Henry Winkler as Fonzie 1976 / Right On! February 1976

A duo of publications up for your enjoyment tonight from the late 70s that caught my fancy. Thanks to McCoy for killer edits on both of these magazines, I'm always in awe of his gorgeous edits and at his productivity and choice of materials for his own scans. He's the straw that stirs the drink around here, and his help lets me cover a lot more ground and is much appreciated. Having such a good comrade in the scan game keeps me on my toes, in more ways than one. Whether pushing for more raws, turning me on to new magazines, or turning out some "how did he do that?" restoration work, he never ceases to amaze. So thanks, bud.

I'll kick it off with Fonzie. Aaaaaaaaay...


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Damn, dude looks baby-faced. My wife hardly ever remarks about the scads of fantastic magazines the mailman brings to our door. Pin-ups and badgirls get an eye roll, historical items get a meh, but Fonzie here got a sweet laugh. I'm not sure I'd trust my girl around the Fonz, that sly bastard.

Get the scan here.

Contents

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Happy Days was a little before my time, though I certainly watched some episodes as a kid. I didn't know that Laverne and Shirley got their start on an episode...


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Some more samples.


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The centerfold

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I was let down by this article. Today if you say Pot Shop in California you might have a little more luck, cough cough.


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Don't worry too much if your girl wants to get it on with the Fonz, she'd prolly have a hard time finding one of these on ebay...


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Right on, right on, next up a truly killer issue


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Get the scan here.

I think this magazine was a casualty of the recession, as it apparently has gone out of business. I did see a Michael Jackson memorial issue out there, but it looks like regular publication has ceased. A well done magazine, Right On! carried news and hype for black entertainment. There are a number of color pages in here, and the layout is excellent. This magazine is jam-packed with tidbits and is a great snapshot the black entertainment industry in the late 70s.

Contents

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I can't really remember much about What's Happening outside of Rerun and Roger, it's been years since I saw it. I remember it as a buddy-type sitcom about growing up, I wonder how dated it will seem if I can track it down.


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More Samples, the Jacksons. I've noticed that Michael Jackson magazines have quickly become more valuable...

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I'll go ahead and include the whole Parliament article for my P-funk lovin' homies. Gotta get up for the downstroke-

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A truly unfortunate centerfold, this can't be good for the tough guy image. I'll never look at Black Samurai the same again. Inside he boasts of beating Bill Cosby in a celebrity match...

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And a mystery quiz

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OK, I'll give you a hint, you can win a date with one of them...

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Answer! Get the funk out, it's the Brothers Johnson!

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Next time with the scan-foo, one last modern mag I'd hoped to include tonight before I'd run out of steam. The art of fighting without fighting? Show me some of it...

Ranger Rick's & Sesame Street Magazine

Two more magazines I remember from my childhood for y'all today.

For some reason children's magazines always remind me of the dentist or doctor's office. Outside the school library, those are places kids get to read magazines made specifically for them. I wonder if other people share this association.

My kids have an auntie that is currently sending them Highlights and High Five (Highlights for preschoolers) and in the past have gotten National Geographic Kids and National Geographic Little Kids, and they really do get a kick out of getting their own magazine in the mail. The Highlights are almost always good for an afternoon of activities.

But recently they also get to play with some of these older magazines I've gotten via eBay. Modern children's magazines are in the bargain basement of ebay shopping, and I regularly can get a lot of 10 or 12 magazines for .99 plus shipping on publications going all the way back to the forties or fifties. Dirt Cheap. Junk? You be the judge, eh? A couple scans up today from .99 cent lots, there are plenty of fun and cheap scan targets out there...

First up, Ranger Rick's Nature Magazine, April 1979. Big thanks for the edit work on both of today's magazines to my man McCoy, he's done a great job with both of these.


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Get the scan here.

I think I picked this issue to scan because of the adorable goat on the cover. A family mine was close with raised goats, so we drank goat milk from time to time and spent time playing amongst these critters. I don't know if the hippie schools I attended early in my education had this magazine or if it was the library or doctor's offices or what, but I read a bunch of these as a kid.

