- Yesterday's Girls... Today!

Our most recent offering is Gaze from August of 1959. Gaze was one of those digest-sized cartoon magazines from Humorama. Among the ladies presented are Mona Miller (2 pictures), Virginia De Lees (3), Marle Sanderson (5), Donaldo Jordan (2), Cozette Hutner, Cherry Knight, Sherry Britton (4), Nancy Kirsten (4), Jean Carmen, Joanne Mayer, Carol DiCarlo (2), Celia Fields, Carol Hill, Lynn Barton, Joanne Jordan (7), Jayne Hayden (4), Suzi Peterson (4), Laura Vickers (4), Simone Auger, Jonnie Smith, Joanna Lee, and Niki Gibson.

Humorama was a division of Martin Goodman's publishing empire, Magazine Management. Goodman published an incredible variety of magazines and comic books including Marvel Comics (Captain America, Spider-Man, etc.), Red Circle (pulp magazines such as Uncanny Tales and Western Supernovel Magazine), paperback books (Lion Books), and men's magazines (For Men Only, Male, Stag, etc.)

Humorama was managed by Goodman's brother, Abe, and published up to 20 different magazines of this type over the years, all with the same mixture of racy cartoons and semi-clad ladies. Usually the pictures of the girls were images that had already been published elsewhere and the photographer could pick up a few extra bucks selling them a second time to Hurmorama. The Humorama line was printed on newspaper stock, so the photos weren't particularly clear, but they got the point across.

These magazines, like Sex to Sexty, are much-treasured by collectors and while they're easy to find on places like eBay, they're usually expensive. Bill Ward was a big contributor to the Humorama digests. Oddly he's not represented in this particular issue, which is probably why I managed to get it in an auction for less than $8. There are a LOT of great cartoons though, and a lot of beautiful babes, so enjoy a rare treat!

The latest issue for your perusal is Cover Girl #17. While I can't tell you much about Cover Girl specifically, I can certainly tell you a bit about the era it was published in.

There's no date on this issue, but I'd date it to c1969, give or take a few years. It was published in Copenhagen. At the time, Denmark was well-known in the United States for its more explicit pornography. As early as the mid-60's, magazines (and even playing cards with pornographic pictures) from Denmark were making their way into the U.S. and showing us sex acts, penetration, and what genteel people referred to as "a woman's private parts". I saw a little of this in my father's secret stash when I was a kid, but generally his taste was less graphic.

My own taste is less graphic also, but there's only a little showing of pubic area here, not sex acts and certainly not gynecological exams. Still, it's a little different from our usual offerings, but I thought I'd see what you, the user, thought.

Happy Father's Day!

For all of you dads out there (including me), here's a present for you: Striparama!

You all know how much I gush over Selbee Associates magazines. Well, this one's beautiful, even for them. Unfortunately, my soruce for this magazine (who requests anonymity) gave me the best he had, which is much smaller than our usual fair. Sorry about that, but that's the fault of whomever scanned it, not my contact or me or Selbee Assocaites.

Striparama concentrated on strippers of the time, and there are some famous ones between the covers. (More on that later.)

By 1963 the Burlesque circuit was on its last legs and the ladies working in the business were finding the nightclubs more attractive. The nightclubs had the benefit of waiters serving food & drinks to well-dressed couples and appearing (at least on the surface) to be more upscale than the Burlesque houses. They often presented the strippers as "artistic dancers" and limited some of the raunchier acts. Since the Burley-Q places were now falling into disrepair and being raided on such a regular basis, the girls were willing to work the clubs for less money. Their business network was dying out as local Burlesque houses closed down. They were being replaced by topless clubs that recruited local girls to dance and shimmy with their breasts showing. Burlesque, as a form of dance and as a business, was rapidly disappearing from the American scene.

That didn't matter to Lenny Burtman, owner of Selbee Associates. He knew what his readers wanted and he had good connections with strippers, thanks to his wife, Tana Louise, herself a stripper and model. Lenny got them lined up to appear in his Striparama magazine. It was a form of advertisement for the ladies and a source of the fetish content that Lenny loved.

Included in this issue are pictorials of Marie Davis, Evelyn West, Rosina Revell (the centerfold; here presented as just "Rosina"), Irma "The Body" (real name: Mary Goodneighbor), Dee Thomas and Chen Yu. There's also a reader submission of an "Amateur Stripper" called simply "Kristi".

But it doesn't end there! There's an article on strippers that includes some pictures of Lorelei, Lili St. Cyr(maybe?), Zorita, Tee Tee Red, Tinker Bell, Blaze Starr and Pat Amber Halliday. There's also an ad for another Selbee magazine on the inside back cover featuring Melvina Price. The letters to the editor section seems just an excuse to show more ladies, and they include Yvonne, Tana Louise (2 pics), Pamela Green (9), Paula Page, and Jennie Lee (4).

So all-in-all, I think, the lack of picture quality can be forgiven because of the historical significance of the magazine. Besides, the images are at least large enough that you can still enjoy the pictures, if not preserve them.

Well, sort of...

