Customer Reviews

Men's Adventure Magazines: In Postwar America

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
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This latest Taschen pop culture book covers the 'armpit slicks' of the American post war years and it will most likely turn out to be the definitive guide to these magazines. The seven chapters more or less cover all the adventure any male would want (or be able to handle) ferocious animals, sex-crazed pirates, restless natives, death on the front line, Nazis passion slaves, red and yellow perils and lastly, just plain ordinary trouble down your street. All of this action is revealed in over a thousand covers, either one (almost life-size) or four to a page and they are all beautifully reproduced.

The introduction reveals the history of the men's adventure mags and it seems that the 1958 Supreme Court decision to weaken the Government's ability to regulate printed obscenity encouraged this rather small corner of the media to expand the market with plenty of new titles, fortunately they only lasted a few years before morphing into 'skin' magazines of the Eighties and Nineties. Yet despite being able to be very explicit with cover art the publications avoided showing the prominent females in any situation that could be considered obscene (shock, horror!) but look through chapter five (A bonfire in hell for the Nazis' passion slaves) and see plenty of illustrations showing helpless, bound females subjected to extreme depravity and torture.

As well as the garish bright illustrations, which I expect basically sold them on the newsstands, the cover lines clinched the sale, a whole bunch of men could not resist buying and reading (really!) for example, New Man's Peril, January 1965, with these lines, Crazy cats who pretend they're chicks, We smashed the nympho virgin ring of the Pasha pimps, The tattoo gang's vicious kidnap torture of the society debs and The bizarre "ugly parties" of London's kink cultists. All for a mere thirty-five cents, too. At the back of the book a short piece about the publishers of these magazines says the quality ranged from the competent to the sub-literate, how very true.

This book examines the same cover material as 'It's a Man's World' by Adam Parfrey (ISBN 09229915814) which came out in 2003, it had a bit more text and a very informative title and artist listing but I prefer the Taschen book because it so visually comprehensive and looks a much better production. Besides the covers there are examples of editorial art used to illustrate the 'true' articles plus a biography of writers and thirty-five artists.

These titles seem to be uniquely American and 'Men's Adventure Magazines' does a beautiful job of covering this extinct format.

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

While I agree with other reviewers that Feral House's "It's A Man's World" is a vastly superior book, This is still a nice collection of images for the purveyor of unique Americana.

I collect these insane artifacts and there just can't possibly be enough books published on the subject. SO BUY 'EM ALL!

The "normal" Pulps have ignored and hidden away their retarded younger brother for too long. It's time to let him out of the cellar. Try to find a book on the history of "The Pulps" that admits these lurid items were the final incarnation of the format! YOU CAN'T! All those authors are ashamed to admit the legacy that fostered The Shadow, Tarzan and Conan ended brutally with the Men's Adventure Magazines. Now the truth is out. YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!

Anyway, buy Feral House's book first, then buy this one too. It makes a decent addendum to the Feral House book. You can never have too much lurid art to amaze your friends with...

This book was a trip down memory lane for me; I got a kick out those lurid men's-magazine covers in my youth, and today I get... well, a surge of nostalgia, if no longer quite the same charge. The volume is beautifully produced, like all Taschen books, though I have to add that I find it no better than a similar compendium of men's-mag art called IT'S A MAN'S WORLD, which came out six months earlier; and IAMW, it should be said, has a more extensive and entertaining text.

Although one of my fellow reveiwers points out some valid criticisms of this book, I'd like to point out that if you are a fan of these types of magazines and you have the Feral House book "It's a Man's World: Men's Adventure Magazines, the Postwar Pulps" you'll still want this book, even though it's not as well written. Yes, this book does feature a lot of the lesser cover artists, but it gives me a real jolt to see some of these covers again after all these years. I did not buy these magazines myself but saw them at my uncle's house and so havn't seen them since they were first new. So the more cover reproductions the better I say. I just wish someone would do a book on these mags that would reproduce more of the interior artwork, which often had more nudity and violence then they could get away with on the cover.

I was a child in the fifties. Every other week, my father and I would make the Saturday trek to the barbershop where I got a cleanup on my flattop.

Barbershops were a male thorugh and through. The testoserone was thick. All conversation was sports, politics and juicy dirty jokes. A true introduction to adulthood for a young impressionable boy.

The best part was the stack of magazines. Men's magazines. Magazines I had never seen before with stories about faraway places and exotic adventure. Not to mention the girlie pictures.

This book brings it all back. Once again I was twelve, turning pages and reading stories that made me look at my father in a whole new way. Wow, was it great to be a man or what?

Man's Adventure focuses on the cover art of these great mags. Pity they didn't spend a few pages on the articles and the advertising.

Thanks Taschen for the mind trip, it was a great time to be a boy.

Appearantly Taschen publishes art books. I wasn't familiar with this particular company before recieving this book as a gift, but I found it to be a great little book of... well pulp men's magazine art from the old days. You know, the type where some adventuring Indiana Jones-esque pulp hero gets lost in some exotic locale, fights savage beasts and makes out with sexy native girls. Culled from the covers of mags with titles like 'Man's Life, 'True Danger,' and 'Wildcat Adventures,' this little book is loaded with page after full colour page of muscle bound explorers, soldiers and cowboys going head to head with man-eating tigers and giant octopi, heroically battling the Nazis and Commies alike, and rescuing sexy, overly well endowed (and scantily clad) Polynesian girls from danger!

