| Vintage Pulp | Feb 18 2020 |
The key to a successful assassination? Time management.
Just that quickly we have another Adam for you today. This issue is from this month in 1978, with a cover illustrating Norman G. Bailey's story, “The Assassination.” We're still trying to make sense of this take on the classic international hitman motif. If we understood it correctly, a highly skilled killer is hired for a hellishly difficult hit on a head of state in the fictional country of Damahomey. He travels by plane, boat, and train, cases the job, beds the femme fatale, pulls off the job, and returns home carrying a valise bulging with Damahomeen currency. But once back in the U.S., he finds he can't exchange this money for dollars because it went out of usage in 1930. Well, that's weird, considering everyone was using it in Damahomey. He subsequently finds that the man he assassinated was killed in 1930. So, seemingly, unbeknownst to him—or the reader—he traveled back in time and shot a guy. All without a machine or any bells and lights of any sort. We went through the tale again to see if we missed the part where he pushed a big red button marked, “Press Here To Travel Back in Time,” but nope, wasn't there. So the assassin was hired by time travelers, and somehow also time traveled through no agency of his own. Fine, we guess. Give Bailey credit for thinking outside the box. We have thirty-plus scans below, including rarities of Sharon Tate and members of the Manson Family, accompanied by Adam's take on the infamous Tate-LaBianca murders.
AustraliaAdam MagazineSharon TateCharles MansonAbigail FolgerLynette FrommeSqueaky FrommeSusan AtkinsPatricia KrenwinkelLeslie van HoutenDouglas MacArthurNorman G. Baileymagazine artliterature
| Vintage Pulp | Feb 17 2020 |
He promised her a smashing time on safari but this was nothing like she had in mind.
Adam magazine's covers are nearly always the same—two to four people and a pivotal action moment. This front from February 1970 is a typical example. It shows an unfortunate hunter learning that elephants sometimes won't simply stand still and let you shoot them through the heart so you can turn their tusks into paperweights. The nerve, really. The painting is great. It's by Jack Waugh or Phil Belbin, but it's unsigned, so there's no way to know. Waugh did sign a couple of the interior panels, though. The cover was painted for Ken Welsh's story, “Dirge for a Darling,” which deals with a woman on safari who wants her hunting guide to kill her rich, alcoholic husband. Risky, but when you stand to inherit fifty million dollars, what's a little risk?
We try to avoid spoilers, but since you're never going to have a chance to read this obscure story, we'll just tell you what happens. The husband is a terrible guy, and he spends his days shooting badly at wildlife, and his nights drinking himself into a stupor. The fact that he's always insensate by dark is what allows the wife to start bedding the hunter right in camp in the first place. Once the hunter has been convinced to do the job, he realizes he must devise a foolproof yet suspicion free murder. He plans and schemes for days, looking for an angle, and finally tells the wife he has an idea, but the less she knows the better. Her job is to convincingly play the grieving widow when it happens, so for the sake of realism it's better if she's in the dark.
One morning the hunter comes to fetch the husband for a foray into the bush. Elephants are near. Today is the day the husband will finally get a big tusker. But the husband is hung over like never before. He wants a trophy, but can't possibly go shooting. He asks the hunter to bag an elephant for him. As the cover depicts, the hunter gets trampled to death. When the news comes to camp, the husband smiles evilly. The hangover had been an act. He'd discovered his wife's affair and, while she and her lover were otherwise occupied, had filed down the firing pin on the hunter's rifle. The gun didn't work when needed, resulting in a squashing.
The husband has a celebratory drink and forces his wife—who hates liquor—to join him. The husband cramps, convulses, and dies in excruciating pain. The wife realizes the hunter's foolproof murder method was to poison her husband's beloved liquor in such a way as to make authorities think it had been a bad batch. Then she cramps, convulses, and dies in excruciating pain too. The story ends: “It was all very sad when you considered the talent of those involved, but there it was. The principals, no doubt, went to hell. The $50,000,000 went to charity.” We've read a lot of Adam stories, and this was one of the more entertaining efforts. We have numerous scans below, with Claudine Auger in the second panel, and more Adam coming soon.
| Vintage Pulp | Dec 30 2019 |
Let's split up here! And in case I get killed, nice ass! Forgive the objectification, but I couldn't leave it unsaid!
