STORMY D-DAY

A hard rain is gonna fall.


Mort Kunstler nicely captures the chaos of a storm hitting the beaches of northern France on this D-Day-themed cover of Stag from November 1964. Kunstler was a master at this sort of sprawling composition, and Stag in particular published many similar pieces of his. Today Kunstler bills himself as America’s Artist and paints U.S. Civil War scenes that sell as limited editions. To say that his reputation as an artist is assured is an understatement. He has had countless exhibitions, been added to the permanent collections of numerous museums, and been profiled in the New York Times.

Below are some interior scans from Stag, including more Kunstler, as well as a spread from Walter Popp. Kunstler’s illustration for George Raffey’s “House of the Pleasure Dolls” is a brilliant bit of adolescent sexual fantasy, with its naked girl holding off a group of armed men. That probably never happened in the entire history of the world (despite the “True Book Bonus” label on the story), but it’s just another day in the pages of a vintage men’s magazine. Also in this issue you get a few photos of 1961 Miss Universe semi-finalist, Scottish model Susan Jones. More Kunstler here.

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1901—McKinley Fatally Shot

Polish-born anarchist Leon Czolgosz shoots and fatally wounds U.S. President William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. McKinley dies September 12, and Czolgosz is later executed.

1939—U.S. Declares Neutrality in WW II

The Neutrality Acts, which had been passed in the 1930s when the United States considered foreign conflicts undesirable, prompts the nation to declare neutrality in World War II. The policy ended with the Lend-Lease Act of March 1941, which allowed the U.S. to sell, lend or give war materials to allied nations.

1972—Munich Massacre

During the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany, a paramilitary group calling itself Black September takes members of the Israeli olympic team hostage. Eventually the group, which represents the first glimpse of terrorists for most people in the Western world, kill eleven of the hostages along with one West German police officer during a rescue attempt by West German police that devolves into a firefight. Five of the eight members of Black September are also killed.

1957—U.S. National Guard Used Against Students

The governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus, mobilizes the National Guard to prevent nine African-American students known as the Little Rock Nine from enrolling in high school in Little Rock, Arkansas.

1941—Auschwitz Begins Gassing Prisoners

Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest of Nazi Germany’s concentration camps, becomes an extermination camp when it begins using poison gas to kill prisoners en masse. The camp commandant, Rudolf Höss, later testifies at the Nuremberg Trials that he believes perhaps 3 million people died at Auschwitz, but the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum revises the figure to about 1 million.

This awesome cover art is by Tommy Shoemaker, a new talent to us, but not to more experienced paperback illustration aficionados.
Ten covers from the popular French thriller series Les aventures de Zodiaque.
Sam Peffer cover art for Jonathan Latimer's Solomon's Vineyard, originally published in 1941.

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