| Sex Files | Jul 15 2021 |
Clear your schedule. National Informer is back.
National Informer Weekly Reader is one of the more amusing vintage tabloids we've collected. This one is from today in 1973, and has time killing features such as two narrative brainteasers and a slate of predictions for the future by the inimitable seer Mark Travis, he of the 6.9% accuracy rate. It also has what purports to be an interview about zany fame with television and film star Goldie Hawn, but it's just a few lines and we didn't bother to scan it. But we did scan a hilarious story on Gloria Simpson, who editors tell us is in love with own body. Shouldn't we all be in love with our bodies? We mean in a perfect world, as the great rhythmic philosopher George Benson put it when he said that learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all? Well, we haven't yet achieved that utopia, so you'll have to be told about self love by Gloria. We made a nice box containing her tale so that, for strictly educational purposes, you can read some hardcore porn masquerading as journalism. Enjoy that, and the boner it's supposed to give you. National Informer Weekly Reader will return.
| Sex Files | Nov 28 2020 |
Vintage tabloid looks forward to better sex in the future but should have been happy with the present.
This issue of the low rent sexploitation tabloid National Informer published today in 1971 asks what will sex be like in the year 2020. We'd answer that compared to 1971 people will have less of it, and when they do it will come with recycled puritan guilt and fears of fatal disease. Other than that it'll be great! We jest, of course. We have no clue what 1971 sex was like, but National Informer makes clear that there were plenty of worries. Like what if you didn't know proper etiquette for your first orgy? Or what would you wear to the nude-in at Golden Gate Park? And could you get it up after popping three Quaaludes?
With the myriad sexual challenges of the period, it's no wonder people thought 2020 sex would be better, as a utopian article by Tom Bridges makes clear. Our favorite line: “Sex will be just another physical satisfaction in human living, with no stigmas attached.” Um... no. And this bit is great: “There will be sex schools in every city, attended by millions, which will teach by demonstration excellent sexual techniques. Anyone who doesn't attend and graduate will be a social dropout and considered illiterate.” Little could Mr. Bridges have suspected that the U.S. wouldn't come up with enough money to run normal schools, let alone sex schools.
It's fun to read how much faith Informer has in a brighter future. Optimism was actually a chararistic of the time period, we've noticed, whether talking about politics, science, or anything else. But a funny thing happened on the way to the post-millennial sexual mecca Informer imagines—the eunuchs took over the harem, and when 2020 finally arrived, the events of that shitty year were (notice we're already talking about it in past tense—that's how bad it was) enough to kill everyone's sex drives. Well, at least 2021 is just around the bend, and in the event of the virus actually being conquered, maybe a new sexual revolution will take hold, with love-ins and all the rest. We'll believe it when we see it, but it never hurts to dream, right?
| Sex Files | Nov 21 2019 |
National Informer gets inside its readers heads.
We mentioned a while back that we bought some waterlogged tabloids. Above is the latest example from that pile—National Informer, published today in 1971, dipped like a teabag in liquid sometime after that. Inside you get the usual wild sex stories, cartoon humor, and phony outrage. But the winner in this issue is the article, “The Sexual Implications of Your Dreams.” We're going to quote it at length, because it's pretty funny:
When a man dreams of seeing a woman's sexual organs exposed, it means that a woman will soon offer herself to him. If the genitals are covered with sores, this is a bad omen, and indicates a long, serious illness which will require long treatment or surgery.
Dreams of oral intercourse with a woman indicate that success and wealth will be obtained, but that it will be quickly spent. Dreams in which a man engages in anal intercourse with a woman indicate that he will be highly successful financially, and will amass a considerable fortune.
That's priceless, and the last prediction makes perfect sense, since so many rich men have obtained their fortunes by fucking people in the ass. But Informer is not to be trusted with something as important as predicting the future. If you're looking for real dream interpretation, buy a dream book. We recommend Madame Zodia. She's legit.
