Pulp International

vintage and modern pulp fiction; noir, schlock and exploitation films; scandals, swindles and news

BLAZE OF GLORY

Daring men can be fun, but sometimes she wonders if she should have stayed with that accountant from Wichita.

The cover of Adam magazine from this month in 1962 is simpler than normal but very effective too. Instead of the usual three figures, you get the lone woman with an explosion in the background. It pairs with Jay Edmond’s short story “The Deadly Angel,” about a test pilot’s wife whose husband dies in the fictional X-20 jet (modeled after jets like the Bell X-1 flown by Chuck Yeager). After her husband goes down in flames Lorrie Chambers takes up with another pilot, who also dies during a test flight. Then she takes up with another who dies, and another. Protagonist Len Jacobs meets her in a bar the night before his own X-20 test flight. Is Lorrie a jinx, or is she suffering a run of otherworldly bad luck? He’s advised not to go near her, but he can’t stay away because she’s beautiful—of course—and he can’t back out of the test. So the story concludes with his flight into the stratosphere. Does he survive? The cover tells you. We’ll just say the story was an interesting change from the tiger hunts and treacherous fatales you usually get in Adam.

In terms of art and photography there’s less than in later issues, especially those from the mid-seventies and onward. You get a mere five model pages. The inside back cover features one with slicked back hair in a pool. Whoever photographed her may have been in love with Grace Kelly. He posed his blonde exactly the way Howell Conant famously posed Kelly in Jamaica in 1955 for a cover of Collier’s magazine. We’ve added an inset of that shot.

Australia, Adam Magazine, Collier's, Jack Waugh, Jay Edmond, Grace Kelly, Howell Conant, magazine art, cinema

ROYAL T&A

As queens go she's less formal than most.

It’s been several years, so we’re revisiting the art of Oscar Liebman today with this cover for Ken Kane’s 1964 novel Strip Tease Queen. You may remember Liebman’s work intrigued us from the first. We knew it was unique and eye-pleasing, but we weren’t sure if that belief was merely our preference, or something more objective. It turned out it was objective—Liebman gained wide recognition in the art world. He attended the Art Students League of New York during the 1930s on a scholarship, and eventually painted posters for many Broadway musicals including Man of La Mancha and West Side Story. Later he produced book covers and illustrated stories in major magazines, including Collier’s. Sometimes you have to attune your eyes and brain to an unfamiliar style. Now that we’ve done that we can see how awesome his work is.

We managed to find this copy of Strip Tease Queen at an inexpensive price, and it tells the story of Kit Forbes, who wants “all the luxuries of the world” and is willing to do anything to get them. After marrying a wealthy man only to have his father disown him, she heads to Miami for a divorce and, running low on cash, takes a job as a burlesque dancer. Everything in this book is as expected except one aspect: Kit seems to have a crush on her brother Gregg! (every time she thinks his name it’s with an exclamation mark). Here’s how Kane writes Kit’s arrival to Miami: No one was meeting her, but there was someone she must see. Gregg! The thought made her pulse beat faster.

Okay. So Gregg! is why she went to Miami in the first place, but when Kit arrives he’s nowhere to be found. Hmm. Turns out the guy is a crook and scoundrel hiding from the cops. Swooping in during the wee hours, he borrows every cent Kit possesses and loses it, then takes more without bothering to ask. She finally catches on that he’s bad news, and declines to protect him from the police just when he needs it most. In the end she settles down with her sometime boyfriend Jim. Interestingly, the whole Gregg! subtext is a red herring. Kit never has a sexual encounter with him, nor comes very close, so we guess it was a tactic by Kane to keep incest fetishists turning the pages. Do we understand it? No, not in the least. You can pass on Strip Tease Queen. Seriously.

New York City, Art Students League, Miami, L.S. Publications Corp., Gaslight Books, Collier's, Man of La Mancha, West Side Story, Ken Kane, Oscar Liebman, cover art, literature

PERFECT DATES

Highlights of the year 1955.

We last saw Bill Randall’s art on the cover of Ed Lacy’s 1951 novel The Woman Aroused, and mentioned then that he was better known as one of the major pin-up artists of his era. In case you haven’t sought out his copious work in that field, above and below we have for you one of his popular pin-up calendars. This one, Bill Randall’s Date Book, is from 1955 and is one of many he published during the 1950s bearing that title. In fact, we’ve seen Date Book calendars for every year of the decade except 1950, and he continued publishing them into the 1960s. All the while he painted illustrations for magazines such as Esquire, The Saturday Evening Post, and Collier’s, and worked extensively in advertising. Hopefully we’ll revisit this top notch talent in the future.

Esquire, The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's, Bill Randall, William Randall

LEFT FOR DEAD

Whew. I think I finally lost him. What a moron he is. What a klutz. What a big stupid fat balding jerk.