Above are thirty-five scans from a December 1976 issue of Adam magazine, with a cover illustrating Mike Rader's story “Die As the Romans Do.” We made contact with Rader a while back, and he updated us on his career, and told us some fun stories about working with Adam editors back in the day. The tale he weaves in this issue concerns an Australian tourist in Rome who helps a damsel in distress, and for his kindness gets ensnared in a murder plot. The scene in the painting occurs when he and the damsel, named Claudia, flee the Roman catacombs during a Mafia-on-Mafia shootout—but only after Claudia has had her dress ripped off by the villains.
Rader's fiction is always interesting, but the highlight of this issue is a photo feature of Daisy Duke herself—Catherine Bach, three years before she became world famous on The Dukes of Hazzard—who you see just above. Since she isn't identified in the shots, it isn't like Adam knew who they had on their hands. To them, they simply had some nice handout photos of a minor actress. But that stroke of luck gives this issue extra value, at least as far as we're concerned. Believe it or not, after posting sixty-two issues of Adam we still have forty more we haven't scanned yet. Will we get to them all? We'll certainly try.
AustraliaRomeAdam MagazineThe Dukes of HazzardCatherine BachMike Radermagazine artliteraturetelevision
| Vintage Pulp | Dec 13 2019 |
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water.
We thought the 1952 issue of Adam we scanned a little while back was fragile. It has been surpassed by the above pastry crust-like issue from this month in 1955, which we barely got back into a plastic sleeve (reasonably) intact. In case you ever wondered why we stick with ’70s issues, that's the answer. But the older mags often come bundled in lots with the newer ones. Anyway, it's nice, with a brilliant cover illustration of a scuba diver and a shark, not the first time Adam has gone with this shark theme. The art is meant to reference one of the tales inside, Jonathan Edwards' aquatic adventure “Deep Water Hero,” about a trio of fortune hunters that go diving on a shipwreck and run into shark trouble. There are lots of shark tales in these magazines, one every few issues. This one is probably the best we've read. In addition you get rare photos of Abbe Lane and various unknown models. We have eighteen scans below, sixty other issues in the website, and more from Adam to come.
| Vintage Pulp | Oct 12 2019 |
Why did the girl cross the river? For a chance at a better future.
This issue of Adam published this month in 1952 is the second oldest issue of the magazine we've scanned and uploaded, and we gotta tell you, this thing was fragile as butterfly wings. But we got it done, and the magazine survived. The beautiful cover painting is signed by Phil Belbin, and it illustrates longtime pulp western writer Bob Obets' tale “Señorita Spitfire's Kisses”—let's just pause and enjoy that title, shall we? There's all sorts of promise in a title like that. It's simultaneously evocative and ridiculous, which often bodes well. The story is an adventure set on the Texas/Mexico border just after the U.S. Civil War. Basically, it's about a Mexican woman named Carlotta O'Farel y Cavazos who enlists the aid of a mercenary named Ricardo Ruby to cross the Rio Grande into Texas in search of a cache of money buried there. She plans to use it to buy guns for Mexican soldiers, while the captain is thinking maybe to have it for himself.
Here's a fun exchange (Ricardo refuses to call Carlotta by name at first, preferring to make up nicknames):
Ricardo: “Look, Flame of the River, just tell me where that eighty thousand is—and how come you know about it.”
Carlotta: “I was tellin' you, brains-of-a-donkey, the money is in this place call Corpus Christi, where my brother wait for the sheep to take this money to Cuba.”
Her insult really amused us for some reason. “Sheep,” by the way, is “ship” pronounced with an accent. Genre authors sometimes use phonetic spellings to portray accents, but it can cross the line into making the speaker sound stupid. It's something to avoid. After all, the presence of an accent means the speaker knows at least two languages, not just one, like most Americans. The most elegant authors, like Cormac McCarthy, write accents without alternate spellings. Obets opts for the clumsy method, having Carlotta say things like “sometheeng,” and “fineesh,” but he's a good writer anyway. In fact the story is good enough that we checked his bibliography. He's written at least two novels—1958's Blood Moon Range and 1965's Rails to the Rio. We may pick one up. In the meantime, we have a few scans, which include photos of Marie Windsor and Mari Blanchard. More Adam to come.
