FRANKENSTEIN FOR MEN ONLY

I find it rather surprising that with all the print material and digital files that I have available to post about, I regularly come across something pertaining to monsters in--of all places--men's magazines.

I found this article, "The Legend of Frankenstein!" in the June 1965 issue of JADE. Subtitled, "The Ultimate in Magazine Entertainment, it was published by Seven Seventy Publishers with a P.O. box out of Universal City, CA. This was their first issue and I don't know if there was a second. There is no masthead or staff credits.

Being the first issue, the editorial professes some lofty claims, such as being "a magazine that combines the visual impact of LIFE, the readability of SATURDAY EVENING POST and the sophistication of PLAYBOY" (!).

The history of the title is a bit of a puzzle; there were at least two issues of JADE published in 1960 by Roena Publications, Inc. subtitled "A Gem of Male Entertainment" and at least three issues published from 1962-1963 by Pike Publishing Co. with the same subtitle and similar logo as the issue shown today. I'm guessing it was bought by, or morphed into Seven Seventy Publishers and continued for at least one more issue.

After reading the article, I do have to say that it was well-written and not just a slap-dash quickie meant for filler. It does, however, have a few errors with dates and names.It runs for 10 pages, is well illustrated and includes a still from BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN that I don't ever remember seeing. Without provenance, this could have easily been thought to be from a monster magazine from the same period.

EXTRA!

Included in this issue were five of Harvey Kurtzman's one-page HEY LOOK! cartoon strips. Kurtzman is, of course, best known for his work on EC Comics and MAD, but earlier he worked for Stan Lee at Timely Comics from where he drew HEY LOOK! strips. Lee is reported to have come up with the title and Kurtzman took it from there. I'm not sure how these ended up in this magazine, and I'm assuming he retained the rights to them and they are all reprints. Kurtzman also worked on the humor magazines HELP! and TRUMP, as well as publishing his own humor mag, HUMBUG (and infamously poached a few artists from MAD). All these went by the wayside when he found better success (and a larger paycheck) writing the LITTLE ANNIE FANNY strip (no pun intended) for PLAYBOY.

On a side note, one of the individuals who chipped in some cash for the HUMBUG start-up was Harry Chester, a graphic designer who ran a studio catering to the publishing trade. He designed James Warren's girlie magazine, AFTER HOURS, and is notable to monster fans as the production manager for FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND beginning with issue #10.

BONUS!

Kurtzman also did some pre-EC comics work in the 1940s. He illustrated two Black Venus stories for Aviation Press' CONTACT COMICS. Black Venus was an ex-Parisian showgirl who went to war as a Japanese-fighting aviatrix. This story is from CONTACT COMICS #11 (March 1946). The title was the only one that Aviation Press published and it ran for 12 issues until shortly after the war.

HAPPY FRIDAY THE 13TH!

R.I.P. MASS MARKET PAPERBACKS

Hello, monster kids! I'm back from a much-needed vacation (what vacation isn't?). My wife and I flew down to Los Angeles and took a Princess Cruise to Mexico with stops at Cabo San Lucas (home to the Tijuana Cartel), Mazatlan (home to the Sinaloa Cartel) and Puerto Vallarta (home to the Jalisco Cartel). No obvious signs of any criminal activity, but it was a little startling to see Mexican marines on guard at Cabo armed with automatic rifles. Still, it wasn't enough to make me fearful.

I met four family members on board and had a great time. Mexico wasn't my first choice for a cruise, but my sister-in-law had it planned way ahead of time. In any event, it was good to get out of the northwest freezing weather and someplace where it was in the 80's. Of course, when we landed at SeaTac it was raining (no surprise there). Got back in time to watch the Seahawks win spectacularly in the Super Bowl. I hope you enjoyed Weird Comics Week in the meantime.

Now, on to my latest rant.

I've lived long enough to see a lot of changes in the book industry, some of them good, some not so good and some that are just tragic. Let me elaborate . . .

Well, here goes another beloved tradition down the toilet. The glory days of the mass market paperback will soon fade into memory sometime this year. You may notice in the following article that they were "designed with affordability in mind". Now I can only say that they are designed with higher profits in mind. Even though trade paperbacks are made with a considerably higher amount of better quality paper, I don't see that the move is value added for consumers. I also attribute the decision to the rise of Kindle and other e-formats as described below.

I will miss these handy little books as much as I've missed everything else that has disappeared into obsolescence. One thing for sure, you won't be able to call paperbacks "pocket books" anymore.

Mass Market Paperbacks are discontinued

Publishers Weekly last month reported that ReaderLink, the largest full-service distributor of hardcover, trade, and paperback books to booksellers in North America, stopped distributing mass market paperbacks at the end of 2025.

By Michael Kozlowski | January 25, 2026 | Goodreader.com

Mass market paperback books are being phased out and will soon be discontinued. Publishers Weekly reported that ReaderLink, the largest distributor of hardcover, trade, and paperback books to booksellers in North America stopped distributing mass market paperbacks at the end of 2025.

Mass-market paperbacks are usually about 5-by-7 inches, printed on lower-quality materials, and designed with affordability in mind. Trade paperbacks, on the other hand, are a bit larger and use higher-quality paper, making them more durable.

The apex of mass market paperback adoption was the late 1960s to the mid-1990s. With a lower price point, sales of mass market paperbacks “easily dwarfed” those of hardcover and trade paperbacks. Mass-market paperbacks were popular in stores like K-Mart, airports, big-box retailers, and grocery stores, where they normally retailed for $5 to $7 and got people into reading.

“Those who were deeply involved with the boom years of mass market paperbacks consider that period an important one for publishing and reading,” Esther Margolis, a former Bantam executive, said in the story. “I believe that mass market paperbacks democratized America. Books and reading became popular in a way never before seen.

There are a few reasons mass-market paperbacks are no longer being published.  The first is the gradual disappearance of paperback racks and other displays in drugstores and supermarkets, and the explosive growth of chain bookstores whose bookshelves are devoted to hardcovers and paperbacks.

The second is the decline of book departments at big-box stores like Walmart and Costco, where mass-market paperbacks failed to be profitable.

Finally, e-books have been popular for over 15 years, and they are released on the same day as a hardcover edition, so digital readers don’t have to wait over a year to save some money.

You only have to look at the overall publishing market in the United States in 2025. In the first eleven months of the year, Mass Market sales were down 26.2% and totaled $81 million. At the same time, normal paperback novel sales were $2.9 billion in revenue.

Do you have any fond memories of mass market paperbacks? I remember being at Safeway in the 90’s and them having a large selection of Hardy Boys and science fiction in mass-market paperbacks. Since they were so inexpensive, I would normally get a few books and devour them. The quality wasn’t good in the long term; books tended to yellow within a few years, whereas traditional paperbacks remained pristine over a decade.