Dian Hanson
Koln: Taschen, 2022.

“The new publishing companies started in Hollywood then expanded into the San Fernando Valley, the first settlers in what would become the world capitol of porn production. American Art Agency, commonly called Parliament, was the leader, but Art Enterprises, Comet, Dominion, Marquis, Marst, Orbit, Pendulum, Press Arts, Rilgac, Sari, Spice, Tri-S, Tower, Utopia and many others contributed memorable magazines. The East Coast got into the game late with Sampson and Delilah Publishing, Health Knowledge, and Lenny Burtman’s Selbee Associates out of New York, and the distinctive Tudor House/Central Sales from Baltimore, but overall, California ruled.” (from introduction)

Dian Hanson
Koln: Taschen, 2022.

“Around 1960 Hugh Hefner began exporting Playboy. It was an immediate success overseas and by mid-decade most of Europe had adopted the Playboy blueprint for its own men’s magazines. From France came Lui, from Italy Playmen. England made King, Germany Eden. The only serious challenge to Playboy’s dominance came when Penthouse from newly hip London in 1965, taking the grittier stance of the Rolling Stones to Playboy’s Beatles. From 1966 on Penthouse was copied regularly as Playboy, resulting in English Mayfair and Men Only and Italian Excelsior, Men, 10 and numerous others. Italy was especially taken with the Penthouse model, since publisher Bob Guccione was a paisano himself, but even Germany’s most venerable men’s magazine, Er, eventually restyled in Penthouse hipster mode. Soon these “lifestyle” men’s magazines, those that covered fashion, food, travel and entertainment as well as sex, were the only titles available on European newsstands. Playboy’s overseas influence was a stunning victory for Hefner, but it came at the expense of the more culturally distinctive magazines made in France, Germany and England prior to 1960.” (from introduction)

Dian Hanson
Koln: Taschen, 2022.

“Sex publishing has always been a battleground. On the one hand there were men, mentally and physically hardwired to respond to erotic images. On the other hand, other men, determined to deprive the first group of what they naturally desired. The first two volumes tracing the history of men’s magazines are about the struggle between lust and taboo, beginning with the first bare French breasts in 1880 and ending with bare American breasts in 1958.” (from author’s introduction to Volume 1)