Wiki sez

Ranger Rick is a children's nature magazine published in the United States by the Education Department of the National Wildlife Federation.[1] Its first issue was published in January, 1967. Historically, the magazine has been aimed at children; the NWF site today suggests ages 7 and up. (NWF also publishes two companion magazines, Your Big Backyard, which is aimed at ages 3–7, and Wild Animal Baby, which is aimed at kids 12 months old to 4 years old.[2])

Most of the pages of the magazine feature multi-page photo stories of animals in their natural habitats. There are also illustrated stories, games, riddles, nature news, poetry, contests, and other features and columns. Ranger Rick also refers to the protagonist in a long standing feature of Ranger Rick magazine, Ranger Rick's Adventures. The feature is published in the form of an illustrated short story, in which raccoon Ranger Rick and his gang of friends from Deep Green Wood explore the world, and often encounter threats to wildlife and environmental problems.

You can get these magazines and learn more about the efforts of the National Wildlife Organization here.

Contents. Take the pledge, children, environmental education cannot begin too early.


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A call to activism in defense of the environment based on respect and appreciation of nature, Rick's pledge is excellent. It's time to put up your dukes, people, the debate on energy policy is coming soon, and it promises to be rough and tumble. When elected representatives (educated men???) feel that a heavy winter in Washington is somehow proof that global warming is a hoax or that any environmental regulation is somehow a restriction on their own individual rights, you've got to know that a fight is coming. I, for one, will be writing my representatives in favor of cap and trade, in opposition to nuclear energy, in favor of stimulus to increase production of domestic geothermal, solar, and wind technologies, and in opposition to increased exploitation of national park and forest land. The recession has caused an easing of fuel prices but there's no doubt they will soon begin to escalate once again. A proactive energy policy is much better an a reactive energy policy. After seeing the health care fiasco unfold, I'm not that optimistic about the level of debate we'll get on energy. I guess my main hope here is in the private sector. I do not trust the coal and gas industries to clean up their act unless forced. However, a very large percentage of venture capital proposals these days involve green technologies, perhaps start-up technologies can upend the entrenched interests. Sigh, but anyways, back to the mag! More goats!


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Every issue contains a piece of illustrated fiction like this one featuring Ranger Rick and his crew:


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And today's second magazine, Sesame Street Magazine from July 1983. The stack I got from this vintage all have cool wraparound covers. I think this Grover as Pied Piper by R. Brown is way cool. McCoy did an excellent job polishing it up and joining the pages.


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Get the scan here.

Unless, I'm mistaken the push for the Children's Television Workshop emerged as a result of Reagan's deregulation of the media and withdrawal of public support for Sesame Street. Having to turn to other sources for funding, this was just one of four magazines published around this time that also included The Electric Company, Kid City, and 3-2-1 Impact. During Reagan's terms, guidelines for how many hours of educational programming were mandated along with how many commercials could be shown were discarded and the amount of advertising in children's programming skyrocketed (along with the number of entertainment options for children, seeing as how garbage cartoons might now be used more effectively to hawk sugary charm and chocolate crunch.) Other important aspects of this deregulation included the rejection of the fairness doctrine (that every station need show balanced viewpoints) and an increase in the number of stations any single entity could own. Welcome to Fox News as advertising arm of the Republican party and a GE owned MSNBC and the current crisis of the marriage of media, business, and political power. Not good for democracy. Ack, I'm drifting off topic again, sheesh...

Sesame Street has held it's own and expanded over the years, though, in large part due to it's unique programming. The recent Malcolm Gladwell best seller on social epidemics "The Tipping Point" had some neat material on how Sesame Street and some other more recent programs use research in determining the effectiveness of their lessons, cool stuff. The magazine, too, has been designed with much care. The magazine is short on articles but is packed with activities, which I think makes for a great time. The magazine is full of pages that are to be cut and folded - every inch of the mag is put to good use. My daughter and I went through this issue after I scanned it, reading and cutting and building and had much fun in the process. We sometimes print out an activity pages from scans of this sort of material. The kids have fun picking which page they want printed. Scans of coloring books are very economical in a way, as you can just print out the pages you will use as you use them. But onto sampleage-

Contents. Look at this lesson plan, all sorts of grist for the mill...

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Take your kid to the vet, they love it. My girl has helped me take a sick kitty in a few times this year, she says she wants to be a veterinarian and really liked this feature


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Animal Dice.


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Next time, a final post on modern magazines, a trio of pop culture tidbits - Rerun, Happy Days, and Kung-Fu?!?!

Indian Child Life - Edwin and Therese Deming (1899)

A quick detour today. I talked about scanning children's material last time, so I thought I'd put up a favorite old scan as an example of what I'm talking about.

