Two issues of Adam to share—one from Australia and one from the U.S.—proved too much work for one day, so we posted Aussie Adam yesterday, and today we’re on to the American Adam. These magazines have no relationship to each other apart from coincidentally sharing a name. U.S. Adam relies on photo covers rather than painted art, shows a dedication to cheesecake photography that far outstrips its Australian cousin, and also has less fiction. However, what fiction it does offer extends beyond Aussie Adam’s adventure and crime focus, such as the short piece from counterculture icon Harlan Ellison called, “The Late Great Arnie Draper.” We’ve scanned and shared the entirety of that below if you’re in a reading mood.

The striking cover model here goes by the name Lorrie Lewis, and inside you get burlesque dancer Sophie Rieu, who performed for years at the nightclub Le Sexy in Paris, legendary jazzman Charles Mingus, and many celebs such as Jane Fonda, Claudia Cardinale, Sharon Tate, and the Rolling Stones. There’s also a feature on the Dean Martin movie Murderer’s Row, with Ann-Margret doing a little dancing, and blonde stunner Camilla Sparv demonstrating how to properly rock a striped crop-top. We managed to put up more than forty scans, which makes this an ideal timewaster for a Monday. Enjoy.

Once you’ve read enough H.P Lovecraft you begin to see his mindbending interstellar/transdimensional beings everywhere, and we see one on this cover for L’homme à l’étrange tatouage by Belgian author Michel Dahin, aka Michel de Roisin. It’s basically a pamphlet—sixteen pages—written for the S.O.S. Police! collection published by Éditions Paul Dupont. The art is signed by Dunbar, who is as yet unknown to us, but considering he put Cthulhu or some other octopoid monstrosity on the chest of his cover figure, maybe we don’t want to know him. The book doesn’t actually deal with Lovecraftian cultists, though. Just some really creepy sailors. 1945 on this. 

We thought we’d revisit the awesome work of Italian illustrator Giovanni Benvenuti. We shared a set last month, but just had to do another. These are once again part of the La Chouette collection published by the French imprint Ditis during the 1950s and 1960s. 

We love this cover. It looks very much to us like the man who’s being choked was staring at a woman’s breasts and can’t take his eyes off them—even while being choked. That’s dedication. Y’en a marre… p’tite tête, by the way, means something like “fed up… little head.” Presumably that’s another of those French terms you have to be French to really understand. We'll await illumination via e-mail.

Update: Jo B. comes to the rescue again: "Petite tête" means that you have no brain, that you forget everything you've got to do or that you've been told. It means also that you're absent minded. On the contrary, "forte tête" which means "strong head" is used to design a person with a rough character, who doesn't like rules, who contests everything, doesn't like discipline and is always against the law. In roman noir, he's a bad boy, quite a gangster, the guy who doesn't tell anything to the police even if he's tortured or beaten. As the expression is used on a roman noir cover, I would say that the "petite tête" is used to design a bad guy who ain't got any future in gangster life, who will never be a "forte tête," who will be a loser and say everything to the police if he's arrested. It's pejorative and insulting.

Thank you again, Jo. You've been a great help, and thanks so much for continuing to visit the site.

You know what we love? A really good fille mignon. Rare? Of course! You want them to be a bit salty outside, but tender inside. Soft as butter. See, the juices are the key. Pay attention, because we’re telling you something important here. The difference between a juicy fille and a dry one is, well, it’s really a matter of skill. You need a deft touch. Actually, it doesn’t go too far to call it an art, getting one so the juices are just brimming in there. Even thinking about the aroma makes our mouths water. We’re uh… We… Hold on—we just need to plug “fille” into the translator. Just one sec. Ah. Er, let us go back and see what we wrote. Okay… yeah, all good.

Today we wanted to share a series of truly spectacular French covers from Frédéric Ditis’s eponymous company Ditis, published as part of its popular La Chouette—or Owl—collection. These all date from the mid-1950s to early 1960s, and there’s really nothing to say about them except that they’re by the sublime Giovanni Benvenuti.

Above is a 1966 Technicolor lithograph featuring an unidentified model. Well, she’s officially unidentified, but looks to us a lot like 1963 Playboy Playmate/1964 Playmate of the Year Donna Michelle. Trivia time: did you know she posed for the magazine when she was seventeen? Anyway, we can’t be sure this is her, but the resemblance is strong, especially around the eyes. See for yourself below. That's Michelle from her Playboy layout. The same shot as above also appeared on the cover of Caper magazine in November 1964, but the model does not appear inside, and is not credited.