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The Sleazy Reader Issue 5
The wild world of vintage adult paperbacks. 52 pages, full colour BAD GIRLS GO TO HELL - the JD lit of Wenzell Brown LIVING IN THE SHADOWS - Harry Whittington's life in paperbacks THE TORMENTED WORLD OF PHIL HIRSCH - the series of Pyramid anthologies derived from men's adventure magazines. FALCONHURST - the shocking phenomena of the "plantation-exploitation" novel Plus reviews of classic biker and 60s counter-culture paperbacks.
- GenresNonfiction
52 pages, Paperback
First published September 4, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 10, 2017
First of all I need to say a word of thanks to author/editor Justin Marriott for what he has been doing over the past number of years with the publishing of the various “Paperback Fanatic” publications. The list consists of the following publications:
“Men of Violence”
“Pulp Horror”
“The Paperback Fanatic”
“The Sleazy Reader”
All of which are dedicated to bringing to the reader’s attention many of those “lost” gems of paperback production, both English, American and Australian, which adorned the book racks from the sixties to today.
In this the latest production titled “The Sleazy Reader” Issue 5 , Mr. Marriott has not only edited, but has written most of the articles therein, We are informed in the introduction that the run of “The Sleazy Reader” was never planned to run greater than four issues due to a finite amount of material that fits this category, The scope of selection was to include
“Paperbacks conforming to the collectors label of “sleaze” (ie) American paperbacks of the 1960’s from lower rung publishers with a sexual albeit soft-core focus”.
However, demand asked for more ! And I for one am happy with the result.
It should be noted that most back issues are sold out. Now some of the newer publications are available through Amazon US and Amazon UK. Perhaps some of the early issues will be made available soon.
“Men of Violence”
“Pulp Horror”
“The Paperback Fanatic”
“The Sleazy Reader”
All of which are dedicated to bringing to the reader’s attention many of those “lost” gems of paperback production, both English, American and Australian, which adorned the book racks from the sixties to today.
In this the latest production titled “The Sleazy Reader” Issue 5 , Mr. Marriott has not only edited, but has written most of the articles therein, We are informed in the introduction that the run of “The Sleazy Reader” was never planned to run greater than four issues due to a finite amount of material that fits this category, The scope of selection was to include
“Paperbacks conforming to the collectors label of “sleaze” (ie) American paperbacks of the 1960’s from lower rung publishers with a sexual albeit soft-core focus”.
However, demand asked for more ! And I for one am happy with the result.
It should be noted that most back issues are sold out. Now some of the newer publications are available through Amazon US and Amazon UK. Perhaps some of the early issues will be made available soon.
November 28, 2017
My fascination with old and vintage paperbacks occasionally leads me down some interesting rabbit holes. I have been aided in that effort by several publications, one of which is “The Sleazy Reader,” an offshoot of another independently-published magazine known as “The Paperback Fanatic.” Both magazines are the work of editor and primary contributor, Justin Marriott. Now my tastes in vintage paperbacks typically tend to more standard fare....science-fiction, horror, mysteries, westerns….but I’m not at all ashamed to admit that I always keep an eye out for books that lingered out on the seedier fringes of the paperback publishing world. I mean, come on….who WOULDN’T like to add a title like “Backwoods Hussy” to their collection?
To be fair, I wouldn’t have even KNOWN about “Backwoods Hussy” if it weren’t for “The Sleazy Reader.” The intention for this title was to keep it as a limited series. In point of fact, there wasn’t even supposed to be a 5th issue, Mariott having felt that had explored all there was to what he narrowly called “sleaze” paperbacks during the initial 4-issue run of the magazine. By his own admission, it was a tight definition: “American paperbacks of the 1960s from lower-rung publishers and with a sexual, albeit soft-core focus.” But the feedback that Mariott received from issue #35 of “The Paperback Fanatic”, with it’s spotlight on drug-related titles, caused him to expand his definitional boundaries a bit.
