History of Men's Magazines Volume 5

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The cover photo and the list of magazines that the author has been involved with should provide a good indication of what to expect in this fascinating book, in other words, not beautiful scantily clad female fashion models photographed by skillful photographers as appeared in Playboy and Penthouse (which are notably absent from this compilation), but the world of specialist - read unsophistated, tacky and bizarre - softcore porn as it was in the 1970s. Well, some photos are typical of Playboy and Penthouse, but the majority are ones they would not have considered. Of the 1,000 + illustrations most are of covers but there are plenty of internal ones also, including cartoons and graphics. Personally I find only a minority of them appealing or a turn-on but as an historical survey this is pretty good and several countries are represented.

Don't be mislead by the advertized cover photo. You won't find it in this book. There are a few poorly reproduced photos of Roberta Pedon, but not worth the purchase price of this book. The small amount of info on this model is inaccurate and almost seems ficticious. If your not buying the book for the cover model, the book covers a large variety of men's magazine with a very small percent of the Big Bust genre. I hope this helps.

I really wish I could recommend this book for anyone interested in the popular culture of the 1970s, but I can't. Hanson provides us with scores of photos of models from the era, but virtually no substance. What little text there is is grossly padded by having parallell columns in English, German, and French.

Hanson promises "in-depth" articles about five top models; instead we are presented three-paragraph puff pieces, at least two of which are in fact patently false.

I gave this book a three-star rating. I overrated it.

While the photos in this book are quaint, the info is very short of facts or wit. But then, who buys a book with a cover like this one for the articles? Really now...

The photo most shown here is not the photo on the cover. Don't let that stop you from buying this book. This volume tracks the explosion of men's magazines in the 70s and the crossing of boundaries in film making and magazine publishing. Movie review magazines, Hustler, cartoons, Playboy's attempt at European sophistication. Softcore to marriage manuals to hardcore. Ruben Sturman, Larry Flynt, John Holmes, Seka and Roberta Pedon.