Like they teach you in driving class, look left, then right, then left again. Or is it the other way around? Whichever direction, you want to look a lot to avoid a potential fatality. More Beautiful than Murder tells the story of a man on trial for murder whose alibi is the testimony of his girlfriend, who was with him the night of the killing. Only one problem—he doesn’t have a girlfriend and has never seen the woman on the witness stand before. But it all starts to make sense after he’s acquitted and sucked into even more danger, including a few more killings. The main character is a guy named Steve Blake but the book is part of a series featuring author Octavus Roy Cohen’s creation Lieutenant Marty Walsh. Originally serialized in Collier’s magazine and published in 1948, this Popular Library paperback appeared in ’52, and the cover art, with its amazingly garbed Jane Russellian femme fatale, was painted by Rudolph Belarski.

Popular Library, Collier's, Octavus Roy Cohen, Rudolph Belarski, cover art, literature

WITCHES OF WASHINGTON, D.C.

Collier’s goes looking for the commies but finds something else entirely.

Collier’s isn’t the most visually striking of magazines, but this issue that hit newsstands today in 1954 caught our eye because it contains several nice photos of Marilyn Monroe. There’s also a bit of interesting graphic art, specifically a colorful baseball illustration by Willard Mullin. The other item that attracted us was a story called “What Price Security?” about U.S. government overreach in its search for communists. No art to speak of, but the content gives a window onto the Red Scare period of American life. Author Charlotte Knight tells readers that government efforts against communism have been “so irresponsibly administered that it may have done more harm to the United States than to its enemies.” Sound familiar?

Knight slams witch hunting Senator Joseph McCarthy, and characterizes the fervor around alleged subversives in Washington, D.C. as creating a ripe environment for paranoiacs and liars to ruin innocent people. But of course, as well written as Knight’s article is, she should not have been surprised by anything she discovered. Witch hunts always become vehicles for revenge, personal advancement, and profiteering, because society and politics become warped in such a way as to clear a path for these pursuits. History invariably judges such periods as human tragedies and political failures, though sadly, too late for the ruined and the dead. Scans below.

Collier’s, House Un-American Activities Committee, HUAC, Marilyn Monroe, Charlotte Knight, Willard Mullin, Joseph McCarthy, magazine art, communism
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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1989—Anti-Feminist Gunman Kills 14

In Montreal, Canada, at the École Polytechnique, a gunman shoots twenty-eight young women with a semi-automatic rifle, killing fourteen. The gunman claimed to be fighting feminism, which he believed had ruined his life. After the killings he turns the gun on himself and commits suicide.

1933—Prohibition Ends in United States

Utah becomes the 36th U.S. state to ratify the 21st Amendment to the United States Constitution, thus establishing the required 75% of states needed to overturn the 18th Amendment which had made the sale of alcohol illegal. But the criminal gangs that had gained power during Prohibition are now firmly established, and maintain an influence that continues unabated for decades.

1945—Flight 19 Vanishes without a Trace

During an overwater navigation training flight from Fort Lauderdale, five U.S. Navy TBM Avenger torpedo-bombers lose radio contact with their base and vanish. The disappearance takes place in what is popularly known as the Bermuda Triangle.

1918—Wilson Goes to Europe

U.S. President Woodrow Wilson sails to Europe for the World War I peace talks in Versailles, France, becoming the first U.S. president to travel to Europe while in office.

1921—Arbuckle Manslaughter Trial Ends

In the U.S., a manslaughter trial against actor/director Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle ends with the jury deadlocked as to whether he had killed aspiring actress Virginia Rappe during rape and sodomy. Arbuckle was finally cleared of all wrongdoing after two more trials, but the scandal ruined his career and personal life.

1964—Mass Student Arrests in U.S.

In California, Police arrest over 800 students at the University of California, Berkeley, following their takeover and sit-in at the administration building in protest at the UC Regents’ decision to forbid protests on university property.

1968—U.S. Unemployment Hits Low

Unemployment figures are released revealing that the U.S. unemployment rate has fallen to 3.3 percent, the lowest rate for almost fifteen years. Going forward all the way to the current day, the figure never reaches this low level again.

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WALKING AFTER MIDNIGHT

Cover art by the great Sandro Symeoni for Peter Cheyney's mystery He Walked in her Sleep, from Ace Books in 1949.

PARIS BLEUS

The mysterious artist who signed his or her work as F. Harf produced this beautiful cover in 1956 for the French publisher S.E.P.I.A.

RAISE EM UP

Aslan art was borrowed for many covers by Dutch publisher Uitgeverij A.B.C. for its Collection Vamp. The piece used on Mike Splane's Nachtkatje is a good example.

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