THE MEN'S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY #13: The Fatal Femmes Issue

by Robert Deis, Bill Cunningham (Editor), Eric Compton (Editor)

154 pages, Paperback

Published November 1, 2025

About the author

Robert "Bob" Deis is a pulp and pop culture historian who collects and writes about vintage men's adventure magazines (MAMs) and paperbacks published in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. He co-edits, with indie book publisher Wyatt Doyle, the MEN'S AVENTURE LIBRARY book series. That series now includes over 20 illustrated story anthologies and art books. Bob also co-edits the MEN'S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY magazine with graphic designer and pop culture maven Bill Cunningham. The MAQ reprints MAM stories and artwork and discusses paperback, movie and TV shows related to each issue's theme. Bob and Bill also co-edit THE ART OF RON LESSER book series, which showcases Lesser's famed paperback cover art, historical artwork, and more recent paintings. Bob's main website is www.MensPulpMags.com. He also writes a blog about famous quotations, www.ThisDayinQuotes.com. Bob lives near Key West, Florida with his beautiful wife (who graciously tolerates his piles of old magazines and books), their three dogs and four cats.

Reviews

[Dan Leo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great issue of the Men's Adventure Quarterly, this time devoted to one of my favorite tropes, "the deadly dame". My two favorite stories in this number are Don Honig's "Mrs. Herman and Mrs. Kenmore", and the very different bang-up closer of the mag, "Vendetta on the Street of Lonely Frauleins" by the author of the "Godfather", Mario Puzo, here writing under his frequent "men's adventure" nom de plume of Mario Cleri. "Mrs. Herman" is one of the best-written stories I've read in the Quarterly yet, a wry tale of female middle-age murder which was originally published in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, and soon after was adapted into a classic episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. This delightfully morbid tale is a bit of an outlier from the usual stories we've seen reprinted in the Quarterly, as the Hitchcock magazine was not in the "men's adventure" genre, (although Honig was also a frequent contributor in those lusty publications), but it does fit very well into the theme of this issue, proving that murderesses aren't always young and lissome, and that some kill with a gas stove instead of a dagger or poison. Puzo's "Vendetta" is just total 1960s spy-romp fun from the word go, and here our femme fatale is indeed young and lissome, and is about as close to a female James Bond as you're ever going to see. Not only does she have a lipstick that hides a hypodermic needle that will knock out an East German soldier for twenty-four hours, but she has high-heeled shoes that each contain a small but deadly one-shot pistol. Her name is Scarlet Tracy, and you don't want to mess with her! She's got a male partner who's almost as tough, and, yeah, they do get it on, but only for a few days after a job; Scarlet has her own code, and for her the loving only starts after the killing stops. Oh, by the way, "Vendetta on the Street of Lonely Frauleins" doesn't really have a vendetta or any lonely frauleins in it, however it does have streets, so the title isn't a complete misnomer, but it's a damn cool title, so who cares? As usual, one of the best features of the mag are the dozens of vintage ads, for the likes of "Marked Cards", "Tattoo Removing", and the classic Charles Atlas Dynamic Tension "bully on the beach and the 97-pound runt". The art in this issue is what we've come to expect from editors Bob Deis and Bill Cunningham, lots of full-color, duotone, and B&W work from the likes of Bruce Minney, Mort Künstler, Vic Prezio, and Norm Saunders, as well as spot cartoons including a full-page "girly" from the great Bill Ward. Bob Deis was dealing with his beloved wife's illness during the production of the magazine, and guest editor Eric Compton did an excellent job helping out with well-informed introductions and an article on the "top ten" novels featuring fatal femmes, most of which I was not familiar with! So now I've got some more reading to do…