Neilster
Posts: 3037
Joined: 10/27/2003 From: Hobart, Tasmania, Australia Status: offline
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Further to the Men's Adventure genre...there had been detective magazines and the like that featured sexy women on the cover before WW2 but it was after the war that there was a massive proliferation of titles. Often they featured real wartime or other adventures but mostly the stories were ludicrous fantasies. They were known by various names, including "Men's Sweats" In the 50s, there was an obsession with Nazi sadists with busty, scantily clad Western women in peril. By the mid 60s, the trend was moving to Communist sadists with busty, scantily clad Western women in peril etc etc. Some of the art was technically excellent but usually hilariously lurid and misogynistic. The Nazis often wore swastika belt buckles and had the most ingenious devices of torment. There was no attempt to portray the women in a period-correct way but rather in the fashion of the time of printing. There was an obsession with women being branded with swastikas and often a tormentor had a hand missing and replaced with a whip or a mace. To mix it up, sometimes a male hero was menaced by busty, female Nazi torturers in fetishistic clothing, who were invariably nymphomaniacs as well. Luckily for the publishers, the baddies always left the girls' underwear on, or their dresses were conveniently torn so as to display plenty of flesh but not the naughty bits. The whole genre was an example of pushing the censorship laws as far as was possible at the time in a society that was clearly becoming more liberal and relaxed about sexuality. Eventually novels (often still illustrated) became more popular and the dramatic relaxing of laws regulating what could be seen in magazines saw Men's Adventure magazines fade away. There are some good examples of covers here. I didn't attach any images because some might still be a bit suggestive for a family website. https://www.flickr.com/photos/subtropicbob/sets/72157622346775400
< Message edited by Neilster -- 11/10/2019 8:44:37 AM >
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Cheers, Neilster
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