Tribute to Pulps II: Spicy

Okay, so now it's time for a look at the seamier side of the pulps. Still I guess pretty wholesome, but fun and titillating nonetheless.

Looking at my captions from last time, they seemed confusing, so I'm putting descriptions after the images from now on.

I like this image from Spicy Adventure Stories. Exotic, dangerous, enticing. The translucent drapery that reveals/conceals, the luscious red lips, the narrow, deadly eyes of the woman waiting in ambush with her unmanning knife. I love the way it is so dramatically foreshortened to create the impression of extreme closeness. You are there, so close you can smell the musk and perfume of her body, hear her calm, deliberate breaths. Awesome.

Something of a generic image from Spicy Detective Stories. Woman in danger, about to be rescued, her clothes torn but somehow miraculously clinging. The main thing I like about this cover is it made me wonder: Was "snatch" used in its sexual sense already? The answer: yes, for several decades by this point, making the cover definitely risque.

Sally the Sleuth was a feature of Spicy Detective Stories. Although a fiesty dame, she always managed to get herself in some sort of sexual peril, often involving her clothes being removed. In many cases, the illustrators were not above drawing some sexual detail (this was, after all, inside the mag), but I like this artist's playful work with the lei and the grass skirt.

And then of course there's Wink, a full-fledged men's magazine, I guess, with its subtitle: "A Whirl of Girls," and its cover devoid of anything but the sexual content. I like the ambiguity of the cover stories. "Should babes be spanked?": beginning S&M or parenting guide? "Love below the knees" was either a popular story or there were several variant covers of this issue. At any rate, what does that mean? Footsies? Fetishism? Stocking buying guide? I sure don't know.