What's that you say? Sounds like it might be a little... two dimensional? Sexist? Offensive to today's sensibilities? Oh yeah, you bet... and then some! But that's part of the fun, really. These overly testosterone fueled manly fantasies were part of another era, and a fascinating one to look at at that! Besides... what man (or boy) doesn't like this sort of stuff deep down inside? It's shades of Kipling meets the Magnificent Seven and Dirty Harry mixed with D-Day, crammed with more cheap thrills, bloody violence and hot sweaty sex than you can shake a stick at! And it's all so over the top. I mean, who thinks of titles like "Those Slimy Rodents Are Eating My Flesh," "Terror in the Far East: The Wolf-Women of India," or "Aphrodisiac Scandal of the Sex Mad Intermns and the 63 Passionate Student Nurses"?

Divided up into chapters based around common themes such as wild animal attacks (which include everything from panthers to enraged bull elephants to inexplicably flesh-eating swarms of iguanas and flying squirrels!), World War II, pirate adventures and "the Yellow Peril," each chapter includes a brief article (again based on the chapter's theme) in English, French and German. This is nice not only because it provides some idea of context (for instance, Tahitian and Samoan sexuality became a popular subject due to the popularity of Mead's writings), but also because of the descriptions of the stories... which pretty much match what you'd expect from the covers. Like an Old West full of American Indians kidnapping white women, voluptuous hookers/spies fighting against the Nazis, and man-eating anteaters! Again, pretty un-PC stuff, but thats par for the course. The book also includes an introduction, explaining the background, development and eventual falling out of the manly, hair-on-your-chest pulp adventure magazines.

All in all, it turns out to be quite a fun and entertaining romp through the testosterone fueled, hyper-masculine adventure stories of a bygone era. Sure, it's easy to laugh at them, or get offended at the racial (sexual, political, etc) caricatures that they presented. But really, these should be appreciated for providing us with some insight into the psyches of those who read and created these works. And, as my cousin was quick to point out, these magazines were so great! I mean really, what little boy didn't want to be a cowboy, go on safari to Africa, or fight enemy soldiers on the battlefield? So much nostalgia there really... And who could resist a book that says "Weasels Ripped My Flesh" on the back cover? Come on... that ALONE should be enough to make you want to flip through it.

As a passionate and finicky book collector, I own several Taschen

books, which I treasure. But my big complaint with Taschen books--and

one of a number of disappointments I found with this Men's Magazines

book--is that the supporting text is usually weightless and even

downright dull--Once I finish actually reading the book, I am often

left feeling hollow and unfulfilled.

Also leaving a bad taste in my mouth are the egomaniacal Taschen

embarrassments like the Helmut Newton juggernaut and especially "GOAT."

What about that Koons dolphin/tire contraption?!? It all feels so

nauseatingly 80's Wall Street.

As a longtime collector of Men's magazines, I feel somewhat qualified

to be critical of Taschen's Men's Mag book. First, the big question:

why did Taschen even bother publishing this book in the first place? It

was released a year and a half AFTER Feral House's "It's A Man's World"

(the first book published on the subject and far more comprehensive,

with superior imagery & text) was released to broad acclaim.

The Taschen book reproduces many of the images already published in the

Feral House book, and lacks much of the latter's original art,

particularly those by Mort Kunstler, Norm Eastman and Norman Saunders.

The Taschen book has more images than Feral House's "It's A Man's

World," but they're mostly second-rate selections which feel like

filler. They are organized haphazardly, and many, already seen in the

less expensive but hardcover Feral House book, are inferior

reproductions.

Unsuprisingly, the text in the Taschen edition is nowhere near as

interesting as the Feral House ed, which reveals what happened in the

adventure magazine offices through hilarious and informative articles

by the people who were there--Bruce Jay Friedman, an editor of

adventure magazines, and from the illustrators Mort Kunstler and Norman

Saunders (written by his son, David). Additionally, all collectors and

pop culture researchers are better served by Feral House's edition,

considering its thorough bibliography of magazines, containing info on

the publishers, the writers, illustrators, circulation and years of

issue.

To my mind, the Feral House book is far superior. I like Feral House

books. Their illustrated books are well-designed, with text that

provides exactly what Taschen books lack--a deeper understanding of the

subject, more flavor and SOUL....

What i was looking for, but in a version smaller than what I had wished for. Enjoyed the book never the less. For those of you who grew up in the 40's, 50's and 60's and as boys were fascinated by the covers of so-called men's magazines.

A profusely illustrated review of the men's adventure mag covers, mainly from the '50s. Besides the full-color cover reproductions, there are remembrances of/by Mario Puzo, Mort Kuntzler, Norm Saunders, and others who got their starts working in the pulps. A superior volume and (the usual) superb Taschen reproduction.

This collection of crazy sensationalistic pulpy magazine covers is amazing and almost endless. With the screaming titles (The truth about those sex fears!), blood thirsty buff men and busty women with their clothes ripped to shreds, what's not to like? They are so over-the-top that it becomes a thing of beauty.

There are more covers here than in the more expensive IT'S A MAN WORLD, which is also very good but I'd rather have a thorough collection of magazine covers than a select few. Some covers that are in this book which are not in IT'S A MAN WORLD are worth the price alone:

Page 109 - Eye catching pulp cover!

Page 223 - The one at the bottom left, my favorite cover in the entire collection. It should have been the cover for the book.

Page 239 - Flame thrower. My god!

Page 242 - Jaw dropping cover. A tie with the one on page 223.

Page 281 - Men in combat. Amazing art by Mort Kunstler!

Page 139, the See cover, which is also in IT'S A MAN WORLD, is such a brilliant cover. Needless to say, this book will provide me with endless number of hours of enjoyment. My only complaint is the book cover. Though fun there are much better ones in the book.

For the price and the collection of covers, it's unbeatable.