Vintage Pulp

November 28 2013

KAMERA OBSCURA

Harrison Marks couldn’t show everything, so he invited his readers to fill in the blanks.

You know, we rarely tell our friends we run a website. Experience has taught us not to. Those we tell usually comment upon the amount of nudity. Then we explain that Pulp Intl. is a historical site. We didn’t invent the nudity—this is the perversion of your fathers and grandfathers. For some reason that never seems to deflect the criticism, but that’s the way it goes. Anyway, here we go again into realms of historical smut with British photographer Harrison Marks and his famed erotic publication Kamera. The debut issue of this magazine sold over 150,000 copies, according to Marks’ website, and the imprint ran for eleven years, from 1957 to 1968. The cover you see above is issue 80, with model Louise Worth, and we have a few interior scans below. You’ll notice the pubes of the models have been disappeared into secret torture sites or something, but that was mandated by existing laws at the time the photos were made, and really, the allure of the shots is intact. There’s plenty of material online about the life and death of Harrison Marks, so we don’t have to go into more detail. We’ll just add that to enjoy vintage pulp is to spend time drawing connections between that and film noir, sleaze literature, pin-up art, burlesque dancing, early erotic movies, and many other art forms. It’s difficult to say when all those end and porn begins, but we know we haven’t come close. Scans below.

Britain, Kamera Publications Ltd., Kamera, Harrison Marks, Pam Green, Louise Worth, nudity

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

February 12

1961—Soviets Launch Venus Probe

The U.S.S.R. launches the spacecraft Venera 1, equipped with scientific instruments to measure solar wind, micrometeorites, and cosmic radiation, towards planet Venus. The craft is the first modern planetary probe. Among its many achievements, it confirms the presence of solar wind in deep space, but overheats due to the failure of a sensor before its Venus mission is completed.

February 12

1994—Thieves Steal Munch Masterpiece

In Oslo, Norway, a pair of art thieves steal one of the world’s best-known paintings, Edvard Munch’s “The Scream,” from a gallery in the Norwegian capital. The two men take less than a minute to climb a ladder, smash through a window of the National Art Museum, and remove the painting from the wall with wire cutters. After a ransom demand the museum refuses to pay, police manage to locate the painting in May, and the two thieves, as well as two accomplices, are arrested.

February 11

1938—BBC Airs First Sci-Fi Program

BBC Television produces the first ever science fiction television program, an adaptation of a section of Czech writer Karel Capek’s dark play R.U.R., aka, Rossum’s Universal Robots. The robots in the play are not robots in the modern sense of machines, but rather are biological entities that can be mistaken for humans. Nevertheless, R.U.R. featured the first known usage of the term “robot”.

February 10

1962—Powers Is Traded for Abel

Captured American spy pilot Gary Powers, who had been shot down over the Soviet Union in May 1960 while flying a U-2 high-altitude jet, is exchanged for captured Soviet spy Rudolf Abel, who had been arrested in New York City in 1957.

February 9

1960—Woodward Gets First Star on Walk of Fame

Actress Joanne Woodward receives the first star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Los Angeles sidewalk at Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street that serves as an outdoor entertainment museum. Woodward was one of 1,558 honorees chosen by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce in 1958, when the proposal to build the sidewalk was approved. Today the sidewalk contains more than 2,800 stars.

February 9

1971—Paige Enters Baseball Hall of Fame

Satchel Paige becomes the first player from America’s Negro Baseball League to be voted into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Paige, who was a pitcher, played for numerous Negro League teams, had brief stints in Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the Major Leagues, before finally retiring in his mid-fifties.