Penthouse magazine August 1974

Penthouse magazine

August 1974

Let's travel back in time to August, 1974. 

'Billy, Don't Be A Hero', by Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods, and 'Band on the Run', by Paul McCartney and Wings, are in heavy rotation on FM radio. And on the stands is the latest issue of Penthouse magazine, with a 'retro' themed cover that reflects the Nostalgia Craze then prominent in American popular culture.

Along with the unintentionally (?) comical Penthouse Forum, 1974 offered a monthly feature called 'Couples' which provided risque 'interviews' with swingin' men and women, whose exploits were 'analyzed' by 'the eminent sexologist Dr.  Robert Chartham'. Like the Forum, I know that the content of every 'Couples' feature was 100%, absolutely, utterly true and factual !

One thing that is readily apparent in looking at the 'pictorials', is that back then the girls were pretty, and personal grooming standards a bit different............

This month's interviewee is none other than film director Roman Polanski, who took care to  present himself as a super-stud. In 1977, Polanski would be arrested and charged with rape of a minor, but in '74, he was living the high life.

In August of '74, you could join the Occult Arts Society..........the movie The Exorcist no doubt motivated some into taking a membership. 

In '74 Penthouse didn't have quite the advertising portfolio of Playboy, although it was beating the former in terms of circulation. There was enough advertising to get the page count up to 152. Among the products on display were aphrodisiacal products, which are a potent (pun intended) reminder to us that back in '74, there were no such things as Viagra or Cialis. 

The most you could hope for was a jolt from the 'I, Brute', supplement marketed by Joe Weider (!) which offered the promise of ginseng and other 'Oriental herbs' to those suffering from........errr.............difficulties. 

And only in '74 could you get the decade's most quintessential swinging bachelor cocktail, the Tequila Sunrise, in a can !

Swinging bachelors also could take advantage of Xaviera Hollander's game to make that all-important transition from foreplay to erotic 'action'...............

Let's close the show on a high note, with a consumer product sure to raise eyebrows..........do you know that back in '74 you could procure Male Comfort Spray to ensure your crotch area is free of 'chafing, stickiness, and irritation' ?! Maybe it had to do with those tight doubleknit slacks everyone was wearing............anyways, before hitting the Regal Beagle singles bar, a bit of MCS surely was a confidence-builder.

There you have it...........a look back in time to a different era, and a different attitude towards what it meant to be a Manly Man..............

20 Years of Heavy Metal

20 Years of Heavy Metal

Heavy Metal Books, February 1997

20 Years of Heavy Metal (266 pp.) was published to celebrate twenty years of the magazine, which by 1997 was owned by Kevin Eastman, of 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' fame. 

This is a well-produced 'coffee table' book, printed on a high grade of paper and with topnotch color separations.

The contents are something of a mixed bag. 

Material from prior to 1980, which I consider the magazine's heyday, is in short supply. Whether this was due to expired printing rights and / or licenses is unclear.

The opening pages are a gallery of T & A pictures. Looking at these, one can see how the magazine changed over time from its early focus on finely crafted, imaginative, sci-fi-flavored content stuff, to become a T & A showcase.

Despite the predominance of material from the late 1980s and the 1990s, there are worthwhile pieces in this book. An undoubted masterpiece is 'The Cathedral' by Jean-Claude Gal, with its intricate black-and-white draftsmanship. Also of value are a 'Mercenary' story from Segrelles, and the post-apocalyptic western 'Children of the Spider' by Segura and Ortiz (the duo behind 'Burton and Cyb'). Also standing out is  'L'Lobo' by Caza.

I was pleased to see a transgressive Ranxerox story, 'Aie, Robot !', from Liberatore. 'Druuna' artist Serpieri is represented by a Western tale, titled 'Women of the West'. This has, as one might expect, female nudity, but no tentacled monsters consumed with lascivious intent. And Enki Bilal contributes 'On the Wing'.

Artist William Stout teams up with Moebius for 'Arzaq', a homage to the franchise.

The remainder of the book is filled with marginal pieces from the late 1980s, and the 1990s. The artwork is makeshift, and the plotting forgettable.

I was able to buy my copy of '20 Years of Heavy Metal' in 2013 from the magazine's website. I think I paid about fifteen dollars for '20 Years', as Heavy Metal was having a sale on their graphic novels and art books. 

