About 20 years ago, I was listening to a CD reissue of Frank Zappa’s WEASELS RIPPED MY FLESH album.
It sparked a flashback to the day in 1970 when I bought the album on vinyl.
I remembered thinking the LP’s gonzo title was a hoot. And, I loved the bizarre cover art – a retro-style cartoon, painted by artist Neon Park.
It shows a vacantly smiling square guy shaving with an, um, electric weasel. The weasel’s teeth are making a bloody gouge in his cheek. Wild!
As I listened to the CD, I decided to search the Web to find some background on the original album.
What I found caused a domino effect that sucked me into the realm of men’s adventure magazines published in the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s – sometimes called men’s pulp magazines or “men’s sweat magazines.”
From various websites, I learned that Zappa got his album title from a story in one of those magazines – the September 1956 issue of MAN’S LIFE.
I found a picture of that issue’s cover online.
It features an incredible painted illustration that’s even more bizarre than the album artwork.
The MAN’S LIFE cover painting (which I later learned was done by one of the great illustration artists who worked for the genre, Wil Hulsey) shows a bare-chested, bleeding, manly man waist-deep in churning water, desperately fighting off a horde of attacking weasels!
And, there in the lower right hand corner is the classic headline for the cover story inside: “WEASELS RIPPED MY FLESH!”
I tracked down a copy of the magazine and read it. It was not what I expected. It’s a dark, noirish story that is as amazingly wild and cool as Wil Hulsey’s cover painting. I was hooked. I started buying more and more men’s adventure magazines through eBay and other sources. (I now have more than 5,000 issues, which I estimate to be nearly 90% of those that were published.)
To learn more about MAMs, I read what were the two most authoritative books about the genre at the time: IT’S A MAN’S WORLD: MEN’S ADVENTURE MAGAZINES, THE POSTWAR PULPS by Adam Parfrey; and MEN’S ADVENTURE MAGAZINES: IN POSTWAR AMERICA by Max Allan Collins and George Hagenauer (which features the awesome collection of magazines and original artwork owned by Rich Oberg).
I also started searching for blogs or websites dedicated to discussions of the men’s postwar pulp magazines. I did find scattered posts about men’s adventure magazines on a number of blogs and websites. I found men’s adventure magazine cover scans on various types of sites.
I also found blogs that focus on the history of related but different genres, like the earlier pulp fiction magazines that ran from the 1920s to the early 1950s and the men’s “girlie” or bachelor magazines of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.
What I didn’t find was what I really wanted – a site that focuses on the post-WWII men’s adventure magazines and the various aspects of the genre: the covers, the artists and writers, the pulp-fiction style stories and “true” non-fiction articles (which tend to severely bend the meaning of the word “true”), the vintage ads, and the other interesting and amusing things those magazines tell us about the men, women, history and culture of the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s.
I couldn’t find any site like that. So, in 2009, I decided to create one myself. You’re reading it now: MensPulpMags.com. A couple years later, I created the Men’s Adventure Magazines Facebook Group, which now has thousands of embers from around the world.
In 2012, I decided to put together a book collecting some of my favorite men’s adventure magazine stories. It was published in January 2013 by New Texture. Naturally, I titled it WEASELS RIPPED MY FLESH! THE ILLUSTRATED MEN’S ADVENTURE ANTHOLOGY.
My co-editors on the WEASELS anthology were writer/publisher Wyatt Doyle, head of New Texture, and writer/musician Josh Alan Friedman, whose father Bruce Jay Friedman was an editor of men’s adventure magazines before he became a world-famous novelist, playwright and screenwriter.
That book includes the original MAN’S LIFE story about flesh-ripping weasels and many other wild stories by notable writers who once wrote for men’s adventure magazines, such as Bruce, Lawrence Block, Jane Dolinger, Harlan Ellison, Walter Kaylin, Ken Krippene, Robert Silverberg and Walter Wager.
There’s also an interview Josh did with Mario Puzo, author of THE GODFATHER, about his time as a writer and Associate Editor for men’s adventure magazines.
Our WEASELS RIPPED MY FLESH! anthology is illustrated with the covers and interior artwork that were used for the stories. And, in 2024, we published a new, bigger, better and more weaselly full color edition in deluxe hardcover and paperback formats.
The success of that first book led Wyatt Doyle and I to publish a series of men’s adventure magazines story anthologies and art books.
There are now 20 books in the series, which we call the Men’s Adventure Library, and more coming.
In 2025, Wyatt and I plan to publish a book featuring men’s adventure magazine art by Gil Cohen. It’s a MAM-focused follow-up to our book featuring Gil’s cover art for Don Pendleton’s long-running Mack Bolan, “The Executioner,” paperback series, ONE MAN ARMY: THE ACTION PAPERBACK ART OF GIL COHEN.
Wyatt and I are also working on second art book showcasing MAM covers by Mort Künstler, a follow-up to the first book we did with him, MORT KÜNSTLER: THE GODFATHER OF PULP FICTION ILLUSTRATORS.
Meanwhile, I’ll be working on new issues of the magazine started co-editing in 2021. That year, I linked up with a second publishing partner, Bill Cunningham, the head of Pulp 2.0 Press.
Together, we launched a lushly illustrated journal that reprints men’s adventure stories and artwork, along with articles about them and related subjects, called the MEN’S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY.
As of the end of 2024, there are now 11 issues of the MAQ available in full color print and Kindle editions, as well as in black-and-white “Noir” editions, via Amazon worldwide.
Bill and I have also collaborated with the great artist Ron Lesser on a series of books featuring his paperback cover, movie poster and gallery artwork.
The first two books in that series are now out. THE ART OF RON LESSER, VOL. 1: DEADLY DAMES AND SEXY SIRENS showcases Ron’s paperback cover and movie poster artwork form the 1960s and 1970s.
THE ART OF RON LESSER VOLUME 2: DANGEROUS DAMES AND COVER DOLLS, which features paintings of sexy women he has done for galleries in more recent decades.
They’re available in both paperback and deluxe hardcover editions on Amazon worldwide or directly from me via my online bookstore.
In 2025, Bill and I will be publishing a third volume, showcasing Ron’s cover art for Western, action/adventure and thriller paperbacks published in the 1980s and 1990s.
This year I turned 75. I’m still having a great time collecting, writing and publishing books and magazines about vintage men’s adventure magazines and illustration artists.
To keep up on my latest projects, subscribe to this blog or join the Men’s Adventure Magazines & Books Facebook Group. There’s also a Facebook group for the MAQ, THE MEN’S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY BRIGADE.
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Comments? Corrections? Post them on the Weasels Ripped My Book Facebook Page, email them to me,
or join the Men’s Adventure Magazines & Books Facebook Group and post them there.