Apparently the problem lies in the theme I'm using for the website. This website runs on a Content Management System (CMS) called Drupal. There are, literally, hundreds of themes available for the system. The current theme doesn't allow any content to span across more than a certain number of pixels and will just "clip" the content at that point. Unfortunately, I really, really like this theme.

The solution is to use a different theme, but only when you're in the forum. Drupal can do this, so I have configured it that way. When you go into the forum, the header will look quite different. When you go to the main part of the site, you'll see my preferred theme again. This will do until I can find the right line of code to correct the current theme issue.

Note that this also happens in the gallery of magazines when you try to see the page in its full size. However, since the only reason I can see to view a magazine page there in all its glory is to download it, I don't see this as a problem. What you download would not be cut off as the image appears to be.

The Pink_Panther strikes again* with this beautiful digest from Selbee. A couple of pages are missing, but the bulk of the magazine is there.

Selbee was not adverse to the (at the time) excessively racy concept of female domination, and a lot of their magazines and digests presented the subject in glowing terms. While not my personal cup of tea, I do love the outfits.

This particular issue also includes pictures of Tana Louise AS A BLONDE! I've never seen her with golden tresses before; she still looks gorgeous.

So check this one out and enjoy. As before, join me in thanking Pink_Panther for generously sharing with us.

*You KNEW I was waiting for the second contribution to use that phrase, didn't you?

After a lot of playing around over the past day, I think I'm finally happy with the new theme. What do you all think? It's clean, well laid-out, and has a bit of a vintage feel to it. I added a new logo and to top it all off, I changed my avatar to the very luscious Gerri Diane. I've never seen her beyond this one photoset, but she's a looker. :)

BTW, bluenose, I really like your own avatar. I'm not sure why; it just appeals to me.

If you get a chance, click on "My Account" on the navigation bar on the left and click on the "Edit User Profile" tab. You can enter in a lot of information about yourself. Once you save it, you'll have a spiffy new account page just like mine.

Added 11 "Lorraine Burnette" photos to the "Small Contributions" album

Thanks to Pink_Panther for our next contribution. Bandit in High Heels is published by Burmel Publishing Co, better know to us as Selbee. Pink_Panther wanted it known that he didn't scan it, only donate it. So whatever happened to the missing page (page 13) is not his fault. Burmel (named after the owners, Lenny BURtman and Ben HimMEL) was pretty much the same outfit as Selbee and used the same models, the same outfits, and most often, the same pictures.

That's not to belittle their efforts, as the quality of the models and outfits is something to be admired. Included in this issue are Maureen (who I don't know; anyone know her?) and Tana Louise (once Mrs. Lenny Burtman) in a photo story about a cat burglar and some female domination. Beautful stuff, in my opinion. This is an Exotique digest, so you know what to expect.

Please enjoy this gorgeous little digest and join me in thanking Pink_Panther for a grand contribution.

I've mentioned Sampson Publishing before. Although I really have no info on the owner or publisher, I do know that Sampson was the same company as Delilah Publishing, as their addresses are the same. I also know that they had a tendency to slap books together quickly, often without much order to the pages or even a proper indicia (the text, usually at the bottom of the index page, that lists the publisher, the date, and the number of the issue). Compare this issue of Eve with the one I have posted by Delilah. While the girls are about the same, the Delilah Eve is put together hastily and sloppily. Perhaps to obtain a copyright as quickly as possible.

Sometimes Sampson aspired to the quality of Selbee, as witnessed in the magazine French Frolic. Other times, they seemed to just publish what they could get their hands on.

Sampson's Eve was not the first girlie magazine to use that name. Knight Publications started a mag called Eve in the mid 50's, along with their Adam magazine. Eve didn't last long; Adam did. Sampson's Eve may not have lasted long, either. I've never seen an issue past #3, although that doesn't mean there weren't any.

In this issue, we have pictorials of Ann Wesley, Maria Clarance, Christine Ballard, Marlena Loren, Nina Corol, Audrey Nichols, and Bambi Martino.

There's also one-each clothed pictures of Peggy Evans, Arlene Stevens, Jacquie Bernard, and Laura Thurlow, all in Fredrick's of Hollywood Lingerie. Not an ad, but an article entitled "Hollywood Starlets Love Fredrick's Fashions". After seeing them, I love them too.

Our latest magazine is from the mind of Robert Harrison, publisher of such delights as Titter and Beauty Parade.

Harrison worked for Motion Picture Daily in 1941 when he began cutting and pasting pictures to make Beauty Parade after everyone else had gone home for the day. Harrison knew what he liked, and his tastes were a tad more fetishistic than the girlie mags on the stands at the time. Harrison liked high heels and lingerie. In fact, he liked them so much that the models were never without them in his publications. Never.

While there was no nudity, Harrison's mags had a sense of style, gaudy though it may be. He featured models like Bettie Page and strippers of the day in pictorials with baggy-pants comedians that looked like they came right off the burlesque stage, which in fact they had.

Magazines like Modern Man and Playboy eventually drove Harrison off the newsstands, but not before he reigned supreme for over a decade, giving us a more innocent girlie mag.