Man's Courage

From October 1963, the only known issue of Man's Courage, an incredibly obscure US men's magazine about which I can find little, not even a publisher's name.   The cover of what should have been a launch issue, but also became the last issue, certainly goes for broke in setting out the publication's stall in terms of tone and content.  The cover painting embodies all the staples of the genre: imperiled semi-naked and bound woman, implications of rape,uniformed, gun-toting white saviour and casual racism, (those sex mad foreign devils ravishing 'our' women again).  The story it illustrates rams home these the themes: 'How the Foreign Legion Smashed the White Brothel in the Casbah!'  The clear implication being that if the women involved hadn't been white, then the Foreign Legion would probably have been patronising it rather than raiding it.  The other stories given cover strap lines cover all of the regulation men's magazine topics: prostitution, Nazis, women at war and animal attacks.

Whoever came up with these strap lines certainly liked their alliteration: 'We Clobbered the Car Hop Call Girl Racket1' and 'The Bull Ring Blood Bath of the Betrayed Matador' would certainly catch the eye of the casual newsstand browser.  'There Were Only 12 of Us - Against 5000 Nazi Beasts' is also attention grabbing with its promise of desperate war heroics and beastly Nazi atrocities, while 'Commander Caldwell's Suicide Squad of Fantastic Frogwomen' (three alliterations in one tittle), promises the prospect of more of those gun and knife toting underwear clad women warriors sexily slaughtering Nazis, Japs or Commies, (delete as applicable).  With the magazine packing so much sensational sounding stuff into the debut issue, it is fair to ask why it apparently didn't sell sufficient copies to get to a second issue.  The key doubtless lies in the date of publication: by 1963 it was still a crowded market for men's magazines despite the format having probably passed its peak popularity.  Increasingly, rival titles were shifting their format to become more conventional pin up style softcore porn magazines, with less fiction and more emphasis upon sex.  Man's Courage, it seems, despite a bravado first issue, sinply came too late to the party.