taschen "mens adventure"

has anybody seen/purchased the recent
taschen publication honoring Mens Adventure
Magazines in Postwar America....over 500
pages of fantastic cover art from the
pulp magazines of the 50s thru early 70s...
even some tiki type idols...guys and buxom
gals being attacked by everything from
weasels and spider monkeys...to nazis and
bikers....fantastic fun in the typically
reverent taschen style. buy it....but
hide it from your mom!

I've seen it and it looks fuggin' great!
Sadly, I doubt my wife will put a copy in my Christmas socking.....

I've a few of these old mags and these days you can have them out in open display as they are so tame. Saying that, the young ladies they show off have 100% more sex appeal than the million and one Britanny Spears lookalikes that plague the world these days.

Trader Woody

I would suggest instead, Adam Parfrey's book 'It's a Man's World - Men's Adventure Magazines, the Postwar Pulps ' - you can find it for sale at amazon.com for around $19.

Parfrey's book is of good quality - it is hardcover, and the design and layout are a notch higher than Taschen's publication, which is softcover. Both books feature lots of bright, lurid, magazine covers and illustrations, and there probably isn't any real need to have both books in your collection.

Vern

I bought BOT from Taschen's website and the Men's Adventure Magazines book caught my eye, and I bought it too. I think it's fantastic, and find it very interesting how that little corner of pop culture history kind of dovetails with tiki/exotica. No doubt, the sexism, racism, and xenophobia of the mags is something I would very much like not to associate with tiki art and music (but let's face it, political correctness isn't tiki's strong point either). But I guess the sensationalism of the "exotic," the projection of sexual fantasy onto depictions non-western cultures, and the explosions of color that characterize the (often quite remarkable) illustrations do bring to mind tiki/exotica for me very much. And in terms of dates, one year keeps coming up: 1959. Something was going on in 1959! Anyway the heyday of these magazines, and their subsequent decline (as a variety of generational changes, including, frankly, the mainstreaming of pornography, made them passe) pretty much went hand in hand with the ascent and eventual decline of tiki and exotica. (Though the latter are having a resurgence as we well know!) I have the two books side-by-side, and they kind of seem like companions to each other.

On 2005-05-28 15:48, tropicalguy wrote:
I bought BOT from Taschen's website and the Men's Adventure Magazines book caught my eye, and I bought it too. I think it's fantastic, and find it very interesting how that little corner of pop culture history kind of dovetails with tiki/exotica. No doubt, the sexism, racism, and xenophobia of the mags is something I would very much like not to associate with tiki art and music (but let's face it, political correctness isn't tiki's strong point either). But I guess the sensationalism of the "exotic," the projection of sexual fantasy onto depictions non-western cultures, and the explosions of color that characterize the (often quite remarkable) illustrations do bring to mind tiki/exotica for me very much. And in terms of dates, one year keeps coming up: 1959. Something was going on in 1959! Anyway the heyday of these magazines, and their subsequent decline (as a variety of generational changes, including, frankly, the mainstreaming of pornography, made them passe) pretty much went hand in hand with the ascent and eventual decline of tiki and exotica. (Though the latter are having a resurgence as we well know!) I have the two books side-by-side, and they kind of seem like companions to each other.

Hey, ya gotta take the good with the bad to get the whole picture! It's where we came from nontheless.

I agree. In fact, as long as it doesn't involve meanness, I think "p________ incorrectness" is a wonderful thing! (I figure it's best not to fully utter the "p" word here -- it has a highly un-tiki vibe, I think.)

And anyway I think those magazines did great investigative journalism with stories like, "Love Captive of Castro's Execution Squad Harlots" and "I Was the King of Passion Island." I mean, how else would the nation have been kept informed of such things?

Back cover of a very cool book available at the Vasconcelos public library in Mexico City.