PORTU-PULP AND PORTU-GALS

Our visit to Lisbon swung between extremes.

Some of you may be wondering whether we actually picked up anything for Pulp Intl. during our ballyhooed trip to Lisbon. We did, we just haven’t had to time to sort and scan it yet. But above you see a snapshot of some items we bought at the city’s twice-weekly Feria de Ladra, which apparently has been going on since 1272 (not a typo), and these days takes place at the Campo de Santa Clara, behind the important monastery of São Vicente de Fora.
 
The market is a marvel. While it isn’t anything close to Le Marché aux Puces de Saint-Ouen in Paris, it remains one of the better troves of vintage matter you’ll find in Europe, and as a bonus is popular with beautiful women and supports a satellite industry of interesting bars and eateries. Among the items we found were old issues of the pop culture magazine Plateia, crime comics such as Secreto Agente Z33, and a copy of the movie mag Colecção Cinema. We’ll be scanning and uploading those throughout the year, and they’ll be nice reminders of a good trip. Well, mostly good.

When the Pulp Intl. girlfriends left, things went a bit haywire. We’ll share only one episode: the panic inducing disappearance of one of our group, who had been done in by Lisbon’s numerous hills as we searched for a music bar one night, and had headed home to rest with his left arm tingling (which he attributed to a pulled shoulder muscle he’d suffered after taking a spill on what we nicknamed the “heroin stairs”). We stayed at the bar and when we returned hours later he was nowhere to be seen. Frantic calls to his phone produced nothing. Calls to the hospitals ditto. Uh oh.
 
We organized ourselves for a 4 a.m. search of the deserted barrio where the bar was. Our working theory: coronary, collapsed, rolled into a ditch, died. That hadn’t happened. What had happened was he walked down the hills as planned, was near the apartment we’d rented, but got tractor beamed into a strip club where he spent 1,300 euros on lap dances. Under the circumstances, he’d heard none of our calls. Said he: “I felt better by the time I was passing the club.” Funny episode, but we think he’s due for a medical check-up. The week that was, Pulp Intl. style.

Pulp Intl. and friends abroad. What's the worst that can happen?


It’s intermission time. Yes, we just took a break, but it was unplanned due to our move and its many associated delays. The upcoming intermission has been planned for a while. We’re going to stage a triple birthday celebration in Lisbon with some of our favorite globetrotters. The Pulp. Intl. girlfriends are coming too, but are bailing on day four. They say they want us to have boy time, but the truth is four days with this crowd is all they can endure.

Mixed into the days and nights (of sedate museum visits and early bedtimes, we swear, girls) will be serious pulp digging. We have no idea whether Portugal has such items, but we’ll only learn the answer by looking. Hopefully we’ll make it back home intact by March 16. That’s the plan, anyway. But you know what they say about plans. To tide you over until our glorious return, let us direct you to some Pulp Intl. favorites.
 
A small collection of paperback covers by George Gross.
 
Fifteen covers of the pulp magazine Short Stories.
 
Modern pulp art by the amazing Owen Smith.
 
All our issues of the French art deco style magazine Paris Plaisirs.
 
All our issues of the Australian men’s adventure magazine Adam.
 
Misty Ayers does her daily lingerie workout then cooks a meal.
  
The paperback cover art of Bill Edwards.
 
A look at historic cinemas from around world.
 
Beautiful covers from the Italian publishers Edizioni MA-GA.
 
All our write-ups on sexploitation queen Laura Gemser.

And finally, below you’ll find our inexhaustible tabloid index, which used to reside somewhere in 2018, but which we’ve moved in case anyone wants to check out all the scandal sheets we’ve written about.
 

It's a tough job but some tabloid has to do it.
Above is the cover of a March 1953 issue of Sir! magazine, and in an example of the ephemeral nature of such items, shortly after we scanned this we spilled a glass of red wine on it. So behold! It’s even more rare than it was when we bought it. Above the slash you see boxer Kid Gavilan, he of the famed bolo punch, and on the right is model Joanne Arnold, who we’ve featured before here, here, and here. She doesn’t appear inside. But what you do get is a jaunt through such exotic locales as Melanesia, Tahiti, and Lisbon in search of knowledge and thrills.
We were drawn to the Lisbon story, which the magazine describes as a capital of sin. To us the word “sin” means late nights, good intoxicants, fun women, and excellent entertainment. To Sir! it means being cheated, robbed, framed, and arrested. To-may-to to-mah-to, we guess. We’ve spent some time in Lisbon and we love it. We don’t know what it was like in 1953, but Europe was still coming out of World War II, which means many countries—even non-combatants like Portugal—were wracked by poverty. So we wouldn’t be surprised if thieves were out in droves.
Elsewhere inside Sir! you get art from Jon Laurell and Joseph Szokoli, photos of model Jean Williams and Tahitian beauty queen Malie Haulani, a story on the danger of nuclear weapons, anthropological snobbery in exposés about New Caledonia and the Kogi people of Colombia, and fanciful theories about Russian scientists working to keep Josef Stalin alive for 150 years—which didn’t work, because he died a mere five days after this issue of Sir! hit the newsstands. Clearly, the magazine is cursed. It certainly cursed our wine glass. We have thirty-five scans below for your enjoyment and other issues of Sir! here and here.
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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1921—Einstein Wins Nobel

German theoretical physicist Albert Einstein is awarded the Nobel Prize for his work with the photoelectric effect, a phenomenon in which electrons are emitted from matter as a consequence of their absorption of energy from electromagnetic radiation. In practical terms, the phenomenon makes possible such devices as electroscopes, solar cells, and night vision goggles.

1938—Kristallnacht Begins

Nazi Germany’s first large scale act of anti-Jewish violence begins after the assassination of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan. The event becomes known as Kristallnacht, and in total the violent rampage destroys more than 250 synagogues, causes the deaths of nearly a hundred Jews, and results in 25,000 to 30,000 more being arrested and sent to concentration camps.

1923—Hitler Stages Revolt

In Munich, Germany, Adolf Hitler leads the Nazis in the Beer Hall Putsch, an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the German government. Also known as the Hitlerputsch or the Hitler-Ludendorff-Putsch, the attempted coup was inspired by Benito Mussolini’s successful takeover of the Italian government.

1932—Roosevelt Unveils CWA

U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt unveils the Civil Works Administration, an organization designed to create temporary winter jobs for more than 4 million of the unemployed.

1935—Parker Brothers Buys Monopoly

The board game company Parker Brothers acquires the forerunner patents for Monopoly from Elizabeth Magie, who had designed the game (originally called The Landlord’s Game) to demonstrate the economic ill effects of land monopolism and the use of land value tax as a remedy for them. Parker Brothers quickly turns Monopoly into the biggest selling board game in America.

1991—Gene Tierney Passes Away

American actress Gene Tierney, one of the great beauties in Hollywood history and star of the seminal film noir Laura, dies in Houston, Texas of emphysema. Tierney had begun smoking while young as a way to help lower her high voice, and was hooked on cigarettes the rest of her life.

A collection of red paperback covers from Dutch publisher De Vrije Pers.
Uncredited art for Hans Lugar's Line-Up! for Scion American publishing.
Uncredited cover art for Lesbian Gym by Peggy Swenson, who was in reality Richard Geis.

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