Friday

CRYPTOZOOLOGY ANTHOLOGY Ebook Now Available!

http://amzn.to/1Eti2RJ


Our highly acclaimed Men's Adventure Library collection focused on tales of man's encounters in the wild with the Yeti, the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, and other weird beasts, is now available as full-color, fully illustrated ebook!

Edited by Robert Deis of MensPulpMags.comDavid Coleman (The Bigfoot Filmography) and Wyatt Doyle (Stop Requested), the book includes contributions from luminaries such as Sir Arthur C. ClarkeJohn Keel, and many others. 

Cryptozoology Anthology is packed with 13 biting tales of creatures notorious and obscure, and the limited hardcover includes bonus material exclusive to that edition, including an additional wild story rescued from obscurity. Don't leave civilization without it!

ORDER THE EBOOK FROM AMAZON HERE!

Cryptozoology Anthology is also available in paperback and limited edition hardcover!

http://amzn.to/1Eti2RJ

Thursday

CRYPTOZOOLOGY ANTHOLOGY has been released – along with the Kraken!





















I’m happy to announce that the lushly-illustrated, full-color paperback and hardcover editions of our CRYPTOZOOLOGY ANTHOLOGY are now available to order on Amazon.com – worldwide.

They are also available on Barnes & Noble and other major online bookstore sites.

A full color ebook version will be available in the near future.

The covers of all three formats feature artwork from a classic men’s adventure magazine story that’s included in all editions: “The Reckless Ones,” by the great Arthur C. Clarke.
It was originally published in the October 1956 issue ofADVENTURE and is proudly reprinted by us with the approval of the Arthur C. Clarke estate.

It’s one of Clarke’s “Tales from the White Hart” stories, which are known for their sly humor and surprise endings.

As Denver Gillen’s awe-inspiring illustration for the story shows, “The Reckless Ones” is about a giant squid, the aquatic monster that was once called “the Kraken.”
In 1957, Ballantine published a collection of Clarke’s White Hart stories. That book includes “The Reckless Ones” (under the title “Big Game Hunt”). But we suspect few modern readers, other than serious Clarke buffs, have seen it.

Most of the the other of classic men’s adventure stories about legendary land and sea monsters we chose for CRYPTOZOOLOGY ANTHOLOGY have never been reprinted before in any form.
None have ever been reprinted in a book with all of the original artwork and photographs that were used for them when they appeared in men’s adventure magazines.


That – and the fact that men’s adventure magazines played a major, but little-known role in creating awareness and popular conceptions of Bigfoot, Sasquatch, the Loch Ness Monster and other legendary monsters – make theCRYPTOZOOLOGY ANTHOLOGY a unique addition to realms of books about both cryptozoology (the study of unknown or hidden animals) and post-WWII men’s pulp adventure magazines.

The book opens with an introductory chapter written by cryptozoology and film maven Dave Coleman. It’s titled “That Fondness for the Marvelous So Common to Mankind...” – a quote from an early nineteenth century report about the fascination many of us have for tales of mysterious monsters.





Among other things, Dave is the author of THE BIGFOOT FILMOGRAPHY, the authoritative guide to movies about man-like “Hominid cryptids”, as well as the eerie cryptid-themed novel ANCIENT LAKE.

He also recently launched the Roku Channel Acolyte Cinema, a cornucopia of cult films, quite a few of which are rarely-seen gems about Bigfoot, Sasquatch and other crypto creatures.

There is also additional contextual background provided throughout the book by me and my regular co-editor and publishing partner Wyatt Doyle, whose other recent projects include publishing a new edition of Josh Alan Friedman’s critically acclaimed book TELL THE TRUTH UNTIL THEY BLEED and co-writing the script for the Lionsgate horror film DEVIL MAY CALL with director Jason Cuadrado.

As usual, Wyatt did the graphic design work, as he did for our previous men’s adventure story anthologies: WEASELS RIPPED MY FLESH! and HE-MEN, BAG MEN & NYMPHOS.






I especially love the way Wyatt used the original artwork from the magazines in both the stories and the special “Archives” pages that show cryptozoology-related artwork from stories that aren’t in the anthology (but may be included in a future volume).

And, in a word, the artwork in the CRYPTOZOOLOGY ANTHOLOGY is awesome. We includes covers and interior art by many of the great illustration artists who worked for men’s adventure magazines, including: Stan Borack, Gil Cohen, Clarence Doore, Rafael DeSoto, John Duillo, Jack Dumas, Norm Eastman, Robert Engel, George Gross, Warren Knight, Mort Kunstler, Tom Lovell, John McDermott, John Pike and other talented illustrators.

