BARBARIANS ON BIKES
Bikers & Motorcycle Gangs in
Men’s Pulp Adventure Magazines
Edited by Robert Deis & Wyatt
Doyle
A New Texture Book
116 pgs
Even since appearing on the pulp
scene a few years ago, Robert Deis and Wyatt Doyle have done a truly wonderful
job of educating the reading public about the evolution of pulp magazines into
the post-World War II Men’s Adventure Magazines (MAMS) that proliferated across
the drugstore racks between the 50s and 70s.
In such beautifully produced books
such as “Weasels Ripped My Flesh,” “He-Men, Bag Men & Nymphos,”
“Crypto-Zoology,” and “A Handful of Hell,” they have brought us an amazing
collection of reprinted fiction from so many of the most popular MAMS. But for the most part, despite being
beautiful adorned with classic art reproductions, those titles were focused on
the stories and the writers. In that
fashion, Deis and Doyle clearly made their point in depicting the gradual
evolution of American pulps.
With this, their fifth title,
they’ve turned the spotlight on the artwork that graced the pages and covers of
those latter day pulps. Using the highly
popular theme of the Outlaw Biker Gangs that infused itself into the America
psyche of the era, they’ve collected some of the most beautiful illustrations
and cover art ever produced for commercial periodicals. Throughout these pages you’ll find the work
of such talented artists as Mort Kunstler, Earl Norem, Marti Ripoll, Al Rossi,
Gil Cohen, Basil Gogos and others you’ve most likely never heard of before.
Which is itself a sin that needs correcting.
These were giants who month after
month provided drawings that accompanied such features as “Sex Life of a
Motorcycle Mama,” or “Havana Joy Girl Who Became a Guerilla Queen,” among the
more sedate such titles. This book is a bountiful treasure that is summed up
poetically with crime writer Paul Bishop’s afterword memoir. A tip of the pulp
fedora to Deis and Doyle, you guys are batting 500!!
(There is also a hard cover with 16
extra pages available.)
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