'I Stole a Nazi Plane!'

Argosy, as noted previously, was once one of the premier all-fiction pulps, dating back to the 1880s, when it had started as The Golden Argosy, a children's fiction paper.  By the sixties, however, under the ownership of Popular Publications, it had become more a men's magazine, mixing fiction with sensational 'true' stories.  But it still liked to present itself as an 'upmarket' men's magazine, including amongst its non-fiction profiles of celebrities and other public figures and - as in this issue - exposes of contemporary scandals (in this case the involvement of serving Denver police officers with a burglary ring).  It also included photo features, ('Wild Women of the West -Then and Now') and had a strong emphasis on outdoor sports (this issue - from April 1962 - has a special fishing supplement, other issues featured articles on hunting and shooting).

Of course, despite wanting be seen as a cut above other men's magazines, Argosy still included its share of war and sex stories alongside the gangsters and tales of daring adventure.  It also featured a 'Book Bonus', a condensed novel, in this issue being 'Music to Die By',  a detective story by Frank Kane, featuring his private eye character Johnny Liddell.  Interestingly, the 'Book Bonus' is printed on coarse paper similar to that used in pulps, whereas the rest of the magazine is printed on more expensive 'slick' paper, (indeed, the publisher's went to great lengths to ensure that Argosy was always publicly referred to as a 'slick' rather than a 'pulp', thereby emphasising its relative respectability.  At this point in its history Argosy was still enjoying excellent circulation figures, selling over a million copies per issue.  These figures continued into the early seventies, but after another change of publisher, it folded in 1978, (there have been subsequent attempts to revive it, but none have been sustained).