I’ll focus on some of the stories in the CRYPTOZOOLOGY ANTHOLOGY in more detail in future posts on this blog. In the meantime, here’s a brief overview, using scans of actual pages in the book…

Scores of stories about the best-known Hominid cryptids – Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and the Yeti, or Abominable Snowman – appeared in men’s adventure magazines.




The Hominid cryptids stories we chose, like others in the book, either have historical significance in the realm of cryptozoology lore or are especially good men’s adventure magazine yarns, or both.

For example, the first story in the book is “Wild Giants of British Columbia.” It was written by Canadian Indian Reserve Agent and teacher Arthur A. Dunn, the man who actually coined the term “Sasquatch.”

It was published as a true account of stories local Indians told him about Sasquatch in the September 1948 issue of SIR!,when that magazine was paving the way for the men’s adventure genre that took full form in the 1950s.

Other stories exemplify popular portrayals of famed Hominid cryptids over the next few decades.




There’s “I Stalked the Yeti!” from MAN’S MAGAZINE, February 1953, “A Man From Another Age” from MAN’S ILLUSTRATED, August 1959 and “I Encountered the Abominable Snowman” from RAGE, September 1960.

Those are all ripping yarns (in more ways than one) that portray the Abominable Snowman as a dangerous man-killer.




At the other end of the spectrum is “The Stone Monster” by A.M. Lightner (the pseudonym of science fiction writer and naturalist Alice L. Hopf), from ARGOSY, November 1963. It features a more peaceful Yeti who befriends a human when they are trapped together in an ice crevasse and must work together to free themselves.

Several other stories focus on the American relatives of Sasquatch and the Yeti. Two of them are action/adventure style stories: “Hunt for the Half-Man, Half-Ape of North America” from MEN, November 1969 and “Face to Face With the Ape-Man Monster of Tennessee” from MAN’S WORLD, October 1973.





Another, from MALE, August 1970, has special significance for cryptozoology buffs. It’s titled “Incredible Monster-Man Sightings in the U.S.”

It was written by John A. Keel, the famous (and somewhat infamous) author of a series of popular books about strange creatures, UFOs and paranormal subjects.
Keel is best known for his 1975 book, THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES, the which inspired (among other things) the spooky 2002 film starring Richard Gere and a recent episode of the TV series MONSTERS AND MYSTERIES IN AMERICA.
Yet another story we included that has historical significance is “Monster Bird That Carries Off Human Beings!” by Jack Pearl, from the May 1963 issue of SAGA.

If you Google that story you’ll find that it is widely credited with generating modern awareness of legends about a huge flying cryptid called the Thunderbird and for inspiring a wave of other stories and books about giant birds.





Some cryptozoology mavens, like Loren Coleman, have theorized that the Mothman monster was a Thunderbird. (Loren – one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, a prolific author and founder of the International Cryptozoology Museum – is not related to our co-editor Dave. But they are friends and Dave includes some enlightening quotes by Loren in his introduction to our new book.)

Not all of the creatures featured in our CRYPTOZOOLOGY ANTHOLOGY are warm blooded. We also included stories about giant lizards, sea monsters and lake creatures.
One is “‘Fish’ With Human Hands Attacked Me!” from the November 1955 issue of TRUE WEIRD.

TRUE WEIRD was one of the idiosyncratic men’s adventure magazines published by the enterprising bodybuilders and publishers Joe Weider and his brother Ben Weider (the “Brothers of Iron”).




As befits the name of the magazine, “‘Fish’ With Human Hands Attacked Me!” is portrayed as a true historical account. It’s also truly weird. And, the cover painting that goes with it, by Clarence Doore, is totally gonzo.

Two other stories we included about giant reptiles are rip-snorting action/adventure yarns.
One is a kaiju style tale about a resurrected dinosaur who is encountered by a hapless oil drilling crew. Titled “The ‘Thing’ at Dutchman’s Rig,” it comes from the November 1958 issue of the obscure men’s adventure mag SHOWDOWN.







Another, “MacDonald’s Nightmare Safari,” from MAN’S CONQUEST, August 1959, features huge man-eating lizards, savage natives who worship them, an Indiana Jones-type adventurer and (naturally) a sexy and eventually scantily-clad babe.

The paperback and hardcover editions of our CRYPTOZOOLOGY ANTHOLOGY also include a special “hidden” story that’s not listed in the Table of Contents. We decided that was fitting, since cryptozoology is literally the study of unknown or hidden animals. (Derived from the Greek words crypto, meaning unknown or hidden, zo meaning animals, and ology, meaning “the study of.”)

The special limited edition hardcover version includes even more bonus artwork and an additional story – a wild “true story” from HIS magazine about 300-lb. ape-human hybrids created to fight in wars for Communist countries and tested during the Korean War.