And it’s a good thing for us as readers that he did. Sexual themes were only part of the allure of the lower racks, and sleaze themes permeated cheap paperback publishing all the way back to the digest days and on through the marketing of “men’s magazines.” Juvenile delinquents, drug addicts, bikers, serial killers, racial tensions….all of these topics and more made for a wide variety of paperbacks that could potentially fall under the category of “sleaze.” It was easy to tell if a book contained lurid content; often the titles themselves were a dead giveaway. “Monkey On My Back”....”Women of Evil”....”Listen White Man, I’m Bleeding”....”Baptism in Shame”.....none of these books were ever going to be confused with “A Tale of Two Cities.” And if the titles didn’t catch your eye, then the cover art CERTAINLY would. Often featuring shapely women with revealing outfits, you could be sure that the content matched the heat of the illustrations. Titles aimed at a female audience often had shirtless, muscular men set in dominating poses while a female counterpart sat or laid in the background. Formulaic, yes. Effective, absolutely.
And so we are now treated to a revived and reinvigorated “Sleazy Reader,” at least for one more issue. Hopefully Marriott will see fit to continue to mine the riches of a bygone era and keep the magazine in print. I personally think he has only scratched the surface with his explorations.
Issue #5 of “The Sleazy Reader” consists of 6 articles, all penned by Justin Marriott. Or at least I assume they are. His byline is on all of the articles but one, “The Flagellants of Falconhurst,” but I think it’s safe to assume that he wrote that piece as well. Unless I am corrected at some point, I will credit him as the author.
“Bad Girls Go To Hell” - Subtitled as “The J.D. Lit of Wenzell Brown,” this article examines in detail the books authored by Wenzell Brown, one of the most prolific and realistic of the novelists working in the juvenile delinquency market. Brown’s writing owed its realism to the fact that he would take reports obtained by real-life social workers and probation officers and fictionalize them to enough of a degree that he could disguise their true origins. The emphasis, of course, would be placed on the more sensational aspects of each case, giving the reader a peek into the world of the teen miscreant. Brown’s writing style was that of the stern judge or minister, warning against the evils of crime and sin, all the while describing events in melodramatic detail for the reader to salivate over. With titles such as “Teen-Age Mafia,” “Girls On The Rampage,” and “The Wicked Streets,” readers knew EXACTLY what they were getting when they chose a Wenzell Brown book to take home.
“Talking ‘Bout My Degeneration” - A short review and expose of author Leslie Garrett’s “The Beasts”. This book won a Maxwell Perkins award after it was released, but the story of a man drawn into the darker end of the hippie movement makes “The Beasts” a candidate for inclusion in a magazine dedicated to sleaze fiction. Garrett himself was a figure in the counter-culture, and this “street credibility” makes this book less of a reactionary statement and more of document of what was clearly a turbulent time in American history. “The Beasts” even comes complete with a Charles Manson-like figure with a character known as “The Prophet.” It’s a dark and hallucinogenic book, worthy of being sought-out if you enjoy that sort of subject matter.
“Flagellants of Falconhurst” - Starting with author Kyle Onstott and his racially charged “Mandingo” in 1957 and ending in 1988 with “Falconhurst Fugitive,” authored by Carter Whittington, the books revolving around the fictional Southern plantation of Falconhurst provided many a sexual thrill predicated on the “forbidden” fruits of interracial lust and love. Believe me, you could not walk up to a paperback rack ANYWHERE in the 1970s without finding several of the titles in the series offering their low-cut bodices and strapping young lads on the covers, with seductive titles like “Mistress of Falconhurst,” “Six-Fingered Stud,” and “Mandingo Master” promising all sorts of dangerous liaisons. These novels were aimed squarely at a white female audience, and probably have an awful lot to tell us on a sociological level as to the real state of race relations at a time when the civil rights movement was alternately gaining and losing ground. The story of how the Falconhurst follies gained print and popularity is a fun one, and this essay forms a focal point in the issue.
“The Tormented World of Phil Hirsch” - Phil Hirsch was a vice-president at Pyramid Books, who scoured various men’s adventure magazines and published at least 25 low-brow paperback anthologies culled from these dubious sources. Most of the stories were short and sweet, and probed such issues as drug addiction, true crime, racial tensions, and of course, sex. None of the books in the un-numbered series made the bestsellers list, but they were a cheaply produced cash-cow for Pyramid Books for quite a while until the interest in them dried up.
“Enter The World of the Notorious Outlaw - THE BIKER!” - “Easy Riders” was a groundbreaking magazine aimed at the growing “biker” market, or to those who WISHED they could throw off the chains of convention and hit the open road on a fat hog with a hot babe riding the seat behind them. “Easy Rider” was mostly a cheesecake mag, though it also had adventure stories and comics and such....all the things you would expect to find in a popular magazine of the time. Dell Paperbacks decided to summarize a number of the shorts in a 3-volume paperback series that ran from 1977 to 1984. Unfortunately, not a whole lot of interested parties read “Easy Riders” for the stories, and Dell wasn’t about to reproduce the topless photos from the magazine. Thus the Dell paperbacks have been relegated to a backwater of the collecting scene.