Elsewhere in the issue is a handout photo of fishnet stockinged Swedish actress Janet Agren. Informer uses her to illustrate a story called “How Girls Make It Hard on Guys When It Comes to Sexual Satisfaction.” It's basically a primer on how to get women in bed, with one clever horndog taking the opportunity of a cross falling off a wall to tell a woman God wants her to have sex. That's low. And ingenious. Sixteen scans below and more Informer here.
Elsewhere in the issue is a handout photo of fishnet stockinged Swedish actress Janet Agren. Informer uses her to illustrate a story called “How Girls Make It Hard on Guys When It Comes to Sexual Satisfaction.” It's basically a primer on how to get women in bed, with one clever horndog taking the opportunity of a cross falling off a wall to tell a woman God wants her to have sex. That's low. And ingenious. Sixteen scans below and more Informer here.
| Intl. Notebook | Jul 14 2019 |
It's all skin no wit as tabloid stumbles along on its last legs.
It's July 14, 1974 and it's getting late in the game for National Informer. This issue shows that the magazine is exhausted of ideas and inspiration, and is bereft of all but the crassest humor. We suspect staff reductions. As magazines decline in circulation they lose pages and bleed staff. This issue is a full eight pages shorter than two years earlier. We aren't sure how much longer Informer lasted, but by this point the writing seems to be on the wall.
One mainstay, though, is resident seer Mark Travis, who offers his thoughts about the far future, predicting that Greenland will become the next frontier by 2050 due to underground volcanoes turning it into a tropical paradise, and Brazil will become a world power by 2075, ranking only after the U.S., China, and the U.S.S.R., thanks to cheap labor and the vast resources of the Amazon.
This guess is not far wide of the mark. The current president of Brazil is selling off the Amazon. But Travis's prediction is undermined by the fact that the U.S.S.R. no longer exists. Future visions tend to be notoriously select, but a non-U.S.S.R. future should be glaringly readable even within swirling clairvoyant mists. Well, no seer is perfect. Maybe Travis will do better in the next issue. You'll find out, because we have more to come.
This guess is not far wide of the mark. The current president of Brazil is selling off the Amazon. But Travis's prediction is undermined by the fact that the U.S.S.R. no longer exists. Future visions tend to be notoriously select, but a non-U.S.S.R. future should be glaringly readable even within swirling clairvoyant mists. Well, no seer is perfect. Maybe Travis will do better in the next issue. You'll find out, because we have more to come.
| Sex Files | Jun 22 2019 |
There's nothing quite as stimulating as a vintage sleazy tabloid.
When the phonograph was invented, one of the things its advocates suggested was that it might be used for education, for example to listen to correspondence courses at home. Instead, in time it became a medium for selling music. When radio was invented it too was called a possible method for distance learning, and television was likewise touted as an educational device. And most of you will remember the high-minded rhetoric of what the internet would be used for. But today it's mainly a cesspool of crass salesmanship, lowbrow entertainment, mass manipulation, and intellectual self harm. So we thought we'd add to the morass today by sharing the infinitely sleazy National Informer Reader.
This issue in all its baby blue glory appeared today in 1975 with an unidentified cover model. The magazine, you may remember from previous times we've featured it, was an offshoot of National Informer, and a pared down version of National Informer Weekly Reader. The “reader” aspect is close to euphemistic, as there is no actual reportage at all, and the few stories provided are just short form sleaze fiction. We've talked about all this before. Today, for a change, we thought it might be fun to focus on the want ads. Or maybe hope ads is a more accurate description. The term “dick pic” is a recent invention, we think, but it probably should have arisen a long time ago. Check below:
He probably should have cropped the photo down to only his left-hanging dick (his left, not yours) to have a better shot at a response. In any case, the flourishing of the mid-century tabloid industry will remind you that mass communication has always bred lowbrow gratification. Some say the internet supercharged our darkest desires, and that's true, but we never actually needed digital technology to let our ids run free. Even pulp literature, with its murder, infidelities, and testosterone driven fantasies, is an example of the marginal blossoming into the mainstream. Well, there are few publications as marginal as National Informer Reader, as you'll see in twenty scans below with numerous explicit personal ads. Check our tabloid index for more examples of Reader.
| Intl. Notebook | Dec 19 2018 |
Cheapie tabloid shows the way to enriched health.