So it's alarming to see the bookjackers and speculators advertising copies of the book for $75 on up to $500. At eBay, the prices are just as exorbitant.

The verdict ? If you can find '20 Years of Heavy Metal' available for an affordable price (say, $30 or less), then it can be a worthwhile purchase. But there's no way I can condone spending more for this book.

Harlan Ellison's Dream Corridor

Harlan Ellison's Dream Corridor

Dark Horse Comics, 1995

From March to August 1995, Dark Horse comics released a five-issue miniseries of comic books, titled 'Harlan Ellison's Dream Corridor', that anthologized selected short stories by the renowned author. 

The series featured comics, all-text pieces, and illustrated stories.

Each issue of 'Dream Corridor' led off with a one-page Introduction, rendered in graphical form, in which our hero indulges in raillery designed to remind readers that even though he's a Big Author, Harlan is excited about this, his latest foray into comics.......

Along with the venerable 'I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream', some older tales, and some newer ones, are serialized in the pages of 'Dream Corridor'.

One thing about 'Dream Corridor' that immediately is apparent is its modelling on DC's 'Vertigo' comic book imprint, which by 1995 was receiving lavish praise from the more intellectually inclined members of the comic book readership. The stylized, abstract artwork that was prominent in Vertigo's titles is self-consciously mimicked with 'Dream Corridor':

Most of the stories presented in 'Dream Corridor' are unremarkable. They usually have a twist ending, and are designed to impart some degree of comeuppance to their amoral protagonists. The one exception to this format is the story 'Cold Friend', which is serialized in issues four and five and as a more traditional sci-fi theme, and slicker artwork.

The text pieces featured in 'Dream Corridor' are disappointments, mainly because Dark Horse elected to print them in teeny-tiny, 4 pt font in order to accommodate them within the page count restriction for each issue. I didn't have the energy to pull out magnifying spectacles to read these stories, so I can't tell you if they are any good or not.........

Summing up, I really can't recommend 'Dream Corridor' to anyone other than those diehard Ellison fans who just have to have anything and everything that came from the hand of The Master. Along with the mediocre artwork and unremarkable stories, the imposition of cringey segments featuring Harlan's efforts to be a mensch tend to grate..........

'Dream Corridor' simply doesn't live up to the standards set by Ellison's earlier foray into graphic art packaging, 1978's The Illustrated Harlan Ellison. 

Letter to Xaviera

Letter to Xaviera Hollander

from the July, 1974 issue of Penthouse magazine

Sometimes I think it would be fun to have been the guy at Penthouse whose job was to write the 'letters' to Xaviera Hollander ('Call Me Madam') in her monthly column. 

This missive from 'Betty' is a classic combo of over-the-top humor and sleaze, 1970s style........

Book Review: Fires of Freedom

Book Review: 'Fires of Freedom' by Jerry Pournelle

4 / 5 Stars

'Fires of Freedom' (616 pp.) was published by Baen Books in July, 2010, and features cover art by Kurt Miller. 

'Fires' is a compilation of two early novels from Pournelle: 'Birth of Fire', and 'King David's Spaceship'.

'Birth of Fire' first was published in March 1976 by Laser Books. As the novel opens, protagonist Garrett Pittson is involved in a gang fight among the decaying cityscape of a 21st century Baltimore, Maryland. Police intervention sees Pittson arrested, and given the choice of 'volunteering' to join the Federation colony on Mars, there to start life over as an indentured servant to the corporate firms conducting mining and other businesses.

Resigned to never seeing Earth again, Pittson decides to make the best of his situation on Mars, where, if nothing else, one's past history is not held against someone. In due course, Pittson makes the acquaintance of some 'Marsmen' and embarks on a hard-working path towards advancement in the bleak, windswept territories outside the city of Hellastown.

But as he works towards a future on Mars, Pittson becomes aware that all is not well between the hardy colonists staking claims in the wilderness, and the corporate entities who levy taxes and direct energy development. When the corporate hand weighs too heavily, the colonists revolt.........and a civil war erupts on Mars.

Compared to the Federation and corporate police, the Marsmen are undergunned. But they have a firsthand knowledge of surviving in a hostile environment, and they plan to use that knowledge to their advantage.........

