Some fellas like their stories clean, their heroes shiny, and their dames all sugar and spice. This ain’t for them. This is ‘Man’s World. This is about the “men’s adventure magazines,” the kind of magazines they called “armpit slicks” for good reason. They were cheap, they were dirty, and they showed you the world as it really was—a place full of dames who’d just as soon stick a knife in your back as kiss you, and heroes who were too busy fighting Nazis and commies to worry about a happy ending.
These magazines were born in the shadow of the big war, and they’re full of the kind of raw truth that doesn’t get printed in the big papers anymore. It’s the kind of stuff that helped a veteran get his head on straight after he’d seen what a real fight looks like. The covers alone are a work of art, with buxom broads tied to a flagpole and guys in a fistfight with a bear. It’s all high-octane, low-class stuff, but it’s got a power to it.
This whole collection is a testament to a genre that knew what a man needed: a little bit of blood, a little bit of action, and a whole lot of a cold, hard dose of reality.
Jack Hammer. Keeping an eye on the gutter, because that’s where the best stories are born.