Above is the cover and below are some interior scans from National Informer Reader, an offshoot of the tabloid National Informer. It hit newsstands today in 1971. Generally the publication featured photographed models on its cover, but we've run across a few like this one with illustrations. There's another one in the same vein inside the paper, and of course both are uncredited, though they look like the work of Alain Gourdon, aka Aslan. Needless to say, if these drawings are the work of the famed French illustrator, the editors of Informer Reader are unlikely to have paid for them.
The centerpiece of this issue is the spread on Swami Sarasvati, a famous yoga teacher who was born in India but moved to Australia and in 1969 became the host of a yoga television show that aired five mornings a week. Informer Reader shares her “sexercises,” but this turns out to be the editors' salacious take on things—the Swami is merely offering relaxation and better health. It's interesting, though, that she posed in a bikini. Clearly she wasn't so zen a little self promotional skin was out of the question. You'll notice her Siamese cat makes an appearance. There's a video online of the Swami being interviewed, which you can see here, and amusingly, the cat makes an appearance there too.
Elsewhere in the issue readers get another installment of “I Predict” by seer Mark Travis. Never timid, this time around he warns that the U.S. and Soviet Union will develop lightning weapons to blast each other, that a member of the British parliament will be revealed as a modern Jack the Ripper, and that a famous Hollywood producer will be exposed as a drug kingpin. As a prognosticator you only have to be right one in ten times to impress people, but Travis isn't even giving himself a chance with these crackpot predictions. We have more Readers to upload, so we'll see if his anemic percentage improves. Scans below.
Elsewhere in the issue readers get another installment of “I Predict” by seer Mark Travis. Never timid, this time around he warns that the U.S. and Soviet Union will develop lightning weapons to blast each other, that a member of the British parliament will be revealed as a modern Jack the Ripper, and that a famous Hollywood producer will be exposed as a drug kingpin. As a prognosticator you only have to be right one in ten times to impress people, but Travis isn't even giving himself a chance with these crackpot predictions. We have more Readers to upload, so we'll see if his anemic percentage improves. Scans below.
IndiaAustraliaNational Informer ReaderNational InformerAlain GourdonAslanSwami SarasvatiMark Travistabloid
| 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...
| Intl. Notebook | Jun 16 2018 |
National Informer Reader delves into the intricacies of male birth control.
By today in 1974, which is when this issue of National Informer Reader appeared, the magazine was nearing its end. It's easy to tell. There's less content than in pervious years, and there's a proliferation of penny-ante ads in the front half of the layout. In the magazine world it's understood that ads in the front are the ones most often seen by readers. The back page and inside back page are prime sports too, but otherwise it's the front half of the book that makes publishers money because advertisers pay more for it. But readers will skip past ads if they aren't adjacent to editorial content, so there needs to be a careful balance between the two. In this Reader that balance is gone. The entirety of pages two through seven are given over to ads and personals. You wanna know what angry is? Try the angry of an advertiser that opens your magazine and sees that his or her ad is surrounded not by readable content that keeps the reader on the page, but by other ads.
But there are still some treats even in a late stage Reader. “Older Women Are Flocking To Massage Parlors Run By Young Virile Studs” is pure gold, just for that descriptive header alone. But sometimes a header is so bizarre there's no way to tell what the story is about. “New Vasectomy Ties Tell Women Who To Date.” Huh? What the hell kind of ties do they mean? Like the ones they use to tie your tubes? Turns out they mean it literally. A vasectomy clinic in London allegedly gave patients neckties with Vs running down the front, indicating the wearer had been snipped. And supposedly women flocked to these guys. We've been unable to corroborate the story, but it feels different from the second rate bull tabloid editors usually concoct—heh, we said coct—so we suspect it's truthful. And fittingly, there's cock in this issue, and not on slobs either—on nice looking guys, though none are swinging low, if you know what we mean. But still, something for our female readers. And male readers too. You're welcome. Cock and bull below.
