BARBARIANS ON BIKES

For my birthday this year, my lovely wife Judy gave me two way cool books (along with other great stuff). The books are BARBARIANS ON BIKES and I WATCHED THEM EAT ME ALIVE. They're part of the ambitious Men's Adventure Library series, a line-up of quality books that reprint stories, art and covers from classic men's adventure magazines from the '50s to the '70s.

 A couple of years ago, Judy gifted me with a copy of A HANDFUL OF HELL by the late Robert F. Dorr. I posted a positive review of this two-fisted collection of classic war and adventure stories on this blog after I read it. I plan to start reading I WATCHED THEM EAT ME ALIVE later this evening. So, I have three of these incredible books in my collection with the following titles still to be acquired: WEASELS RIPPED MY FLESH, HE-MEN, BAG MEN & NYMPHOS, CRYPTOZOOLOGY ANTHOLOGY and the upcoming CUBA: SUGAR, SEX, AND SLAUGHTER. Robert Deis and Wyatt Doyle are the mad geniuses responsible for these instant classics and I tip my hat to these two men who are bringing so much terrific vintage material back to life in these handsome, absolutely must-have books. For more info, check out the website menspulpmags.com and tell 'em I sent you. You can thank me later.

I sat down and devoured BARBARIANS ON BIKES yesterday afternoon. It's a terrific look at the bygone days when outlaw motorcycle gangs captured the nation's collective imagination through books (fiction and non-fiction), films and men's adventure magazines in which biker exploits were brought to vivid, thrilling life through lurid text and eye-popping artwork. Deis and Doyle provide a nice historical overview in their introduction while former LAPD cop (and cyclist) Paul Bishop ices the cake with a nifty afterword. In between, it's page after page of classic biker related material from MAMS.

The format is a beauty. On the left hand side of each two page spread, is a reproduction of the first page of a magazine article while the right hand side features a full-color reproduction of various magazine covers. I would have loved to see some of these stories reprinted in their entirety rather than just given a tantalizing glimpse but that's a very minor quibble about what is in every way an outstanding package of salacious and forbidden thrills.

You know a book is a good one when you look at a full color magazine cover, reproduced in all it's psychotic glory and think, "this is my favorite!" only to turn the page, see another cover and think, "no, wait, THIS is my favorite". This process was repeated for each and every of the 112 pages contained here. I don't have any of the magazines depicted here in my collection (yet), but feasting my eyes on these beauties has only served to reinvigorate my ongoing, never-ending quest to continue to acquire vintage MAMS.

In the words of General George S. Patton: "God, I love it. God help me, I do love it so."