Indian Child Life (1899.Therese & Edwin Deming).cbr

Edit: New larger version uploaded.  This was before I was as consistent with absolute c2c scanning, and I think there may be images missing of ifc and ibc and maybe an interior leaf as well, will check next time I see my physical copy.

Get the scan here.

This is an absolutely beautiful children's book written by Therese Deming and illustrated by her husband Edwin from 1899. Edwin was a contemporary and friend of Frederic Remington, and Edwin and Therese dedicated themselves to the study and celebration of Native American cultures. The stories are geared toward and often about children, and the art is done in a pastoral, colorful, and distinctly American style. This couple did a number of books in their careers, but I believe this is a fairly early example. Here's a link to post on the Demings by an excellent blogger that writes on a wide variety of interesting and important subjects.

http://prairiemary.blogspot.com/2005/08/eight-bears-and-blackft.html

There's also some mention of the artist to be found here:

http://www.askart.com/askart/artist.aspx?artist=7521

Since scanning this book, I stumbled across a very nice article on Edwin Deming by his wife on pages 23-28 in The Mentor (one of my favorite vintage mags, I'll post on it soon!) from April 1926 which you can get here.

My kids came home from their school Thanksgiving parties with feather headbands made from construction paper and Chief and Princess necklaces. Let's not let these baubles be the only way our kids think of Indian life and cultures. Artists like the Demings and Edward Curtis recognized the value in "capturing" the lifestyle of the tribes at the turn of the century as their traditional way of life was waning. Indian myths and folktales have many valuable qualities concerning our relationship to our families, our community, and our place in the natural world - I know I appreciate very much that my mother used to read them to me, so I am making an effort to read them to my own children.

Samples! Back to the periodicals next time, but perhaps this post might some of you out there to ponder what special children's books you have on your shelves that you might have to share for posterity.

P.S. I couldn't bring myself to cut this beautiful and beautifully crafted book, so excuse a little spine shadow and the close crop! They don't make 'em like they used to, this is one of the sturdiest and most beautiful books I've ever had the pleasure to own, and I plan on giving it to one of my kids when they have their own some day. I still have the raw scans and might return to them for a different presentation sometime, but in the meantime, it looks a-ok as is.

Dynamite 112, September 1983 / Unicorns Are Real!

Tonight I introduce the subject of childrens' periodicals to my blog, and through the years there have been many fine publications for children many of which I've scanned or plan to scan. Titles like St. Nicholas, The Youth's Companion and The American Boy, and Child Life are a few fine magazines I hope to explore as my blog unfolds. But this time around, I'm going to approach the subject from some material from my own childhood by sharing a few magazines that I remember fondly from my school days. These are objects I'd long forgotten but that I've rediscovered through this hobby that might strike a chord with my fellow gen-Xers. Magazines by their nature (or at least modern magazines) are throwaway objects, read a couple of times then discarded or recycled. Perhaps the cheap printing, thin pages, and flimsy binding signal that these are not worthy of a permanent place on the bookshelf or perhaps magazines are so of-the-now that don't really have a value outside of their purpose as purveyors of buzz or commentary on the most current of events. I throw some magazines away (or recycle them, rather) that I think are absolutely excellent, it's just part of their transient nature. This is why when we see a magazine years later it can be such a sweet recognition. It can be like something out of a time capsule, a sort of Proustian agent bringing the past into the now. I get a huge kick out of seeing people have this blast from the past - whether we're talking about a science fiction pulp someone read in high school or an underground paper that someone's older brother had in their room or that issue of Famous Monsters somebody read beneath the covers, it's so cool to see people encounter this object they thought they'd never see again that once meant something but had been almost totally forgotten until, WHAM, "OH WOW, I REMEMBER THIS!"

This first magazine gives me exactly that feeling. Thanks to McCoy for jogging my memory about this title and for the raws for this particular issue I'm sharing tonight. 1980s, here we come (cue the Night Rider theme music here if you dare).


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Delivered to my desk every month, this publication was something else. In the hallowed halls of education, what do we have here? Knight Rider? A man with a talking car? John Travolta on his career ?!?! Comics, zany humor, a poster for my wall?! My wife tells me that she absolutely did not get these in catholic school, and I'm not surprised. I'd have been about 10 when this came out, right in the bosom of public education, and looking at the thing now I'm both appalled and appreciative of the fact that such lightweight subject matter graced my desk on that day of the week when these materials were handed out by the teacher at reading time.