But there are still some treats even in a late stage Reader. “Older Women Are Flocking To Massage Parlors Run By Young Virile Studs” is pure gold, just for that descriptive header alone. But sometimes a header is so bizarre there's no way to tell what the story is about. “New Vasectomy Ties Tell Women Who To Date.” Huh? What the hell kind of ties do they mean? Like the ones they use to tie your tubes? Turns out they mean it literally. A vasectomy clinic in London allegedly gave patients neckties with Vs running down the front, indicating the wearer had been snipped. And supposedly women flocked to these guys. We've been unable to corroborate the story, but it feels different from the second rate bull tabloid editors usually concoct—heh, we said coct—so we suspect it's truthful. And fittingly, there's cock in this issue, and not on slobs either—on nice looking guys, though none are swinging low, if you know what we mean. But still, something for our female readers. And male readers too. You're welcome. Cock and bull below.
| Intl. Notebook | Jan 23 2018 |
Tabloid perfects the unauthorized photo leak long before the internet age.
This issue of National Informer was published today in 1972. We love this tabloid, but we'd be have to be blind to not see how low rent it is. It's a mess. Words are misspelled, columns and graphics are crooked, and it's heavily padded. For example there's a random photo of a water buffalo and a sexual quip about its backside. That's pure editorial desperation to fill a gap in the layout. And to make sport of such gentle creatures. Sad!
And speaking of unauthorized usage of gentle creatures, Christina Lindberg pops up yet again in Informer. Rather than in an alleged orgy, this time she appears in the story, “Do Sexually Inadequate Hubbies Force Women To Become Lesbians?” Seems like the editors had a real thing for her. But we have to admit, if we had a bunch of photos of Lindberg around we'd probably squeeze her into our editorial content time after time after time after time too.
Um, where were we? Right—elsewhere in Informer, resident prognosticator Mark Travis makes another set of predictions. You know his track record isn't good, which gives us the idea to have a little quiz. So here you go: which of these two predictions did Travis get more wrong?
1: I predict the ghost of Josef Stalin will appear in Red Square in Moscow during a public ceremony and throw the crowd into a panic.
2: I predict a black governor for the state of Georgia in 1974.
It was a trick question. Both predictions were equally wrong. The ghost of Stalin has not appeared in Red Square, and the state of Georgia, which has a 30% black population, has never had a black governor. Actually, there are no black governors of any U.S. state at the moment, and there have been only four in U.S. history. Bunch of scans below.
It was a trick question. Both predictions were equally wrong. The ghost of Stalin has not appeared in Red Square, and the state of Georgia, which has a 30% black population, has never had a black governor. Actually, there are no black governors of any U.S. state at the moment, and there have been only four in U.S. history. Bunch of scans below.
| Intl. Notebook | Dec 5 2017 |
Too bad your job isn't like the prediction racket.
We have more from National Informer, with an issue published today in 1971, containing stories about wives thinking their husbands are lousy lovers, how pornography is good for mental health, an inside look at the always exciting pimping profession, and more. One story we love: phrenologists feeling the shape of women's heads to determine whether they're good in bed. And as usual there's a new slate of amazing predictions by resident seer Mark Travis, a guy who once predicted that a series of savage sex slayings would mystify the police of an east coast city until they finally found the culprit—an 11-year old boy. Ah, that crazy Travis. The man is right like 5% of the time but still gets to keep his gig. Our favorite from this issue: “I predict the death of another famous rock star from an overdose of narcotics will have a chilling effect on the drug scene among youth.” He really went out on a limb with that one and still got it only half right. There were plenty more overdoses after December 1971, but none that chilled the drug scene. We doubt anything could do that for long. We also doubt we'll ever stop buying National Informer. It's an addictive drug all its own.
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