'Birth of Fire' is a competent action-adventure sci-fi tale. For the first-person narration, Pournelle adopts the clipped diction of a private-eye or suspense novel, an approach to storytelling that was - depending on your point of view - either reactionary, or transgressive, in 1976 during the height of the New Wave era.

'Birth of Fire' is adept at incorporating scientific knowledge of Mars, circa 1976, into its plot. There are no life forms, or 'canals', or ancient ruins on the Mars of 'Birth', just geological formations that are portrayed as attention-worthy entities in their own right. Curiously, in its closing chapters 'Birth' incorporates a plot device that is reminiscent of that deployed in the 1990 film Total Recall. 

'King David's Spaceship' is a revised version of Pournelle's 1973 novel, 'A Spaceship for the King', which I reviewed here. As best as I can tell, the revisions made to 'King David's Spaceship' were designed to incorporate the novel into the CoDominium / Moties franchise, and in particular synchronize the 'Spaceship' narrative with that of Pournelle's 1974 novel 'The Mote in God's Eye'.

I can't say that the expanded text introduced in 'King David's Spaceship' improves on 'A Spaceship for the King' all that much, and I finished 'King David's Spaceship' content with retaining the four-star rating I gave to the original novel.

Summing up, those who like action-oriented, military science fiction with an unashamedly conservative flavoring probably will find 'Fires of Freedom' rewarding.

Motel Bizarre

Motel Bizarre
by Stephanie Crabe
Scapegoat Publishing, 2007

The PorPor Books Blog is devoted to covering sci-fi, fantasy, and horror paperbacks published during the interval from roughly 1968 to 1988, and I rarely deviate from reviewing and promoting media from that era. However, I occasionally make exceptions, when I feel an obligation to promote books that fall outside that range of time and topic.

So it is with 'Motel Bizarre', which probably is too contemporary, and too eccentric, to get coverage from sites like 'Glorious Trash' and 'Paperback Warrior'. And 'Motel Bizarre' is deserving of coverage, because I believe it has appeal to those paperback fanatics who are fans of sleaze and noir content (but then, who isn't a fan of sleaze and noir content ?!).

Anyways, 'Motel Bizarre' is a 10 1/2 x 8 1/4 inch landscape format trade paperback published in 2007 by Scapegoat Publishing, a short-lived, small press publisher founded by Chris X, aka Christopher Neu, aka Christopher Xavier Donovan, the owner of Reptilian Records, a record, comic, and memorabilia shop located on South Broadway Street in Baltimore's Fells Point neighborhood in the 1990s. 

[ I used to be a regular patron of Reptilian, back in the day, and I could write a blog post alone on that store and the hipster scene in Baltimore in the early 1990s.......... ]

But on to 'Motel Bizarre', which features an introduction by Christopher Mealie, whose photos of dilapidated motels are sprinkled throughout the pages of the book. The introduction starts off with some interesting observations about the origin and heyday of the motel in American culture and commerce, but then Mealie inexplicably veers off into an adjective- and adverb-littered parody of  hardboiled crime fiction, and becomes just another example of a hipster trying too hard to be hip............

The staged photographs, all taken in color and featuring friends and models of Ms. Crabe, appear to have been taken in genuine motel settings and depict all manner of patently sleazy acts that are in keeping with the theme of retro-influenced American noir, as inspired by David Lynch and John Waters.

There are elements of provocation, and also of humor, in the tableaus presented in 'Motel Bizarre'. The decor, lighting (no soft focus or flesh-toned makeup operating here, folks), and framing of the pictures gives them the authenticity necessary to shock (wink-wink) bourgeoisie sensibilities.

The few reviews of 'Motel Bizarre' that I have found online go overboard with quasi-academic jargon, and in that spirit I might declare that:

'........the Transgressive Iconography of Stephanie Crabe's pictorial narratives ushers us into a world that, however repugnant it may seem at first glance, is nonetheless as fully realized as any translational zeitgeist of postwar American popular culture.'

How do you get a copy of 'Motel Bizarre' ? Well, Stephanie Crabe - now with the surname Petersen (perhaps her married name ?) is alive and well and running a photography studio in Bayonne, New Jersey.  Her website has a link to order the book directly from her, or you can go to amazon and do the same thing for the very reasonable price of $9.99, plus $4 for shipping and handling.

This is one book I'm going to prominently leave lying around my house when friends, family, vegans, recovering alcoholics, hipsters, and Womyn's Rights activists come to call.....................