The History of Scholastic in our schools is long and worthy of exploration. I'm honestly a neophyte to the subject but have already found a great number of their magazines for children over the years. As a parent of 2 young school children, I've been reminded what a huge presence this company is in our schools, it is really something of a monopoly. This giant is choosing which books will be made available for purchase by children and is the conduit through which millions of children will first read Harry Potter or say Jeff Smith's Bone. My boy loves the early reader books they offer from the Clone Wars, and I think it's fair to say that this is one way that certain entertainment properties reach into the schools. On the other hand, if a kid is jazzed up about reading Star Wars, he's jazzed up about reading and that is a great way to get some children into books. By any means necessary, I say, which is one reason I like to include childrens' books and magazines in my scan repertoire. My kids love reading books on the computer (in addition to the regular places they read), and I daresay it's helped my six year old to become an advanced reader. The potentials of popular scanning to increase childrens' access to and interest in the written word is enormous. My kids each have their own digital collections of books and comics and magazines that suit their particular interests, and the idea that entire libraries of material might be available freely to any kid fortunate enough to own or have access to a computer is very powerful. From a young age, we are bombarded by images on screens, many of them detrimental or of mercenary nature. Books are beautiful, but as we move into the future, it's readily apparent that digital technologies for better or for worse are taking a more central place in our reading habits. On many levels, I see scanning as a fight for a place on these screens, as a belief that the works of the past have a potent and permanent place in the digital soup. There's more "content" in a single issue of some magazines than in 100 pages of webdrivel! Cough, but I digress (lord help me), I only mean to have my readers think about scans and early literacy. Make your kid a scan of his favorite book, I promise it will be enriching for all involved...

But back to our magazine! Here's a cool wiki for Dynamite that breaks down the issues by topic. I like the wiki's bravado that the magazine served as a guide to popular culture for a generation of school kids. Looking at the list of cover stories on the wiki demonstrates the breadth of this task.

Dynamite 112 v07n03 (1983-09) Knight Rider (McNation).cbr
Issue Contents. Get the entire scan here.


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There's a lot of variety here, a strange mix of pop culture worship and pop culture parody. That a magazine for kids would include a BADvertising section is just great. It's healthy to teach kids to be critical of ads, and this is one good way to do it. (not to let Scholastic off the hook for their earlier years of advertising, check out the army and car ads in these issues of Scope from the 70s).

I led with the Hof cover, I suppose I'd be remiss not to offer a snippet of the interview and a behind the scenes look at the show with a talking car (which I loved at the time)


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Unicorns are real! I pulled this scan out just the other day when my preschool daughter told me that unicorns aren't real. No need to kill the myth completely, she had me print out a page and cut one of the little fellows out, aww cute. This is the article I remember reading at my desk in school, I'll go ahead and post it in it's entirety for the websurfers followed by the poster.


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The poster is way cheesy, but I can't help but like it. Now that you've been through the looking glass and seen the beast, you can believe, too.

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The letters page. Valley girl talk, fer sure. My wife still tells me I talk like a surfer and I'm from the Midwest, hmm...

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But speaking of valley talk, OMG. Men At Work have busted into my romance stash! At least they've got good taste in comics, I can forgive.


And speaking of comics, some material and a bit of an interview in this ish with Joe Kubert, one of the greats.


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Back next time on volunteer radio to spin a couple of more childrens' mags from the early 80s I couldn't get to tonight.

Kickin' It Old School / BMX and Freestyle Mags

Alrighty then, let's dig out of the snow and get back to it. After a bout with a tummy bug, I'm ready to try and go at it with a vengeance this weekend. A long promised series of scans on the birth of the girlie pulp is coming soon, but first I'm going to indulge in some brazen nostalgia in a few posts of appreciation for the magazines of my youth.

I don't get much into my personal life here on the mags blog, but, for those of you that haven't guessed, I'm one of those confused members of Generation X, a child of the 80s. As I've arrived unexpectedly here at 30-something, it's been kind of wild to see a resurgence in 80s culture. Some of the college kids or British pop stars look classic new wave, all pretty in pink (r.i.p. John Hughes) and bodacious, and many merchandising franchises and TV shows from the day are back in vogue. G.I. Joe, Transformers, and now the A-Team are all taking another spin on the tilt-a-whirl and it's caused me to reflect that much of my childhood was spent enthralled in some of these fairly soulless diversions. One diversion that I reflect upon, though, was truly enriching. I feel very blessed I was part of BMX and freestyle culture in the 80s, it will never be quite the same.