Her insult really amused us for some reason. “Sheep,” by the way, is “ship” pronounced with an accent. Genre authors sometimes use phonetic spellings to portray accents, but it can cross the line into making the speaker sound stupid. It's something to avoid. After all, the presence of an accent means the speaker knows at least two languages, not just one, like most Americans. The most elegant authors, like Cormac McCarthy, write accents without alternate spellings. Obets opts for the clumsy method, having Carlotta say things like “sometheeng,” and “fineesh,” but he's a good writer anyway. In fact the story is good enough that we checked his bibliography. He's written at least two novels—1958's Blood Moon Range and 1965's Rails to the Rio. We may pick one up. In the meantime, we have a few scans, which include photos of Marie Windsor and Mari Blanchard. More Adam to come.
| Vintage Pulp | Jul 24 2019 |
You two stop! When I told the judges my greatest hope was for world peace I meant everyone!
Above, the cover and numerous scans from an issue of Adam magazine published in Australia this month in 1972, with a distressed beauty peagent winner on the cover, plus English nudism, folkloric killer Spring-Heeled Jack, heroin, fiction, fact, models, and more.
| Vintage Pulp | Jun 29 2019 |
Keep your hands up. Good. Back up. Very good. Your life depends on this next part. I wanna see you shake that ass.
To paraphrase Clint Eastwood, “In this world there are two kinds of people—those with loaded guns, and those who dance.” Or something like that. The guy on the cover of this issue of Adam from June 1958 better work it like he's at the club if he hopes to survive. We can't believe how long it's been since we shared an issue of this magazine. It's been since November. At this rate we'll never get the rest uploaded. Well, today is a step in the right direction, although this issue was so brittle we couldn't scan it extensively without risking its destruction. For other magazines we consider that a sacrifice for the greater good of digital proliferation, but not with Adam. We never let Adam get harmed. Which is more than Eve could say.
This is a different era of Adam than we usually post, one that predates the nudity and more freewheeling fictional content of the ’70s, but it's still quite nice. Inside are plenty of models, including Italian actress Marisa Allasio, wearing the same handkerchief bikini as in these photos we shared a while back. There's also a feature on beauty in sports, and a fun tale about looking for gold in South America. Speaking of looking for gold in foreign countries, we've got our hooks into the motherlode of Adam magazines. We have more than twenty on the way. That'll up our stash to forty-plus issues, assuming they don't vanish into the magazine vortex that seems to hover between here and Australia. Send good vibes. But no matter what, we'll have another issue soon.
This is a different era of Adam than we usually post, one that predates the nudity and more freewheeling fictional content of the ’70s, but it's still quite nice. Inside are plenty of models, including Italian actress Marisa Allasio, wearing the same handkerchief bikini as in these photos we shared a while back. There's also a feature on beauty in sports, and a fun tale about looking for gold in South America. Speaking of looking for gold in foreign countries, we've got our hooks into the motherlode of Adam magazines. We have more than twenty on the way. That'll up our stash to forty-plus issues, assuming they don't vanish into the magazine vortex that seems to hover between here and Australia. Send good vibes. But no matter what, we'll have another issue soon.
| Vintage Pulp | Nov 23 2018 |
Lust is in the air according to Adam magazine.
Every issue of Adam magazine is a joy to read, but some are more laden with goodies than others. In this case, among many worthy stories there's “Sky-Diving Love Kittens,” “Trapped by Terrorists,” and “Free Love Females of the Arctic.” How can you make a choice there? Especially since all three stories are labeled “FACT.” Turns out “Sky-Diving Love Kittens” is about how women become sexually aroused by freefall. The journalist narrator would have readers believe he was writing about a group of female sky divers, and when they landed they hustled him off to a shack and rocked his world. Do we buy this? Not really. But we love the story.
