Magazines used to be pretty messed up

Fair warning: Some of the pictures in this post are possibly NSFW. Nothing awful. But just in case you work with puritans who find ostensibly erotic drawings of Nazis torturing half-naked women in comically over-the-top violent ways offensive, I'm letting you know ahead of time.

As a horror movie fan, I read Fangoria religiously as a teenager. Then at some point I just stopped. The internet probably had something to do with it, in that all of a sudden, I didn't need a magazine to get news on upcoming releases, and there were dozens of other places to find sarcastic reviews of awful low-budget movies than The Video Eye of Dr. Cyclops column.

A couple of years ago, I saw a magazine on the rack at Borders (RIP) that I'd never heard of: Horror Hound. That particular issue's cover story was a selection of the best 20 horror films of the past decade, which naturally for me meant the magazine might as well have been sprinkled with crack. Bought it. Read it. Loved it. Have bought every issue since then. It has the same sort of stuff you'd expect in a horror movie magazines--reviews, interviews, etc.--but they also cover things like comics and toys, and do a monthly retrospective on various topics like '80s straight-to-video flicks, Vincent Price films, and the Friday the 13th franchise, almost all of which are just amazing. I've saved every issue I bought.

The current issue has a retrospective on men's magazines from the 1950s to the mid-1970s. Now, when I think of men's magazines, something like this comes to mind.

Some B-list actress in a provocative photo, and the promise of articles about sports, food or sex. Because this is what men are into.

Turns out, back in the day, some men were into something a little different.

"Secret Horrors of the Nazi Torture Cult." "Lust Orgy of the Wild Nympho." "Exposed: The Antics of the Junkies-Muggers-Perverts Who Play By Day - Slay By Night."

What the fuck.

And we haven't even gotten to the picture on the cover yet. A woman, in her underwear, tied to a pole, with a swastika tattooed or branded onto her thigh, and apparently about to have killer Nazi dogs unleashed on her. Maybe if the Germans had spent more time on coming up with battle plans and less time on torture cults, they wouldn't have lost the war.

Seriously, imagine someone buying this back then. The convenience store near my office has a fairly substantial porn section, and I'll often see the men who patronize it displaying varying degrees of nervousness as they approach the counter. Some guys will pick up a Sports Illustrated and put that on top of their porn mags so people in line don't see what he's holding. Other guys just buy their Hustler with the same confidence I buy Starburst with. But this? I mean, I like the Fourth Amendment and all, but I would not have objected to the FBI putting together a watchlist of anyone who bought stuff like this.

More fun with Nazis:

Pouring molten metal into a cast-iron boot seems like an awfully convoluted way of torturing someone. Probably hurts like hell, though. By comparison, the guy holding the mask in the background seems awfully tame. Even he's bored with his own torture device, preferring instead to watch his friend.

I kind of like this cover. No, not because of the nurse-raping! Jesus! No, it's because A) For a change, the women actually seem to have a decent chance at being rescued (at least, I'm assuming those are Allied troops shooting at the Nazis, and not, like, desert nomads who will be as bad or worse), and B) Because of the "Your Filthy Mind is Making You Impotent" bit at the top. It seems odd to chide readers for having filthy thoughts right able an image of nurses being raped by Nazis and stories like, "I Led Cuba's Nympho Raiders." Way to kick your readership in the teeth. If it wasn't for filthy minds, it seems likely that Men's Epic would have folded after its first issue.

On one hand, it's nice to see women finally get the upper hand. On the other, you know what's really fucked up about this cover? The concentration camp tattoo on the redhead's chest. THAT'S where the artist decided to draw the line and insist on historical accuracy? Ugh. So uncomfortable.

By now, you might be thinking, "Wait, surely there were men in the 1960s who weren't into Nazi porn. Did they have magazines?" And the answer is yes, provided that those men were instead turned on by shirtless dudes being eaten alive by small animals.

They really were the Greatest Generation.