BMX and skate culture has it's roots in the 70s, but the 80s saw these "extreme" sports explode in popularity and become part of the larger culture. Perhaps it was the conformity or the absurdity of the age of Reagan, but the bad boy element of these fringe sports began to gather a huge following from kids like me from all parts of the country captivated by the grace and explosivity of what these guys were doing with the everyday objects of childhood, the bike and the skateboard. Docs like the excellent documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys, Rising Son - The Legend of Skateboarder Christian Hosoi, or Stoked: The Rise and Fall of Gator (all highly recommended) do a great job of capturing how the athletes of the day were caught up (and were victims of) the move of fringe sports culture into the main. All of a sudden hugely popular, skateboarding and biking skyrocketed in popularity and a whole industry boomed up around the culture. In the arena of fashion, the kids were wearing Vision Street Wear or Bones Brigade Ts and wearing Vans or Airwalk shoes meant specifically for sports to school everyday. Bike and Skateboard manufacturers were producing new models championed by particular stars, and kids were buying the most up-to-date deck or bike frame. And heaven forbid, the rebellious attitude and sense of freedom engendered by the sports and culture had kids everywhere behaving very badly. Good Times, baby!

On Friday night or Saturday morning, my brother and I and perhaps a friend or two would go to the track with our parents, a fantastic, supportive atmosphere for all involved. Us kids would get up on our pedals, wait for the gate to go down and pedal our asses off to the finish line. Parents cheered, racers smiled, and there was always next week to do better - BMX racing builds character. Sure you could crash hard and break something, but these battle wounds are a mark of pride to those that get them and toughened up many a kid and the risks contribute to a sort of brotherhood among those that brave them. Kids that might not go out for the baseball or football team can get their exercise too and have a great time getting it. Wholesome family fun.

On the other days when we weren't racing, we were still on our bikes riding around all corners of town, every curb a possible ramp, every bench an possible object to trick on or from. The cityscape no longer a cold assemblage of concrete and steel but a playground to be interacted with, rife with possibility. A set of stairs or rail might become a meeting place for skaters. A forgotten culvert a haunt for freestyle BMXers. And as a result of all this uncommon usage, another result. We were de facto outlaws. Signs would go up in the respectable downtown areas prohibiting bikes and skateboards. City managers distraught that their precious concrete was being grinded down by skate hoodlums put the cops on notice, tickets were to be given. Perhaps this is one place I learned a (healthy) disrespect for authority. I remember one kid that liked to slap "SKATEBOARDING IS NOT A CRIME" bumper stickers on cop cars. And in many ways all this was a bit of a game. We'd be chased by cops (and seldom caught I might add), and I think even the cops were having a good time of it. We rode all Summers long into the evening, seeing miles of our berg. Such really are some of my most precious memories of my teen years.

And a large part of this culture was the magazines. I can look at the cover of the magazines from back when and remember who owned that particular issue. They'd be read over and over again, tricks learned, racing results studied, new gear wished for. One of my pals even won a nice Haro frame in a write-in contest, and I don't doubt that to this day he remebers it as one of the happiest moments of his life. Make no mistake, these magazines are pure awesome and stand on their own merits outside of my nostalgic drivel. The photography and graphic design in many of these magazines really stands up, and the love that was in the batter comes through in the quality of the pages. The largest luminary to come out of these magazines was Spike Jonze who would go on to direct some classic music videos from bands like the Beastie Boys, Weezer, and The Pharcyde and then on to produce such postmodern classics as Being John Malkovich and Adaptation. I just discovered his "What's Up, Fatlip?" video and doc last week and both are absolutely brilliant. And much of his aesthetic comes right out of this sports culture - the gonzo and prankster approach of the mags and vids, the tricked-out camera angles, the experimental need to do something different and push the envelope are what have made him so successful in his various aspirations.

Anywho, when I rediscovered these magazines on ebay, I bought a handful right away and scanned one and shared it. Someone pointed out to me this website full of great remembrances of old-school BMX:

http://www.23mag.com/index.htm

I was absolutely gobsmacked at what I discovered there, a whole stash of scans along with other great remembrances. The scans have since started to be hosted here on what I think is really a great setup for sharing scans:

http://oldschoolmags.com/index.html     EDIT: DEAD LINK R.I.P.