The page scans shown in this post only provide a partial look at what you’ll find in our CRYPTOZOOLOGY ANTHOLOGY. We think it’s a worthwhile addition to the body of literature about both cryptozoology and men’s adventure magazines. Of course, it’s also just damn cool, if I do say so myself.

If you buy a copy and agree, we hope you’ll post a review on Amazon or B&N, or on the pages of one of the cryptozoology Facebook pages, such as MONSTERS, MYSTERIES & MAYHEM.

We’d also love to read your comments about the book on our Men’s Adventure Library Page or in Men’s Adventure Magazines Facebook Group.


In the meantime, as cryptozoology buffs say, keep it Squatchy!

Friday



Cryptozoology Anthology, NOW in paperback and limited edition hardcover!

IT'S HERE.



cryptozoology (n.) The search for and study of animals whose existence or survival is unsubstantiated or in dispute, such as Sasquatch, the Loch Ness Monster, fish with human hands, the Yeti, the Thunderbird, the Ape-Man Monster of Tennessee, and the 'Thing' at Dutchman's Rig. 

For three decades, when American men had questions about the Yeti, the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, and other weird beasts from the strange world of cryptozoology, they found answers in the hard-hitting pages of men's adventure magazines. 

Now, collected here for the first time ever, are samples of sensational period reporting and wild, "true" accounts of savage, fist-to-claw duels between man and Sasquatch, man and fishman, man and monster! Plus full-color vintage pulp artwork that accompanied the stories' original publication, rare archival discoveries, men's pulp history, expert analysis, cryptid-by-cryptid commentary, and much, much more. 

This latest installment in the Men's Adventure Library is edited by Robert Deis of MensPulpMags.com, David Coleman (The Bigfoot Filmography) and Wyatt Doyle (Stop Requested), and includes contributions from luminaries such as Sir Arthur C. Clarke, John Keel, and many others. 

Cryptozoology Anthology is packed with 13 biting tales of creatures notorious and obscure, and the limited hardcover includes bonus material exclusive to that edition, including an additional wild story rescued from obscurity. Don't leave civilization without it!

Available NOW in paperback and limited edition hardcover!

Wednesday

CRYPTOZOOLOGY ANTHOLOGY: Coming April 2015 in full color paperback and ebook editions!


From editor Robert Deis (reposted from MensPulpMags.com ):

Last year, my multi-talented collaborator Wyatt Doyle (author of STOP REQUESTED) and I published two illustrated anthologies of classic stories from vintage men’s pulp adventure magazine stories. Both books were designed and co-edited by Wyatt and released by his indie publishing company New Texture.

The first was WEASELS RIPPED MY FLESH! That one includes the famed killer weasels yarn we used as the book’s title and a wide-ranging sampler of men’s adventure magazine stories, many by writers who wrote for men’s pulp mags before they went on to greater fame, such as Lawrence Block, Robert F. Dorr, Harlan Ellison, Bruce Jay Friedman, Robert Silverberg and Walter Wager.

The WEASELS anthology also includes an interview with Mario Puzo about his work as a writer for the Magazine Management Diamond-Atlas magazines (FOR MEN ONLY, MALE, MEN, STAG, etc.) before his novel THE GODFATHER made him hugely successful. The Puzo interview was conducted in 1984 for SWANK magazine by our WEASELS co-editor, writer and musician Josh Alan Friedman. (Josh’s critically-acclaimed book BLACK CRACKER is also a New Texture publication.)

In his interview with Josh, Puzo gave special praise to Walter Kaylin, a less well-known writer who also created ripping yarns for Mag Management’s men’s adventure magazines from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s. After we learned of the high regard that Puzo and other veteran writers and editors, like Bruce Jay Friedman and Mel Shestack, had for Kaylin, we decided to feature his stories in our second anthology: HE-MEN, BAG MEN & NYMPHOS.

Now, we’re proud to announce the imminent publication of the third installment in a growing series that we’ve dubbed “The Men’s Adventure Library.” Book number three is… {drumroll} … our CRYPTOZOOLOGY ANTHOLOGY. This one features classic men’s adventure magazine stories about legendary creatures like Bigfoot, Yetis (a.k.a. Abominable Snowmen), giant squid (once known as Kraken), sea serpents, the Loch Ness monster, giant lizards and relict dinosaurs.
It will also include a special introduction by our friend David Coleman, author of THE BIGFOOT FILMOGRAPHY and THE BIPOLAR EXPRESS.




