| Vintage Pulp | Jul 12 2012 |
Move your ass, Mary Ann! This lunatic has killed the Skipper, Gilligan, Ginger, and the Howells—and we’re next!
So, we have four or five more issues of the Aussie magazine Adam that we're planning to post, and above you see the cover of one of those, from July 1973. We had been searching around for more issues when out of the blue we got an email from Jim/Australia informing us that he had written for the magazine back in 1975. His stories appeared under the name Mike Rader, and we had posted three issues in which his fiction appeared. Those issues, with the stories “See Rome and Die,” “Deadline Portugal,” and “Hellbound Express” can be seen here, here, and here.
And here’s Jim: In the 1950s-1970s, most Australian writers had few opportunities to sell their work locally. They had to send their work to publishers in the UK. So local magazines like Adam, and pulp fiction houses like Horwitz, inspired and encouraged a lot of Aussie writers to take their first steps. At the time, I was working in advertising, I was time poor but dying to start writing stories, so I targeted Adam. I concocted the name Mike Rader (it sounded like a raider!) and they bought virtually everything I sent in. I found it helped to attach an idea for the illustration with each story—that way they could picture the finished product before they started reading. It was a good discipline for me; I started by dreaming up a movie poster-style scene; if I couldn't think of anything exciting, then I scrapped the story idea and moved on. (Besides which, advertising people are trained to think visually.) What also helped my work sell was the fact I respected the craft; I didn't look down on the genre. By the way, I never met the editor, but I had his letter pinned up on the wall—it said, “We like your stories, please send us more!” Since then, I've written 122 books for children, and books on advertising.
We checked out Jim’s Wikipedia entry, which led us to his publisher’s website and, sure enough, he’s put together a quite impressive bibliography. His million-selling Mr. Midnight series, and his newer Mr. Mystery collection, are both written under the pseudonym James Lee, and are described as being for Asian teens (Jim has lived in Singapore for 20 years). But they’re written in English and we suspect they have plenty of pan-cultural aspects. A few days after we first heard from Jim, he really surprised us by sending in some scans from two issues of Adam in which his fiction appeared. Since we already had today’s post ready to go, we’re going to share those a little later, so keep an eye open for them. In the meantime, enjoy the below scans from July 1973.
Update: a sharp-eyed reader informs us that the model featured in the photo series entitled "Cynthia's Poses" is none other than Rene Bond, who appeared in about 300 x-rated loops and films during the 1970s. Thanks to Rai for soptting that.
AustraliaSingaporeAdam MagazineMr. MysteryMr. MidnightJames LeeMike RaderJim AitchisonRene Bondmagazine artnudity
