BACK ROAD RAMPAGE

Tabloid goes where only goats will dare.

Bet it’s been a long time since you heard the term “Hershey highway.” Well, Rampage, which bills itself as “America’s top satire and humor weekly,” fixes that on this cover from today in 1973 with a story about the utility of anal sex for birth control. The cover features a curious photo of a girl with her tongue out. We showed it to the Pulp Intl. girlfriends and here’s an actual reaction: “Sure. Laaaaaa—I want dick in my butt. Sorry. Not having anal sex with you.” It wasn’t a hint—we just wanted a good quote. Mission fully accomplished.

Rampage‘s anal sex story is told in first person and goes into astonishing detail. Here’s a snippet: “He holds on to the cheeks of my ass, keeping them spread wide while his manhood rams me like a goat. I reach back with one hand and alternately massage my clitoris and his balls.” You get the picture. The author basically makes this a primer on back door loving, from beginning to end, so to speak, stopping just short of discussing how to avoid santorum problems. In fact, the story is so positive about the practice maybe we’ll ask the girls to read it and tell them it is a hint.

This is classic Rampage—sleaze dressed up as journalism, written from the point-of-view of a sexually precocious sixteen-year-old, but doubtless penned by a thirty-something aspiring Faulkner. Did any of these hacks go on to write novels? Who can say? It’s always a fun game uncovering the respectable authors behind sex fiction, but in the case of tabloids the undoubtedly informal nature of commissioning the articles would make tracing their provenance an impossible task. The authors would have to admit it themselves. And why on earth would they do that? Eleven scans below.

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1916—Richard Harding Davis Dies

American journalist, playwright, and author Richard Harding Davis dies of a heart attack at home in Philadelphia. Not widely known now, Davis was one of the most important and influential war correspondents ever, establishing his reputation by reporting on the Spanish-American War, the Second Boer War, and World War I, as well as his general travels to exotic lands.

1919—Zapata Is Killed

In Mexico, revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata is shot dead by government forces in the state of Morelos, after a carefully planned ambush. Following the killing, Zapata’s revolutionary movement and his Liberation Army of the South slowly fall apart, but his political influence lasts in Mexico to the present day.

1925—Great Gatsby Is Published

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby is published in New York City by Charles Scribner’s Sons. Though Gatsby is Fitzgerald’s best known book today, it was not a success upon publication, and at the time of his death in 1940, Fitzgerald was mostly forgotten as a writer and considered himself to be a failure.

1968—Martin Luther King Buried

American clergyman and civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., is buried five days after being shot dead on a Memphis, Tennessee motel balcony. April 7th had been declared a national day of mourning by President Lyndon B. Johnson, and King’s funeral on the 9th is attended by thousands of supporters, and Vice President Hubert Humphrey.

1953—Jomo Kenyatta Convicted

In Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta is sentenced to seven years in prison by the nation’s British rulers for being a member of the Mau Mau Society, an anti-colonial movement. Kenyatta would a decade later become independent Kenya’s first prime minister, and still later its first president.

1974—Hank Aaron Becomes Home Run King

Major League Baseball player Hank Aaron hits his 715th career home run, surpassing Babe Ruth’s 39-year-old record. The record-breaking homer is hit off Al Downing of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and with that swing Aaron puts an exclamation mark on a twenty-four year journey that had begun with the Indianapolis Clowns of the Negro League, and would end with his selection to Major League Baseball’s Hall of Fame.

Edições de Ouro and Editora Tecnoprint published U.S. crime novels for the Brazilian market, with excellent reworked cover art to appeal to local sensibilities. We have a small collection worth seeing.
Walter Popp cover art for Richard Powell's 1954 crime novel Say It with Bullets.
There have been some serious injuries on pulp covers. This one is probably the most severe—at least in our imagination. It was painted for Stanley Morton's 1952 novel Yankee Trader.

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