All you need to know about “Trapped by Terrorists” is that it takes place in Cuba. The rest is rote adventure writing using a formula well established in mid-century literature. The Cuban men are cruel (and bearded), while the Cuban women are hot (and beaded with sweat). All the girls require to escape the bonds of totalitarianism is a few gringos to make landfall. Before you know it, like being exorcised of demons, the power of penis compels them to face down their oppressors. Do we buy it? No. But while silly and propagandist, it's also entertaining. Sign us up for any writings of this style, whether “fact” or fiction.
And finally “Free Love Females of the Arctic” deals with the sole survivor of an Arctic shipwreck who's rescued by Eskimos when he was on the precipice of becoming a popsicle. Back in the village, two women strip down and warm him by wriggling all over him under fur blankets and nibbling on his chest, then the clan gives him a temporary wife while he's waiting to be returned to civilization. His popsicle thaws and is put to good use. We don't buy this tale either, but we buy Adam magazine—every chance we get—because it's incredibly entertaining. We have thirty-plus scans below and dozens more issues in the website just waiting for you to discover.
And finally “Free Love Females of the Arctic” deals with the sole survivor of an Arctic shipwreck who's rescued by Eskimos when he was on the precipice of becoming a popsicle. Back in the village, two women strip down and warm him by wriggling all over him under fur blankets and nibbling on his chest, then the clan gives him a temporary wife while he's waiting to be returned to civilization. His popsicle thaws and is put to good use. We don't buy this tale either, but we buy Adam magazine—every chance we get—because it's incredibly entertaining. We have thirty-plus scans below and dozens more issues in the website just waiting for you to discover.
| Intl. Notebook | Nov 1 2018 |
One decade down, another to go.
So today is Pulp Intl.'s anniversary, and a special one, as we've now been around ten full years. Yeah, it's crazy. When we began there were numerous blogs and websites that we admired and drew inspiration from, and all of them are gone or permanently idle now. A few new ones have popped up and we can only hope they last. Pulp Intl. came about because we had moved out of the U.S. and wanted something to eat up the idle hours we'd benefitted. Mostly we partied those hours away, but there were still a few left and Pulp duly sprang forth. We figured maybe ten or twenty people might drop by per week. Last we checked that number had reached more than 7,000 individual visitors per day, and in the summer it has been as many as 14,000. Per day. It's just shocking. So we definitely want to thank every one of you for dropping by, and particularly those who visit time and again, with a special shout to those who write in with corrections and ideas.
We've scanned and uploaded thousands of original images, and seen them reposted tens of thousands of times on Tumblr, Twitter, and various other platforms. We have more to come. We shot photos of some items we have laying around the flat, just to give you an idea. It's not a complete accounting. We have things we're too lazy to pull out of storage right now. In all, scanning and sharing this stuff should take ten more years. Of course, as some wit once pointed out, plans and life are two different things—often diametrically opposed. Anything could happen, up to and including losing everything in a fire or the Pulp Intl. girlfriends—who are real people, by the way, not some concept we came up with—finally getting fed up and threatening to leave or kill us if we don't shut down the website. But they'd never do that because they're the best. Heh heh. Anyway, thank you everyone for these ten years. It's been incredibly fun for us and we hope you've gotten a few laughs out of it, learned a few things, and had a love of vintage media instilled or just reaffirmed. And now—future here we come...
| Vintage Pulp | Jul 9 2018 |
I know I'm an unorthodox teacher, officer. But if she thinks this is tough how is she ever gonna handle a left turn in traffic?
Today we have another issue of our favorite men's magazine Adam, this time from July 1971. Inside there's the usual fiction, true adventure, and cheesecake, including British model Susan Shaw. But this issue is also a little different—it dips into celebrity waters with a write-up on Aly Khan, the Muslim prince whose romantic hook-ups included Gene Tierney, Bettina Graziani, and Rita Hayworth, who he married in 1949. The cover illustration is paired with the short story "Blonde for Bait," by Dick Love. Yeah. Dick Love. This makes the 56th issue of Adam we've uploaded to our website. Enjoy Dick and more in thirty-two scans below, and see all the other issues just by clicking the keywords at bottom.
AustraliaAdam MagazineAly KhanGene TierneyRita HayworthBettina GrazianiSusan ShawDick Lovemagazine artliterature
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