Back in the 1950s, most hunters read mainstream fare like OUTDOOR LIFE and SPORTS AFIELD.
But for brief period, men who liked hunting magazines that were a bit spicier could buy HUNTING ADVENTURES at their local newsstand.
HUNTING ADVENTURES was a hunting mag on steroids AND testosterone.
Along with the usual stories about great white hunters killing and maiming animals (and/or natives) in remote places, it offered exotic pulp adventure yarns that usually featured scantily-clad, sex-hungry women of one sort or another.
HUNTING ADVENTURES was published quarterly by Newsstand Publications, a subsidiary of Magazine Management from the fall of 1954 to the spring of 1957.
Today, old copies are not abundant. I only have of 9 of the 11 issues that were published in my own collection so far. And, I treasure them all.
One of my favorites is the Summer 1956 issue, which has fantastic cover painting by Rafael DeSoto.
It’s one of the DeSoto covers featured in Adam Parfrey’s must-have book about the men’s adventure genre, IT’S A MAN’S WORLD: MEN’S ADVENTURE MAGAZINES, THE POSTWAR PULPS.
DeSoto was a Hispanic American artist who painted many covers for pre-WWII pulp magazines and then for the post-WWII men’s pulp adventure mags.
His painting for the Summer 1956 issue of HUNTING ADVENTURES, with its translucent snake, is pure pulp psychedelia.
The wildest of a number of wild yarns inside is the story: “I WAS A SLAVE OF THE SAVAGE BLONDE,” subtitled “A fantastic adventure in Paraguay’s lost world.”
Yep, it’s a good, old-fashioned love slave story set in an exotic locale, a favorite theme in men’s pulp mags.
The protagonist in this one is a field botanist who seeks out jungle plants that could provide new wonder drugs, much like Wade Davis, the author of the great Haitian voodoo and zombie tale THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW.
In fact, the hero of the HUNTING ADVENTURES also runs into zombies of a sort.
After surviving some animal attacks, he gets captured by a tribe that’s ruled by an iconic white queen.
The natives call her a “Bruja Rubia,” which basically translates as a red-hot blonde sorceress or witch.
Using a drug from a local plant, she turns the men of the tribe — and any hapless white guys they capture — into mindless slaves.
The “lucky” ones get to be her lover. But when she tires of them, she has them killed in horrific ways.
The field botanist in the story gets lucky, for a while. Then…
Well, I’ll let you find out for yourself. I’ve posted the entire yarn for your pulp-reading pleasure.
Just click here to download it as a PDF file. Happy hunting!
By the way, if you like “I WAS A SLAVE OF THE SAVAGE BLONDE,” keep an eye out for the anthology of men’s adventure stories I’m editing.
It’s set for publication in the summer of 2012. Click the image or link below for more info…
Click this link or the image above for more information about the
forthcoming men’s adventure anthology WEASELS RIPPED MY FLESH.
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