I finally picked up the sixth issue of Men’s Adventure Quarterly, the excellent magazine series focused on men’s adventure magazines. This time it has a focus on heists. While I’m not into heists as a genre, I have enjoyed many heist movies over the years.
As with previous issues, MAQ is available in three formats: the full-color printed version, a black-and-white “noir edition,” and a full-color “digital replica edition.” I got the full-color .print edition.
As noted, this is “The Heist Issue,” focusing on heist stories, a popular genre in both books and movies where a master plan for some crime must be carried out with clockwork efficiency. Many of these appeared in the MAMs, and they picked out ones with weird devices or brilliant methodology for this issue.
As before, publisher Bob Deis (Men’s Adventure Library) and graphic designer Bill Cunningham (Pulp 2.0 Press) have another great issue.
Their excellent intros to each piece are a big reason why this magazine series is so great. These intros get into the author, artist, and sometimes publisher behind that particular work. For me, I sometimes enjoy these more. This time they are joined by guest contributors Paul Bishop and Jules Burt.
And as there is usually a segment on an artist or model in the magazine, and this time we get a gallery on actress Angie Dickinson, star of movies such as the original Ocean’s 11 and Big Bad Mama, among others.
The issue has a quartet of editorials. Bob kicks off with a note about artist Mort Künstler, whose work is on the cover of this issue. From Bill, we learn about an early heist movie I wasn’t aware of: The League of Gentleman, based on a book. The book has two sequels. I guess I need to watch this one. James Burt gives his top five heist movies. I have seen three of them and enjoyed them. Paul Bishop provides a good analysis of the heist genre, and the related capers, going back to the gentleman thieves like Raffles and Arsène Lupin and master criminals like Fantômas, and into later books and movies. I thought it interesting that due to their target audience, MAMs usually had GIs as the stars of their heist stories. We also get a good selection of heist books, movies, and TV shows.
The bulk of the issue is devoted to eight reprints with excellent multi-page intros or afterwords. These are articles, fiction, or fiction presented as fact (or hinted to be fact). We start off with “The Flying Bank Looters,” which has an interesting idea. Banks in South America have set up roving banks in planes that fly to distant villages to provide banking services. Highly secured, a group works out a plot to rob one. Will they succeed? It was written by Thomas Chastain who has a long writing career and former head of the Mystery Writers of America, who even was asked to help with an episode of The Simpsons (“Black Widower”).
Kelly’s Heroes is a fun WWII action-comedy movie, telling of a rag-tag group of GIs after a stockpile of Nazi gold behind enemy lines. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen it in full or in part. Many may not be aware that it’s based on a real event, covered in the book Nazi Gold: The Sensational Story of the World’s Greatest Robbery — and the Greatest Criminal Cover-Up. “The GI Stick-Up Mob That Heisted $33 Million in Nazi Gold” may have also been based on this story, and actually predates Kelly’s Heroes. I thought it interesting that they used so many movie stills to illustrate this story to make it seem more realistic.
Two of the stories center around bizarre vehicles. “Stop California’s Iron Shark Heist Commandos” makes use of an armored hovercraft used in the Vietnam War. And “The Great Sierra Mob Heist” uses a tracked “All Season Vehicle,” a sort of step up from snowmobiles and ATVs. You’ll have to see if their heists succeeded even with their strange vehicles.
Crime and mystery writer Don Honig penned “Band of Misfits,” about a heist that gets complicated. The main character of the story is similar to Donald Westlake‘s Parker, which had a few movie adaptions. And some recent comic book adaptions.
In “The GI Wild Bunch,” our main character is set up as the fall guy for a bank heist by a group of GIs, which goes badly for someone. The main focus of the intro here is on artist Samson Pollen who illustrated the story. They have put out three volumes on his MAM artwork. There is another story by the same unknown author, “Arizona’s Incredible ‘Kung Fu’ Vengeance Heisters,” which is clearly inspired by the Bruce Lee/kung fu craze, as well as trying to have us believe it’s true.
Another different story is “GI ‘Hayseeds’ Who Pulled a $2 Million Gold Heist,” with a trio of amateurs, former GIs, who attempt to hijack a shipment of gold coins in Canada. An interesting aspect of the story is how they break into the safe, which is used as the main illustration for the story and explained in the intro. They also go with the “as told to” to give the impression this is based on a true story.
It’s another great issue. A lot of fun stories, and interesting information. As always, I encourage folks to check out this magazine, in whatever format. I am eagerly looking forward to the next one, with its focus on UFOs.
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