Vintage Pulp

July 16 2022

HANDS-ON GOVERNANCE

Stop resisting us! We're politicians! We know what's best for women!

Above is a July 1977 issue of Adam magazine with cover art illustrating Alex Tait’s short story “Sweet Revenge.” Tait was popular with the editors. We’ve run into him previously here and here, and both times he got the cover. This one deals with a man who’s nearly killed by a jealous husband and subsequently learns that he’d been chosen by the cheating wife with that exact outcome in mind. She’d been having a longtime affair with an acquaintance of her husband, but had no way to get free from her marriage and maintain her financial security. So she chose the protagonist for a little nookie because he resembled her lover, and she figured if she engineered it so he was caught in bed with her and killed, her husband would go to prison and she’d retain his fortune and be free to continue her affair with lover number 1 in peace.

It’s a clever plot idea, but it’s actually a near-direct copy of the central twist in Day Keene’s 1954 novel Joy House. The plan in “Sweet Revenge” fails because Tait’s protagonist isn’t killed. Once he realizes what was behind his terrifying fight for survival he takes revenge on the femme fatale. The payback is nothing too awful—after trapping her and her lover in her bedroom, he rigs her house to billow smoke so the fire brigade shows up and catches her en flagranti, the point being to expose her to her stuffy neighbors and ruin her reputation. The whole time the cheated-upon husband has been lurking, watching, and afterward approaches the protagonist, and it’s seemingly the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Tait’s fiction is a bit better than most you find in Adam, in our opinion. It’s very visual, anyway.

Elsewhere among the issue’s one-hundred pages is a factual story about something called the Green Goddess. The name intrigued us. What in the world could the Green Goddess be? Why, it’s Cannabis sativa/ruderalis/indica, maryjane, chronic, weed, smoke, indo, dope, etc. We should have guessed. The story is mainly an informative overview of the plant’s origins, uses, and references in ancient literature. It made us want to get high. Adam later offers up popular glamour model Nicki Debuse in four photo pages, and Swedish beauty Anita Hemmings, aka Annika Salomonsson, in one. The Hemmings/Salomonsson shot is unrecognizable facially, but we knew it was her just from the shape of her lovely body. Note to Adam editors: smoke less, print better. Thirty-eight scans below.

Australia, Adam Magazine, Nicki Debuse, Anita Hemmings, Annika Salomonsson, Alex Tait, magazine art, literature

Vintage Pulp

October 15 2021

FIGHT OR FLIGHT

Drug enforcement agents and heroin dealers settle their issues Outback.

We just shared a 1950 issue of Adam last week, but since it was too fragile for us to scan it all here’s a second one, more completely documented. This hit Aussie newsstands this month in 1975 and you see the bright colors and dynamic art that was its trademark in those years. The cover illustrates Alex Tait’s tale, “The Raw Deal,” which has to do with two undercover agents setting up a sale of pure heroin in order to take down a drug ring. The two agents, male and female, are posing as a couple, and as happens in fiction, the posing turns into reality. Interestingly, they have little choice because the villains have installed a two-way mirror in the agents’ quarters and are keeping watch. So it’s either get busy or blow their cover. The helicopter on the cover is the cavalry coming to the rescue right when it looks like the two agents will be executed. Adam‘s illustrations, at least from the early 1960s onward, were never generic. They were always tailor-made for a story in the magazine. Since most of the writers were relatively inexperienced, we can only imagine how thrilling it must have been for them to see their work represented this way. We have twenty-eight scans below for your enjoyment.

Australia, Adam Magazine, Alex Tait, magazine art, literature

Vintage Pulp

May 29 2013

LITTLE RED HIDING HOOD

Adam treats its readers to a classic tale of copters and robbers.

We have a late stage issue of Australia’s Adam for you, published this month in 1977, which was just a year from the magazine’s shuttering after a four decade run. The cover art is by the usual unidentified house artisan, illustrating Alex Tait’s alpine wilderness adventure “The Cold Season.” Tait’s tale ends with a funny little James Bond-style quip: the hero shoots the helicopter, scores a lucky hit, and the craft blows to pieces. Next line, uttered by a red-hooded femme named Shay: “Explosive character he turned out to be.” Thirty-nine pages of fact, fiction and humor, inclduing a nice shot of model Nicki Debuse in panel four, all below.

Australia, Adam Magazine, Alex Tait, Nicki Debuse, nudity, magazine art, literature

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

October 12

1978—Sid Vicious Arrested for Murder

Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious is arrested on suspicion of murder after the body of his girlfriend Nancy Spungen is found in their room at New York City’s Chelsea Hotel. Vicious and Spungen had a famously stormy relationship, but Vicious proclaims he is innocent. He is released on bail and dies of a heroin overdose before a trial takes place.

October 12

1979—Adams Publishes First Hitchhiker's Book

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the first of five books in a series, is published by Douglas Adams. The novels follow on the heels of the tremendously successful British television series of the same name.

October 11

1976—China Coup Thwarted

The new head of the Chinese Communist Party, Hua Goufeng, snuffs out a coup led by Chairman Mao’s widow Jiang Qing and three other party members. They become known as the Gang of Four, and are tried, found guilty of treason, and receive death sentences that are later commuted to lengthy prison terms.

October 11

1987—Loch Ness Expedition Ends

A sonar exploration of Scotland’s Loch Ness, called Operation Deepscan, ends after a week without finding evidence that the legendary Loch Ness Monster exists. While the flotilla of boats had picked up three sonar contacts indicating something large in the waters, these are considered to be detections of salmon schools or possibly seals.

October 10

1971—London Bridge Goes Up

After being sold, dismantled and moved to the United States, London Bridge reopens in the resort town of Lake Havasu City, Arizona.

October 10

1975—Burton and Taylor Marry Again

British actor Richard Burton and American screen star Elizabeth Taylor secretly remarry sixteen months after their divorce, then jet away to a second honeymoon in Chobe Game Park in Botswana.

October 9

1967—Che Executed in Bolivia

A day after being captured, Marxist revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara is executed in Bolivia. In an attempt to make it appear as though he had been killed resisting Bolivian troops, the executioner shoots Guevara with a machine gun, wounding him nine times in the legs, arm, shoulder, throat, and chest.