 
It really touches me that some fellow BMXers care so much for the history and the sport to put the time and care in to do this, Johnny's letter on that homepage is great. And the scans are great too, when I talk about the potentials for popular scanning to record our documents and involve the people in our history, this is exactly what I mean.

But enough bullshit outta me, let's get to the mags. For your enjoyment tonight, here's two issues I've scanned. I plan to throw down the occasional BMX scan in the future towards the old-school archives in heartfelt support for all the mags I've enjoyed from those sites, you guys are doing a great job.

First up, BMX Action, June 1987. BMX Action v12n06 (1987-06.Wizard)(The Grommits-DREGS).cbr

Get the scan here.

Contents

Samples. A couple riders I loved as a kid, Pistol Pete and Greg Hill:
 

 

Ah, that mid-air, I'm truly fucked feeling, kids always wear your helmets when performing aerial maneuvers

And a second scan, a key ish, the first Go!, a merger of Freestylin' and BMX Action, and a helluva mag

Go! v01n01 (cover reads Freestylin' BMX Action) (1989-11.Wizard) (DREGS).cbr
Get the scan here.

Contents

 And the message from Lew, the mag's first issue mission statement

Sampleage. Lots of great photos in this issue from Spike Jonze so I'm not gonna hesitate to put up a bunch
 

Last one, incredible.

 

Much love to the guys that rode with me, if you read this entry, I hope you enjoy it.

Back tomorrow with another couple childhood mags that many of you gen x-ers might remember from your school daze...

Fight Stories, September 1930 / REH's Sailor Steve Costigan

Fight Stories v03n04 (1930-09.Fiction House)(Darwination vs McCoy).cbr
Get the full high resolution scan here.

A quick post today of a new scan that fits into my last theme of sports pulps, another scan of Fight Stories, this time an early issue featuring a cover from Earle Bergey and most notably one of Robert E. Howard's Sailor Steve Costigan stories. Howard is well-known for being the creator of Conan, but he wrote all manner of pulp stories in many genres and in a variety of pulp titles.

Howard was an avid boxing fan and an amateur boxer himself, and I think you can tell how much he enjoys and understands the sport in his Costigan yarns. Costigan is a hard-drinking brawler with more than a bit of bloodlust who is nonetheless quite charming. There is a nice biography of Howard at The Robert E. Howard United Press Association page here. You can find many of the Sailor Costigan stories in text form at the following two locales (thanks to the gent that pointed me here):

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:Robert_E._Howard

http://gutenberg.net.au/plusfifty-a-m.html#letterH

I will iterate that these text versions are NOT a replacement for the need to scan the original pulps, Howard's stories are just one part of what Fight Stories was about and can only be fully appreciated in context, as part of a vital pulp and boxing culture. Boxing was huge in our culture at the time on all levels. The largest bouts captivated the nation's headlines just a amateur boxing clubs were even in small towns and local bouts served as opportunities for fight lovers to gather, gamble, and gab about classic bouts. And while I'm on the subject of understanding our boxing culture and its roots, I'd be remiss not to recommend a recent book on the subject, "The Manly Art: Bare-Knuckle Prize Fighting in America" by Elliot J. Gorn:

http://www.amazon.com/Manly-Art-Bare-Knuckle-Fighting-America/dp/0801495822

(Excuse the Amazon link, I'm not spamming I swear, it's just an easy way to point out new books! I cannot lie, I do shop Amazon but also buy author-direct when possible and also patronize smaller booksellers...) My cousin recommended this to me a while back, and it is a superb read. It's a nice history of some of the legends in American boxing that demonstrates how entwined boxing has been with so many aspects of American History - class struggles, definitions of manliness, urban gangs and the urban political machines, etc. It's a great history - fun, informative, and thought-provoking at the same time.

But back to our issue! Contents and samples:

The splash for the Howard story:

One of the best things about Fight Stories are the descriptions of classic bouts. From The National Police Gazette into the pocket magazines and men's adventure magazines of the 1950s, there are many descriptions of epic battles. Here Jack Johnson battles Tommy Burns down under

And lastly, a sample on staying fit from Jimmy DeForest who trained Jack Dempsey.

Enjoy the pulp, keep your guard up, and stay on your toes! And lest I forget, thanks to McCoy for the edit work on this issue! Some knockout work ;)

Next time, some magazines from my childhood along with some thoughts on why magazines make for such powerful nostalgia and the importance of preserving this throwaway medium.