In addition to being the writer of several books, Dave is a former Hollywood script doctor and blogger who is now widely known as an expert on the man-like monsters from the realm of cryptozoology. That group of creatures is referred to as “Hominid cryptids” by cryptozoology mavens and enthusiasts. (Or sometimes “cryptid Hominids.)

America’s most famous cryptozoologist Loren Coleman (a friend of but no relation to Dave) explained the origin of the term cryptozoology in his excellent book CRYPTOZOOLOGY A TO Z.  It’s a fusion of three Greek words:crypto, meaning “unknown” or “hidden,” zo meaning animals,  and ology, “the study of.” In other words, it’s the study of unknown or hidden animals. Coinage of the term is often credited to Belgian zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans, who wrote a seminal book about the topic in 1955 titled ON THE TRACK OF UNKNOWN ANIMALS. But Heuvelmans credited it to another one of the fathers of the science (or some would say pseudoscience) of cryptozoology, zoologist and author Ivan T. Sanderson.



From the early 1950s until his death in 1973, Sanderson wrote a series of popular mainstream books about animals and natural history, starting with HOW TO KNOW THE AMERICAN MAMMALS (1951) and ending with GREEN SILENCE: TRAVELS THROUGH THE JUNGLES OF THE ORIENT (published posthumously in 1974)

In 1961, he wrote one of the pioneering books in the field of cryptozoology: ABOMINABLE SNOWMEN: LEGEND COME TO LIFE.

But his most notable contributions to cryptozoology were the many stories he wrote in the 1950s and 1960s about Yetis, sea monsters and other legendary creatures for the top tier men’s adventure magazines TRUE and ARGOSY.

In fact, for years, Sanderson held the title of “Science Editor” for ARGOSY. In that role he contributed dozens of widely-read and influential articles about Hominid cryptids, sea monsters and lake monsters.

One of the most influential and controversial was his story about the iconic shots of Bigfoot taken from the film made by Roger Patterson and Bob Grimlin. It was titled "FIRST PHOTOS OF 'BIGFOOT,' CALIFORNIA'S LEGENDARY 'ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN'" and appeared in the February 1968 issue of ARGOSY.

The story was a huge scoop for Sanderson and ARGOSY. It played an instrumental role in making Bigfoot famous, launching a slew of other magazine and newspaper stories, books and movies in the 1970s. It made Sanderson the biggest superstar in the realm of cryptozoology. And, it stamped a still-familiar visual image of Bigfoot into the consciousness of people around the world.

Sanderson was not the first contributor of stories about crypto creatures to men’s adventure magazines. SIR! magazine, one of the  men’s magazines that helped shape the men’s pulp adventure genre, had previously scooped mainstream magazines by publishing an early article about Bigfoot’s Canadian cousin Sasquatch in 1948 and went on to publish some of the first stories about the Abominable Snowman (aka the Yeti) in the early 1950s.

By an odd coincidence, Ivan T. Sanderson’s first notable cryptozoology for a men’s adventure magazine was also published in 1948. It’s an interesting overview of sea monster lore that appeared in the December 1948 issue of TRUE.



In the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, stories about Hominid cryptids, sea and lake monsters, and other legendary creatures appeared in many of the most popular men’s adventure periodicals, like ADVENTURE, MALE, MAN’S MAGAZINE, MEN and SAGA, and in some of the more obscure ones, like RAGE, SHOWDOWN and TRUE WEIRD.

Our CRYPTOZOOLOGY ANTHOLOGY will include stories from all of those magazines and more, along with introductory chapters and commentary by Dave Coleman, Wyatt Doyle and me. We’re especially pleased that we were able to get permission from the Arthur C. Clarke estate to reprint a classic crypto creature story he wrote for ADVENTURE.

We’re also delighted that we were able to get permission to reprint one of the crypto creature stories written by the late John A. Keel from Keel’s family.

Keel is probably best known as the author of THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES, the 1975 book that was made into a movie starring Richard Gere in 2002.

Like Ivan T. Sanderson, John A. Keel was one of the “Founding Fathers” of both cryptozoology and UFOlogy (the study of flying saucers). He wrote many groundbreaking stories about cryptid hominids (and UFOs) that were first published in men’s adventure magazines.

News about our CRYPTOZOOLOGY ANTHOLOGY is already spreading in crypto buff circles. The first posts about it anywhere were on the popular Bigfoot Field Reporter website and associated Facebook page, maintained by Sharon Lee Lomurno.

Here’s another news flash about our CRYPTOZOOLOGY ANTHOLOGY. It will be published in full color in both print and ebook format. So readers will see just how cool the cover paintings of the magazines and inside illustrations really are.

Watch the posts here and in our Men’s Adventure Magazines Facebook Group for more info and an announcement of the publication date.




text copyright © 2014 Robert Deis