We’ve talked before about how erotic magazines exploded in popularity during the pulp age. Many of those publications, by printing fiction and art, took up the slack when the pulp market declined. While some of the authors and artists were already known, or became so, most passed unheralded into history. This was especially true of the illustrators. Today we have pages from the nudie magazine Adam, and to give you an idea how committed the publishers were to quality original art, consider the fact that all the illustrations below are from a single issue published forty-one years ago this month. We’ve rotated a few spreads because they would have been too small to appreciate horizontally. For a better look drag them to your desktop, open them, rotate them using your picture viewer, and witness the legitness. We’ve also included some of the photographic content because, well, just because. The cover is Barbie Dahl shot by Ron Vogel, and the centerfold is Chris Starr. Enjoy.
1954—First Church of Scientology Established
The first Scientology church, based on the writings of science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard, is established in Los Angeles, California. Since then, the city has become home to the largest concentration of Scientologists in the world, and its ranks include high-profile adherents such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta.