Syd Shores, Mel Crair, evil Nazis, crawling death and man killing nymphos…

My previous post featured some great “sweat magazine” style cover paintings by the legendary comics and magazine artist Sydney “Syd” Shores, from the collection of my friend Rich Oberg, the…

Men’s “sweat magazine” art from the Rich Oberg Collection – Part 1: Mel Crair covers

Bondage and torture cover art and stories are fairly common features of some vintage men’s adventure magazines. The most notorious and most sought after are the Nazi B&T covers —…

Talking with J. Kingston Pierce about artist Ron Lesser…

EDITOR’S NOTE: J. Kingston Pierce is one of the world’s foremost experts on crime novels and vintage paperback cover art. For almost six years, he was the lead crime-fiction blogger…

The MEN’S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY #10, the Vietnam War Issue (full color edition)

The MEN’S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY #10, the Vietnam issue, reprints some of the best men’s adventure magazine stories about the Vietnam War published in the 1960s and 1970s. They include a story by Mario Puzo, author of THE GODFATHER, first published under the pseudonym he used for the many MAM stories he wrote early in his career, Mario Cleri and a story about Barry Sadler and his song “Ballad of the Green Berets.” In addition to story reprints, MAQ #10 features a special Art Gallery section showcasing other Vietnam War cover paintings by Mel Crair, articles about Vietnam War novel series by vintage paperback expert and writer Paul Bishop, author Nicholas Cain’s account of the making of the movie based on his novel SAIGON COMMANDOS, a photo feature about Raquel Welch’s 1967 USO Tour to Vietnam with Bob Hope, and a unique article by MAQ Co-Editor and designer Bill Cunningham about the now nearly forgotten PS MAGAZINE comics designed to educate GI’s about preventive maintenance on their guns, featuring artwork by Will Eisner, creator of THE SPIRIT.

The MAQ is an 8″x10″ paperback with 171 pages printed on high quality paper. If you buy the full color print edition via this bookstore, shipping in the US is free. I don’t ship internationally via this site, but I do via my eBay listings, at this link.

Print and Digital Replica ebook editions of MAQ #10 are available on Amazon in the US, Amazon UK, Amazon Australia, Amazon Canada, Amazon Germany, and other Amazons worldwide.

MEN’S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY #10, the Vietnam War issue – Preview Part 2

My previous post on this blog provided a preview of the first half of Issue #10 of the MEN’S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY, the magazine I co-edit with book designer and head…

MEN’S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY #10, the Vietnam War issue – Preview Part 1

Issue #10 of the MEN’S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY, the magazine I co-edit with book designer Bill Cunningham (who is also my co-editor on THE ART OF RON LESSER series), was released…

NEW! THE ART OF RON LESSER, VOL. 1: DEADLY DAMES AND SEXY SIRENS

I didn’t plan it this way, but two books I co-edited were recently released at the same time on Amazon worldwide: THE ART OF RON LESSER, VOL. 1: DEADLY DAMES…

Pollen’s Action: The Art of Samson Pollen (DELUXE HARDCOVER ART BOOK)

This listing is for a brand new copy of the book POLLEN’S ACTION: THE ART OF SAMSON POLLEN, co-edited by Robert Deis and Wyatt Doyle with Sam. Samson Pollen (1931–2018), was one of the great men’s adventure magazine and paperback artists, along with artists like Mort Künstler, James Bama, Gil Cohen, Bruce Minney, Vic Prezio, Mel Crair, and Basil Gogos.

He was one of the grandmasters of interiors illustrations for stories that appeared in men’s adventure magazines published by Martin Goodman’s Magazine Management Company in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.
Magazine Management (which also launched the Marvel comics empire) published some of the best and longest-lasting MAMs, such as ACTION FOR MEN, FOR MEN ONLY, MALE, MAN’S WORLD, MEN, STAG, and TRUE ACTION.

Unlike most other top artists who did artwork for those periodicals, Pollen preferred to do interior illustrations rather than cover art. He liked the greater room for expression provided by the 2-page spreads most MAM interior artwork was used for. Thus, most of the paintings are a horizontal format, designed to be printed across two pages in a magazine. Some were printed across two pages vertically, like a centerfold.

Only a small percentage of the interior spreads in the Magazine Management men’s magazines were published in full color. Most were either black-and-white illustrations or “duotones”— paintings created with and printed in shades of a single color and black.

Pollen was a grandmaster of both black-and-white and duotone art. Indeed, many of his duotones look like they are full color. POLLEN’S ACTION reproduces scores of classic MAM original paintings by Pollen along with scans of the 2-page magazine spreads they were used. It’s a follow-up to POLLEN’S WOMEN: THE ART OF SAMSON POLLEN, which focuses on MAM artwork Sam did that feature alluring femmes fatales and exotic “native” girls.

To do justice Pollen’s artwork, both of those volumes are printed in a horizontal 8.5″ x 11″ format. Thus, the paintings he created for 2-page spreads in the magazines are shown on single pages in the book. Both books are deluxe hardcovers printed on high quality paper.

The majority of the photos of the original paintings included POLLEN’S ACTION and POLLEN’S WOMEN were taken by Pollen himself. Almost none of these original paintings have been shown in any other art books before.

A third book in the series, POLLEN IN PRINT: 1955-1959, is a chronological presentation of Pollen’s work as it was first seen by MAM readers in the pages of men’s adventure magazines published between 1955 and 1959.

All three Pollen books were co-edited by Robert Deis and Wyatt Doyle and include commentary by Sam Pollen taken from interviews Deis and Doyle recorded with him before he passed. All are published via Doyle’s New Texture imprint and are available from Amazon worldwide, BudsArtBooks.com and other independent booksellers, or directly from co-editor Bob Deis via his MensPulpMags.com website.

You can see an extensive flip-page preview of POLLEN’S ACTION by clicking this link

About our book POLLEN IN PRINT: 1955-1959

Artist Samson Pollen created hundreds of classic illustrations for the men’s adventure magazines (MAMs, for short) published in the 1950s, 1960s and 197os. He was one of the top illustrators who…

POLLEN IN PRINT 1955-1959, our new Samson Pollen art book

EDITOR’S NOTE: This post refers to the special edition of POLLEN IN PRINT 1955-1959 that came with perks via an Indiegogo campaign listing. That campaign has ended. However, the book…

MEN’S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY #1, “The Most Wanted Wild West Issue”

Recently, I joined forces with Bill Cunningham, head of Pulp 2.0 Press, to launch a new 155-page, full color, 8″x10″ magazine that reprints stories and illustrations from men’s adventure magazines…

“Men’s Adventure Magazines and the Art of War” – a PulpFest presentation (Part 1)…

PulpFest is one of the biggest and best annual pulp-related conventions in the country. It’s a descendant of PulpCon, a pioneering event that ran annually from 1972 to 2008. In…