“Living in the Shadows” - Harry Whittington has been the beneficiary of a lot of interest and admiration within the paperback collecting community. He is generally regarded as one of the best and most prolific writers in a scene that was often dominated by ghost writers and fly-by-night wonders. Whittington worked almost every angle of the sleaze market, from crime-noir to lesbian peekaboos. His career arc was impressive, as this detailed article shows. His books have a high cachet amongst collectors. Be prepared to lay out some cash if you decide to dip into the Whittington collection pool.
So there you go, 52 pages of sleekly presented sleaze, presented with warmth and humor and a gentle respect for the genre as a whole. The articles themselves are great, but the real prize here is the multitude of full-color cover reproductions that overflow the pages. I can’t say enough how valuable these covers are in communicating the allure and charm of these books. Colorful visual art was a way for a paperback to stand out and capture attention on a crowded rack, and you could spend a long time devouring the lush illustrations that accompany the text in this magazine.
Stay sleazy.
To be fair, I wouldn’t have even KNOWN about “Backwoods Hussy” if it weren’t for “The Sleazy Reader.” The intention for this title was to keep it as a limited series. In point of fact, there wasn’t even supposed to be a 5th issue, Mariott having felt that had explored all there was to what he narrowly called “sleaze” paperbacks during the initial 4-issue run of the magazine. By his own admission, it was a tight definition: “American paperbacks of the 1960s from lower-rung publishers and with a sexual, albeit soft-core focus.” But the feedback that Mariott received from issue #35 of “The Paperback Fanatic”, with it’s spotlight on drug-related titles, caused him to expand his definitional boundaries a bit.
And it’s a good thing for us as readers that he did. Sexual themes were only part of the allure of the lower racks, and sleaze themes permeated cheap paperback publishing all the way back to the digest days and on through the marketing of “men’s magazines.” Juvenile delinquents, drug addicts, bikers, serial killers, racial tensions….all of these topics and more made for a wide variety of paperbacks that could potentially fall under the category of “sleaze.” It was easy to tell if a book contained lurid content; often the titles themselves were a dead giveaway. “Monkey On My Back”....”Women of Evil”....”Listen White Man, I’m Bleeding”....”Baptism in Shame”.....none of these books were ever going to be confused with “A Tale of Two Cities.” And if the titles didn’t catch your eye, then the cover art CERTAINLY would. Often featuring shapely women with revealing outfits, you could be sure that the content matched the heat of the illustrations. Titles aimed at a female audience often had shirtless, muscular men set in dominating poses while a female counterpart sat or laid in the background. Formulaic, yes. Effective, absolutely.
And so we are now treated to a revived and reinvigorated “Sleazy Reader,” at least for one more issue. Hopefully Marriott will see fit to continue to mine the riches of a bygone era and keep the magazine in print. I personally think he has only scratched the surface with his explorations.
Issue #5 of “The Sleazy Reader” consists of 6 articles, all penned by Justin Marriott. Or at least I assume they are. His byline is on all of the articles but one, “The Flagellants of Falconhurst,” but I think it’s safe to assume that he wrote that piece as well. Unless I am corrected at some point, I will credit him as the author.
“Bad Girls Go To Hell” - Subtitled as “The J.D. Lit of Wenzell Brown,” this article examines in detail the books authored by Wenzell Brown, one of the most prolific and realistic of the novelists working in the juvenile delinquency market. Brown’s writing owed its realism to the fact that he would take reports obtained by real-life social workers and probation officers and fictionalize them to enough of a degree that he could disguise their true origins. The emphasis, of course, would be placed on the more sensational aspects of each case, giving the reader a peek into the world of the teen miscreant. Brown’s writing style was that of the stern judge or minister, warning against the evils of crime and sin, all the while describing events in melodramatic detail for the reader to salivate over. With titles such as “Teen-Age Mafia,” “Girls On The Rampage,” and “The Wicked Streets,” readers knew EXACTLY what they were getting when they chose a Wenzell Brown book to take home.
