It's a Man's World: Men's Adventure Magazines, The Postwar Pulps
Alternately called "adventure magazines" and "armpit slicks," publications like True West, American Manhood and Challenge for Men enjoyed their heyday from the early 1950s through the early '70s. With their campy cover paintings of men at war, hunks on horseback and buxom women, these magazines gave blue collar workers "warnings, how-to's, and comforting memories of wartime." For Parfrey, they're worth looking at today because "they tell us so much about American working-class fears, desires and wet dreams." Parfrey intersperses this collection of full-color reproductions with essays by contributors on subjects ranging from exotica and "the sadistic burlesque" to the Cold War. The essays will be helpful to readers trying to make sense out of such images as UFOs closing their clamp-like hands around fretting females with their shirts unbuttoned (from Peril: The All Man's Magazine), and a burly, shirtless man straddling a flagpole flying a torn American flag (from Climax: Exciting Stories for Men).Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.