Straight outta Sydney we have an October 1969 issue of Adam for you today. The cover illustrates Lester Way’s story “Day of Reckoning,” in which a man learns that his wife is a liar and cheater, but only after the cops tear apart her story of a rapist home invader. It’s a good little tale, but you can’t help noting the cops’ immediate disbelief. Way unwittingly reflects policing culture around sexual crimes at that time (and often this time too). Or at least, we assume it was unwitting. Maybe he’s a cleverer writer than we think. But since the attack never happened, the cover art represents the wife’s fabrication to the police and her husband.
As a side note, the reason the art put us in mind of pushy door-to-door solicitors is because we have our own unwanted (sort of) salesman. While we have numerous stores in the pueblo, we get our eggs from a man we call “The Egg Guy.” He brings farm fresh eggs to people’s doors, which is fine, but the problem is he tries to sell us dozens a week. We tell him over and over we can’t eat that many eggs, but he doesn’t get it. So while we do buy from him (the eggs are excellent), we also spend a lot of time turning him away. We admire the hustle, though.
As we paged through this Adam we found numerous fascinating features, such as the factual stories “Witchcraft Love Cult,” about a man captured by Panamanian Indians, and “Be Murdered or Sold,” about a woman trafficked into sexual bondage in Yemen. There’s also fiction from veteran Adam contributor John P. Gilders called “The White Man’s Burden.” That term, for those who don’t know, refers to the idea that white men were morally obligated to “civilize” inhabitants of the lands they colonized. The story completes an unusually interesting set of literary contributions in a magazine that never fails to entertain.
In addition, on the inside of the front cover is U.S. model, actress, and photographer Salli Sachse, who appeared in such films as The Million Eyes of Sumuru and The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini. She died just last month. Several other beautiful models grace the interior pages, none of whom we can currently identify. Maybe we’ll get a bit of reader help on them.
And of course there’s art. Jack Waugh, as always, makes his presence felt, and Earl Norem makes a surprise appearance. We thought his work appeared only in U.S. men’s adventure magazines, so our first thought was: Good on him for making it Down Under—hope he got well paid. Then we had a closer look. His art for the story “Escape Ring” looks far less crisp than the other illustrations. His signature is fuzzy. We think Adam borrowed the art from another magazine. Don’t quote on us that. Dirty Aussie thieves! Don’t quote us on that either. Forty-plus art panels below.
