EXTRACTS: Illustrators issue 30 © 2020 The Book Palace (96 PAGES in Full edition)

1 2 34 60 82 96 In the aftermath of the Second World War the American male wasn’t about to sit and read stories about a posh family drinking their tea with their pinkies sticking out as a police inspector gave a long discourse on who was the culprit behind their rich uncle’s murder. No, what this War veteran wanted to read was adventures of heroic men fighting villains, all sort of wild beasts, and running into scantily dressed Amazons from a lost tribe in the middle of nowhere. These stories gave way to a new genre of magazine: the men’s adventures. Chief among these men’s adventure magazine illustrators was Mort Künstler (who appeared in illustrators issue 17). Known nowadays for his carefully re‐ searched paintings of the American Civil War and other American historical events, Künstler had honed his artistic talents from work done earlier in the men’s adventure magazines of the day. There he brought visions of rugged men fighting some of nature’s most vicious and dangerous animals with an unprecedented real‐ ism that could hardly be captured by a camera lens. Next we have Robert Deis, fromMen’s Adventure Magazine blog, bringing us an account on these magazines that replaced and outlasted the earlier pulp magazines for several decades. One of the reasons being the over the top illustrations featuring men fighting everything fromweasels to rats, alligators, tigers, Nazis, bearded Latin Commies, cannibal women, ColdWar spies and gruff biker gangs. Then we head over to Earl Norem, an artist who, after his run with the men’s adventure magazines, did covers featuring some of the most popular superheroes, monsters — and a certain barbarian — for comic magazines. And finally, who can forget those trading cards from a bubblegum company that brought nightmares and joy to every child in America during the 1960s? In our last feature we talk about Norman Saunders and his illustrations for these pop‐ ular American trading cards and stickers. Special thanks to Linda Swanson, Jane and Mort Künstler, and Emily Vander Wall fromHeritage Auctions for providing us with these images. DC