Pulp International

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

ANNUAL CELEBRATION

Man Junior rings in the new year Down Under style.


We’ve shared a few issues of Australia’s Man and Man Junior magazines. Like all men’s publications they featured the combination of fact and fiction, sport and adventure, humor, and alluring women. And like many men’s magazines, they published annuals—year-end or year-beginning collections of the best of the previous 365 days. That’s what we have for you today—Man Junior‘s annual for 1965. It avoids any possibility of intellectual enrichment by focusing only on the primal—lust and laughs. Stripped down to nothing but glamour photos and cartoons, the magazine lays bare the fact that text is mere legitimization, a means of de-perving the visual content. Who’d buy an annual if it contained only dubious reporting and short stories? Not many people, we’d wager. These mags were all about the id. We have plenty of that below, with thirty scans. They comprise lovely women such as Betty Brosmer, Christine Aarons, and, in the final panel, June Wilkinson. The cartoons are beautifully colorful, if only occasionally successful as humor. We have more coming from Man and Man Junior in the future.

Australia, K.G. Murray Publishing Co., Man Magazine, Man Junior, Phil Belbin, Humph, Christine Aarons, Betty Brosmer, June Wilkinson, magazine art

JUNIOR LEAGUE

What it lacks in maturity it makes up for in exuberance.


Above you see a cover of the Australian magazine Man Junior, which hit newsstands Down Under this month in 1963. An offshoot of Man magazine, it came from K.G. Murray Publishing, along with Adam, Pocket Man, Eves from Adam, Cavalcade, Man’s Epic, et al. The Murray empire, run by Kenneth G. Murray, came into being in 1936, and the company’s various imprints lasted until 1978—though the entire catalog was bought by Consolidated Press in the early 1970s. We’ve seen nothing from K.G. Murray that we don’t love, so we’ll keep adding to our stocks indefinitely. Or until the Pulp Intl. girlfriends finally revolt, which should take a few more years. Speaking of which, it’s been a few years since our last Man Junior, but its positives and negatives are still intimately familiar to us. On the plus side, the fiction and true life tales are exotic and often good, and on the negative side the humor doesn’t usually hold up, though the color cartoons are aesthetically beautiful.

Of all the stories, the one that screamed loudest to be read was, “The Hair-Raisers,” by Neville Dasey, which comes with an illustration of a bearded woman. It’s an absurd, legitimately funny story about a con man who accidentally invents a hair growing tonic, which he then unintentionally splashes on his date’s face. By the next morning she has a beard, which proves the tonic works, but the con man lost the magic liquid when he stilled it, and he ends up losing the formula to create it. But everyone ends up happy—the con man earns a contract that pays him regardless of whether he can recreate the formula, and his date ends up marrying the owner of the hair restoration company. We weren’t clear on whether the formula wore off, or she had to shave regularly. Either way, the story is meant to be silly and it certainly achieves that goal. Twenty-eight panels below, and more from Man Junior here, here, and here.

Australia, K.G. Murray Publishing Co., Man Junior, Jack Waugh, Phil Belbin, Humph, Neville Dasey, Kenneth G. Murray, magazine art, literature

SANTA AT THE BEACH

Well, at least I got you to take off your hat. Now let's do something about that red suit.

The uncredited cover artist for this issue of Australia’s Man Junior magazine published in August of 1957 probably never noticed he made his cover subject look like she was dressed as Santa Claus. You see that, right? With the white hair and red towel behind her? Totally looks like Santa’s hat. In our dirty imaginations, we see her as Mrs. Claus, and she’s forced Santa to finally wind down in Jamaica or Seychelles after years without a vacation. She’s gotten his hat off, and once he gets a few mai tais in him he’ll strip off the red suit and start cavorting around in a Speedo. End up all sweaty and sunburned on YouTube captioned, “Fat guy totally goes off on beach.” And on the video there’s Santa screaming about how the north pole is in his swim trunks. Yes, we got all that from a simple cover illustration. Trust us, you wouldn’t want to be stuck inside our heads. Oh, and it is a painting, not a photo, by the way. Anyway, we have nineteen panels from this magazine below, and about forty more Aussie men’s magazines, mostly Adam, that we’ll start scanning and uploading as soon as we can pull ourselves away from all the summer activities around our town. So probably not until autumn. In the meantime, see more from Man Junior here, here, and here.

Australia, Man Junior, magazine art

MAN OF THE ARTS

Junior's growing up so very fast.

Like other mid-century men’s magazines, Australia’s Man Jr. focused on text and art during its early years, but dwelled more on women and nudity during its twilight. This November 1949 issue has plenty of art. Below you’ll find story illustrations, cartoons, and more, and you can expand your appreciation of Man Jr. by clicking here and here.

Australia, Man Junior, Man Magazine, magazine art

MAN’S WORLD

Man Junior introduces readers to some favorite spots.

Below, the cover and assorted imterior scans from Australia’s Man Junior, July 1955. The models, including the polka-dotted cover star, are unidentified. You can see another issue of Man Junior here.

Australia, Man Junior, magazine art

LITTLE BIG MAN

Junior is every bit as grown up as its father.

From K.G. Murray Publishing Co., the group that would later produce Adam magazine, comes this October 1948 issue of Man Junior, which you may already know was the offspring of Murray’s flagship publication Man. We showed you one of those here. Both magazines featured art, fiction, cartoons, and glamour photography, but Man Junior was of smaller dimensions—in fact pocket sized. It launched in 1937 and was an immediate success. The cover art above, signed Val, is uncredited, but inside you get illustrations from Arthur Nichol, Jack Waugh, and others, plus an adventure from the immensely popular comic character Devil Doone, who was created by R. Carson Gold, first appeared in Man Junior in 1945, and was drawn during this period by Hart Amos. You also get a pretty cool photo of American actress Janet Blair, who we shared a portrait of just a couple of weeks ago, and of special note are two nude studies from famed British photographer John Everard. We’ll have more samples form Kenneth Murray’s publishing empire soon.

Australia, Kenneth G. Murray, Man Junior, Arthur Nichol, Phil Belbin, Jack Waugh, R. Carson Gold, Devil Doone, Hart Amos, Janet Blair, John Everard, magazine art
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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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