Vintage Pulp

September 3 2013

SAME OLD STORY

It's true, Gruppenführer, they don't seem like fearsome torturers, but wait—they segue into a comedy bit that could make even Churchill beg for death.

Many men’s magazines had a niche, and Man’s Story’s area of specialization was covers depicting Nazis torturing women. Take a quick scan around the internet and you’ll see what we mean. This uncredited effort from September 1963 illustrates Chuck McCarthy’s, “Soft Bodies for the Nazis’ Hall of the Living Dead,” and as a bonus the two torturers are a stray from a toga party wearing the latest Nazi bling, and a one-eyed Quasimodo type whose mop of hair must be the envy of the Reichstag. Looking in the background, we can see what fate awaits the beleaguered woman—she’ll be sealed in a glass coffin, drugged, but alive and conveniently accessible when her turn comes for future indignities. As the immortal James Brown sang, “This is a man’s, a man’s, a man’s world, but torture would mean nothing without a woman or a girl.” Or at least that’s what the editors of Man’s Story thought. Scans below, and another example of Nazi torture here.

Man’s Story, Chuck McCarthy, magazine art, literature, nazis

Vintage Pulp

February 16 2013

BEDEVILED IN A RED DRESS

It’s the color that says you refuse to go unnoticed.

In fashion they say it takes a confident woman to wear a red dress. In pulp, it takes a woman with a death wish. Below are fourteen pulp, adventure, and detective magazine covers illustrating that point, with art by Bud Parke, George Gross, Barye Phillips and others, as well as a couple of photo-illustrations.

Real Magazine, Manhunt Detective Story Monthly, Master Detective, Police Detective Cases, Terror Detective Story Magazine, Daring Magazine, Dime Detective Magazine, True Detective, True Crime Exposé, Man’s Story, True Magazine, Timely Detective Cases, Bud Parke, George Gross, Barye Phillips, magazine art, true crime magazine

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

November 11

1918—The Great War Ends

Germany signs an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside of CompiÃ¨gne in France, ending The Great War, later to be called World War I. About ten million people died, and many millions more were wounded. The conflict officially stops at 11:00 a.m., and today the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month is annually honored in some European nations with two minutes of silence.

November 10

1924—Dion O'Banion Gunned Down

Dion O’Banion, leader of Chicago’s North Side Gang, is assassinated in his flower shop by members of rival Johnny Torrio’s gang, sparking the bloody five-year war between the North Side Gang and the Chicago Outfit that culminates in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.

November 10

1940—Walt Disney Becomes Informer

Walt Disney begins serving as an informer for the Los Angeles office of the FBI, with instructions to report on Hollywood subversives. He eventually testifies before HUAC, where he fingers several people as Communist agitators. He also accuses the Screen Actors Guild of being a Communist front.

November 9

1921—Einstein Wins Nobel

German theoretical physicist Albert Einstein is awarded the Nobel Prize for his work with the photoelectric effect, a phenomenon in which electrons are emitted from matter as a consequence of their absorption of energy from electromagnetic radiation. In practical terms, the phenomenon makes possible such devices as electroscopes, solar cells, and night vision goggles.

November 9

1938—Kristallnacht Begins

Nazi Germany’s first large scale act of anti-Jewish violence begins after the assassination of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan. The event becomes known as Kristallnacht, and in total the violent rampage destroys more than 250 synagogues, causes the deaths of nearly a hundred Jews, and results in 25,000 to 30,000 more being arrested and sent to concentration camps.

November 8

1923—Hitler Stages Revolt

In Munich, Germany, Adolf Hitler leads the Nazis in the Beer Hall Putsch, an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the German government. Also known as the Hitlerputsch or the Hitler-Ludendorff-Putsch, the attempted coup was inspired by Benito Mussolini’s successful takeover of the Italian government.

November 8

1932—Roosevelt Unveils CWA

U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt unveils the Civil Works Administration, an organization designed to create temporary winter jobs for more than 4 million of the unemployed.