‘Men’s Adventure Quarterly’ No. 9: Croc Attack!

I just received the ninth issue of Men’s Adventure Quarterly, kicking off their third year of this excellent magazine series focused on men’s adventure magazines.

With the previous issue, MAQ is now available in three formats: the full-color printed version, a black-and-white “noir edition,” and a full-color “digital replica edition.”

Full disclosure, I was sent a copy of the full-color edition. They do plan on going back to the prior issues to make them available in black & white and digital. So if you were put off by the higher price of the full color editions (which are very nice), you now no longer have an excuse not to get these.

In this issue the theme is “Croc Attack!” which focuses, well, attacks by crocodiles (and alligators). Growing up in Florida, I have been aware of our local alligators, and remember watching movies set in Africa with the riverbanks covered by crocs just awaiting a reason to attack a hapless victim.

As before, publisher Bob Deis (Men’s Adventure Library) and graphic designer Bill Cunningham (Pulp 2.0 Press) have another great issue. And their excellent intros to each piece is a big reason why this magazine series so great. These intros get into the author, artist, and sometime publisher behind that particular work. For me, I sometimes enjoy these more.

And as there is usually a segment on an artist or model in the magazine, we get a section of photos of model and would-be actress Shirley Kirkpatrick and others involved with the movie The Astounding She Monster. This includes movie poster artwork and other work done.

Another different article this time is by Bill Cunningham on the creation of MAQ and how the artwork is updated for it. It’s a kind of “peek behind the scenes.”

As always, this is another well-designed issue, with both color and black-and-white artwork, articles, and reprints that include fiction, non-fiction, cartoons, ads, and pictorials. It comes in at over 160 pages, and is 8.5- x 11-inches in size, like all the rest.

So, again, for those new, let’s make a few things clear on men’s adventure magazines (or MAMs): These were one outgrowth of the pulps, with many of the first ones being former pulp magazines that changed their focus and format. The paper changed from pulp to slick paper, with much better interior artwork, sometimes in duotone, rarely color. So MAMs are not pulps, but a replacement of them in popular literature. Or, you could call them a successor. Other successors were paperback books and digest magazines. Their target audience was working class men, with the kind of stories (fiction, true, and claim to be true) that was believed to appeal to them.

This time we get nine stories, with a wide range of situations. Some are presented as true to life, others not. Some of the notable ones:

“The Avenging Crocodile” is presented as a true story from Africa told to Brian O’Brien. O’Brien was a prolific pulp writer who made the move to MAMs. While they note quite a bit of his pulp works in the intro, it seems no one has reprinted his stuff. Wonder if it’s worth reading? Maybe a candidate for High Adventure?

“Give Me Back My Arm” by Roy Baker is yet another example of missed opportunities. Wil Hulsey did the cover art, and we learn about him and his mentor Milton Luros. However, Roy Baker is a different case. We learn that Bob Deis tracked him down and tried to interview him, only to be put off several times. And then he passed away.

“My Blood Battle With a Croc” by Bill Gentry is also notable for having cover and interior art by Doug Rosa. His main claim to fame is painting two Doc Savage paperback covers and doing some other sf paperback covers. Bill Gentry, however, is an unknown pseudonym.

“Blood for the Crocodile” is notable for the portrayal of an African “crocodile cult” that wears the skins of crocs. So the intro takes a look at similar stories from Tarzan comics, which I think I read in reprint, and similar stories.

“My Hand-to-Jaw Death Duel With a Croc” by Leon Lazarus gives us background info on the author, who worked for Martin Goodman‘s Timely Comics before working for Goodman’s MAMs, where this one appeared. We also learn about some of his other works. Illustrator Bruce Minney has also been highlighted in a book.

“The Worst Horror Story of World War II” by Sal Principe focuses on a different true story: the Battle of Ramree Island, where the defending Japanese soldiers tried to escape through a mangrove swamp filled with crocodiles. This event has since been turned into a movie.

“We Fought Monster Crocodiles” by Frank S. Forrest is taken from Everett “Busy” Arnold, better known as the publisher of Quality Comics, one of the top Golden Age comicbook companies. After selling off his properties to DC, he, like many others, later got into publishing MAMs. I wasn’t aware of this, but I am also not surprised. This is something I’ve pointed out that many comicbook fans overlook or are ignorant of the other publishing efforts of many comicbook publishers.

In addition to these, there is also a nice article on MAMs in Australia, another on crocodile/alligator movies (many of which I recall hearing about), and a cover gallery of croc-attack MAMs.

This is yet another cool issue. It looks like the next issue with be a “battlefield” themed issue. This makes sense as MAMs started during WWII, and existed through both the Korean and Vietnam wars, and their readership would have naturally included a lot of veterans of these conflicts. Should be excellent. I am curious what they have in mind for the rest of the year?