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.
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.
See you later alliga— Whoa... whoops...
We have another issue of Adam magazine today, just because we love it so much and have dozens we haven't shared yet. Inside this one, which appeared this month in 1973, is an interesting article about the practice of scalping. Writer Paul Brock notes that English puritans scalped foes in Europe and brought the idea to North America. He says enraged Native Americans promptly retaliated by doing the same. He doesn't get this quite right, though. Scalping is not something that can be said to have been invented by anyone, because evidence of the practice goes back millennia in various parts of the world. But European colonists industrialized and monetized scalping in North America, incentivizing the mass murder of Native Americans by offering bounties, including on children. And of course, as often happens with atrocities, propagandists vilified the other side for doing it. Even during colonial times Indians were labeled as vicious savages who scalped whites, and to this day most people still don't realize that it was whites who expanded and normalized the practice. So there's a little holiday cheer for you. Elsewhere in the issue you get the usual assortment of fiction, glamour photography, and cartoons. Including today's upload we have fifty four—yes 54—issues of Adam in our website. Why? Because we think it's the coolest men's adventure magazine ever published.
Junior is every bit as grown up as its father. From K.G. Murray Publishing Co., the group that would later produce Adam magazine, comes this October 1948 issue of Man Junior, which you may already know was the offspring of Murray’s flagship publication Man. We showed you one of those here. Both magazines featured art, fiction, cartoons, and glamour photography, but Man Junior was of smaller dimensions—in fact pocket sized. It launched in 1937 and was an immediate success. The cover art above, signed Val, is uncredited, but inside you get illustrations from Arthur Nichol, Jack Waugh, and others, plus an adventure from the immensely popular comic character Devil Doone, who was created by R. Carson Gold, first appeared in Man Junior in 1945, and was drawn during this period by Hart Amos. You also get a pretty cool photo of American actress Janet Blair, who we shared a portrait of just a couple of weeks ago, and of special note are two nude studies from famed British photographer John Everard. We’ll have more samples form Kenneth Murray’s publishing empire soon.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1947—Heyerdahl Embarks on Kon-Tiki
Norwegian ethnographer and adventurer Thor Heyerdahl and his five man crew set out from Peru on a giant balsa wood raft called the Kon-Tiki in order to prove that Peruvian natives could have settled Polynesia. After a 101 day, 4,300 mile (8,000 km) journey, Kon-Tiki smashes into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands on August 7, 1947, thus demonstrating that it is possible for a primitive craft to survive a Pacific crossing. 1989—Soviets Acknowledge Chernobyl Accident
After two days of rumors and denials the Soviet Union admits there was an accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. Reactor number four had suffered a meltdown, sending a plume of radioactive fallout into the atmosphere and over an extensive geographical area. Today the abandoned radioactive area surrounding Chernobyl is rife with local wildlife and has been converted into a wildlife sanctuary, one of the largest in Europe. 1945—Mussolini Is Arrested
Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, his mistress Clara Petacci, and fifteen supporters are arrested by Italian partisans in Dongo, Italy while attempting to escape the region in the wake of the collapse of Mussolini's fascist government. The next day, Mussolini and his mistress are both executed, along with most of the members of their group. Their bodies are then trucked to Milan where they are hung upside down on meathooks from the roof of a gas station, then spat upon and stoned until they are unrecognizable. 1933—The Gestapo Is Formed
The Geheime Staatspolizei, aka Gestapo, the official secret police force of Nazi Germany, is established. It begins under the administration of SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police, but by 1939 is administered by the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, or Reich Main Security Office, and is a feared entity in every corner of Germany and beyond. 1937—Guernica Is Bombed
In Spain during the Spanish Civil War, the Basque town of Guernica is bombed by the German Luftwaffe, resulting in widespread destruction and casualties. The Basque government reports 1,654 people killed, while later research suggests far fewer deaths, but regardless, Guernica is viewed as an example of terror bombing and other countries learn that Nazi Germany is committed to that tactic. The bombing also becomes inspiration for Pablo Picasso, resulting in a protest painting that is not only his most famous work, but one the most important pieces of art ever produced.
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