Editor’s Note: From August 1 to August 4, my Men’s Adventure Library co-editor, Wyatt Doyle and will be in Pittsburgh at the PulpFest 2024 Convention. As usual, we’ll have a table where we sell and sign copies of our books, we’ll be charring with other vendors and visitors who will be there. And, on Friday at 7pm, we’ll give a presentation that connects the dots between the pre-World War II “Spicy Pulps” and the “spicy” aspects of stories and artwork in the vintage men’s adventure magazines we reprint in our books. Wyatt titled our talk “THE SPICE MUST FLOW.” (If you’re a fan of Frank Herbert you’ll know why that made me chuckle.) I’ll also be bringing copies of the MEN’S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY that I co-edit with Bill Cunningham and THE ART OF RON LESSER, VOL. 1, which I co-edited with Bill, Ron and J. Kingston Pierce.
The theme of this year’s PulpFest is “Spice, Spies, Shaw, and More!”
The “spice” element refers to the “Spicy Pulps” subgenre of pulp magazines that emerged in the 1930s. Those pulps, like SPICY DETECTIVE STORIES, SPICY-ADVENTURE STORIES AND SPICY MYSTERY STORIES and SPICY WESTERN STORIES, featured risqué cover art with scantily-clad women and stories that were forerunners of men’s adventure mags that featured such covers and stories.
The “spies” part of the theme refers to spy-related pulps like SECRET AGENT X and SECRET SERVICE OPERATOR #5. The “Shaw” part is an homage to the influential pulp editor Joseph T. “Cap” Shaw. Shaw was the first and most notable editor of classic pulp magazine BLACK MASK, which pioneered the “hardboiled” genre of crime and detective fiction.
The “And More” part of the “Spice, Spies, Shaw, and More!” includes two annual sub-fests that are part of Pulpfest. One is the annual ERBFest, a series of events and presentations about the legendary author Edgar Rice Burroughs. The other is a FarmerCon, the annual convention for fans of author Philip José Farmer.
Recently, PulpFest organizer and bookseller Mike Chomko wrote a post about us and our coming presentation for the PulpFest website. Here’s part of what he wrote, reposted from the PulpFest website…
“The Spice Must Flow!” by Mike Chomko
Bob Deis and Wyatt Doyle have been regaling enthusiastic PulpFest audiences with their takes on the men’s adventure magazines of the late 20th century ever since 2018. Their presentation a year ago even led to a widely acclaimed book — ATOMIC WEREWOLVES AND MAN-EATING PLANTS: WHEN MEN’S ADVENTURE MAGAZINES GOT WEIRD.
They’re back at PulpFest 2024 with a presentation on how the “spice” of the “girlie pulps” and Harry Donenfeld’s and Frank Armer’s “Spicy” magazines evolved and mutated in both stories and artwork for the men’s adventure magazine era.
Dancing around sex through suggestive phrasing and artwork, Culture Publications deftly kept the do-gooders at bay . . . at least for a time. A decade or two later, the men’s adventure magazines performed a similar feat, delivering cover and interior art promising far more explicitness than they actually delivered.
Please join PulpFest 2024 at 6:55 pm on Friday, August 2, as we welcome Bob Deis and Wyatt Doyle to the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry in Mars, Pennsylvania for “The Spice Must Flow! Pulp Spice in the Men’s Adventure Magazines.”
PulpFest 2024 begins on August 1 and runs through August 4 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry in Mars, Pennsylvania. We’ll be celebrating “Spice, Spies, Shaw, and More” at this year’s convention.
The general public is welcome to attend our evening programming events free of charge. To learn more about our programming, click this link to se the full schedule
Below are a few examples of classic “spicy pulp” covers: SPICY-ADVENTURES STORIES, August 1938 (cover by Harry L. Parkhurst), SPICY MYSTERY STORIES, February 1939 (cover by William F. Soare), and SPICY WESTERN STORIES, June 1942 (cover by Allen Anderson).
And, here are a few “spicy” style men’s adventure magazines covers: ALL MAN, May 1959 (art by Clarence Doore), MAN TO MAN, December 1960 (art by Syd Shores), and ADVENTURE, February 1967 (art by Vic Prezio).
The image used for Bob and Wyatt’s presentation (at the top of this post) was adapted by Wyatt Doyle from Samson Pollen’s interior illustration for Emile C. Schurmacher’s story “The Girl from Singapore,” featured in the September 1957 issue of MALE.
The clack-and-white image below is the original interior painting by Mort Künstler used for the story “My Life with New Guinea’s Amazon Women,” an article by Conrad Strick that appeared in STAG, September 1957.
Like the spicy pulps, the cover art and interior illustrations used by men’s adventure magazine often promised a lot more than the stories inside actually delivered, until court decisions whittled away at censorship laws in the late 1960s.
“’Throw ’em a few hot words,’ was Martin Goodman’s edict when a nervous editor suggested heating things up a bit for sales. These were along the lines of ‘heaving breasts,’ ‘long shapely legs,’ or ‘a flash of pink panties.’ It may be that a ‘dark triangle’ or two slipped by, but I rather doubt it.“
That observation quoting men’s adventure magazine publisher Martin Goodman, was written by the late Goodman MAM editor Bruce Jay Friedman. It comes from his article “Even the Rhinos Were Nymphos,” which is included in Bob and Wyatt’s anthology WEASELS RIPPED MY FLESH!
Bob and Wyatt will be debuting a new, full color, expanded edition of that anthology at this year’s PulpFest. I think fans of their books will enjoy it.
EDITOR’S POSTSCRIPT: In fact, at PulpFest 2024, Wyatt and I will be debuting two new editions of books in our Men’s Adventure Library series. We’ll also have copies of all of our previous books. If you’re there, stop by to check them out and say “Hi.”
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Books currently in our Men’s Adventure Library series…