“Talking ‘Bout My Degeneration” - A short review and expose of author Leslie Garrett’s “The Beasts”. This book won a Maxwell Perkins award after it was released, but the story of a man drawn into the darker end of the hippie movement makes “The Beasts” a candidate for inclusion in a magazine dedicated to sleaze fiction. Garrett himself was a figure in the counter-culture, and this “street credibility” makes this book less of a reactionary statement and more of document of what was clearly a turbulent time in American history. “The Beasts” even comes complete with a Charles Manson-like figure with a character known as “The Prophet.” It’s a dark and hallucinogenic book, worthy of being sought-out if you enjoy that sort of subject matter.
“Flagellants of Falconhurst” - Starting with author Kyle Onstott and his racially charged “Mandingo” in 1957 and ending in 1988 with “Falconhurst Fugitive,” authored by Carter Whittington, the books revolving around the fictional Southern plantation of Falconhurst provided many a sexual thrill predicated on the “forbidden” fruits of interracial lust and love. Believe me, you could not walk up to a paperback rack ANYWHERE in the 1970s without finding several of the titles in the series offering their low-cut bodices and strapping young lads on the covers, with seductive titles like “Mistress of Falconhurst,” “Six-Fingered Stud,” and “Mandingo Master” promising all sorts of dangerous liaisons. These novels were aimed squarely at a white female audience, and probably have an awful lot to tell us on a sociological level as to the real state of race relations at a time when the civil rights movement was alternately gaining and losing ground. The story of how the Falconhurst follies gained print and popularity is a fun one, and this essay forms a focal point in the issue.
“The Tormented World of Phil Hirsch” - Phil Hirsch was a vice-president at Pyramid Books, who scoured various men’s adventure magazines and published at least 25 low-brow paperback anthologies culled from these dubious sources. Most of the stories were short and sweet, and probed such issues as drug addiction, true crime, racial tensions, and of course, sex. None of the books in the un-numbered series made the bestsellers list, but they were a cheaply produced cash-cow for Pyramid Books for quite a while until the interest in them dried up.
“Enter The World of the Notorious Outlaw - THE BIKER!” - “Easy Riders” was a groundbreaking magazine aimed at the growing “biker” market, or to those who WISHED they could throw off the chains of convention and hit the open road on a fat hog with a hot babe riding the seat behind them. “Easy Rider” was mostly a cheesecake mag, though it also had adventure stories and comics and such....all the things you would expect to find in a popular magazine of the time. Dell Paperbacks decided to summarize a number of the shorts in a 3-volume paperback series that ran from 1977 to 1984. Unfortunately, not a whole lot of interested parties read “Easy Riders” for the stories, and Dell wasn’t about to reproduce the topless photos from the magazine. Thus the Dell paperbacks have been relegated to a backwater of the collecting scene.
“Living in the Shadows” - Harry Whittington has been the beneficiary of a lot of interest and admiration within the paperback collecting community. He is generally regarded as one of the best and most prolific writers in a scene that was often dominated by ghost writers and fly-by-night wonders. Whittington worked almost every angle of the sleaze market, from crime-noir to lesbian peekaboos. His career arc was impressive, as this detailed article shows. His books have a high cachet amongst collectors. Be prepared to lay out some cash if you decide to dip into the Whittington collection pool.
So there you go, 52 pages of sleekly presented sleaze, presented with warmth and humor and a gentle respect for the genre as a whole. The articles themselves are great, but the real prize here is the multitude of full-color cover reproductions that overflow the pages. I can’t say enough how valuable these covers are in communicating the allure and charm of these books. Colorful visual art was a way for a paperback to stand out and capture attention on a crowded rack, and you could spend a long time devouring the lush illustrations that accompany the text in this magazine.
Stay sleazy.
April 7, 2018
Intersting articles about the sleaze offerings from Wenzell Brown and Harry Whittington, the biker mag "Easy Riders", and the Falconhurst series of plantation sleaze, and others. Loaded with pictures of paperback artwork which I have never seen before.
March 21, 2018
A fascinating look at whole sub-genres from another era - wow, the pulp of the day was out there, and some of the cover artwork is just classic stuff.
This is a great piece of historical collation, with the editor, Justin Marriott, providing excellent short articles to put each sub-genre in its context.
I enjoyed it so much I've ordered Issues 6 & 7.
This is a great piece of historical collation, with the editor, Justin Marriott, providing excellent short articles to put each sub-genre in its context.
I enjoyed it so much I've ordered Issues 6 & 7.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews