Sun 14 Aug 2011
ADVENTURES IN COLLECTING: MANHUNT MAGAZINE, by Walker Martin
Posted by Steve under Collecting , Columns , Magazines , Pulp Fiction[32] Comments
MANHUNT MAGAZINE
by Walker Martin
Recently, I was walking through my house trying to find a set of magazines on the bookshelves. I wasn’t having too much luck because I must have double stacked another set of magazines in front of them. Then I started wondering, how did I get to the point that I have so many books and magazines that I can’t find them? It’s not as if I have them hidden in boxes or storage units, they are mostly on bookshelves, though I do see some stacks on the floors.
I started collecting magazines in 1956 and I still have the very first one that I bought off the newsstand: the February 1956 issue of Galaxy. I keep intending to frame it and hang it on the wall. So I’ve been at it now for 55 years and I guess that is how I now have so many magazines that I cannot find some of them. Each year I pick up more or start collecting another title that I’ve been thinking about reading. It all adds up as the years march on.
When I bought the Galaxy I was hooked for life on science fiction. I was 13 and my allowance was $1.50 each week. Doesn’t sound like much but that’s $6.00 a month which enabled me to buy all the SF digests and paperbacks. I also had a job on Saturdays which paid me another $1.50 per week, cleaning a barbershop (sweeping floors, dusting bottles, cleaning the mirrors).
Since the SF digests only cost 25 cents I was within my budget. But then in the summer of 1956 I discovered Manhunt and all of a sudden I had a cash flow problem. Manhunt had a lot of hardboiled crime competition from such titles as Pursuit, Hunted, Two Fisted, Offbeat, etc.
This was the age of the digest revolution and the newsstands were full of the small fiction magazines. If you try and find the digests nowadays, you will realize we are at the end of the digest era and perhaps entering the days of the electronic magazine or e-book.
As a lover of the physical books and magazines, this makes me very unhappy. The e-book looks pretty sorry next to the beautiful artifacts that I have been collecting for so many years. The feel of the physical book, the dust jacket, the smell of the pulp paper or digest, might soon disappear and be replaced by the humming of a electronic gadget.
No e-book could have ever made me fall in love like I did when I saw my first Galaxy or Manhunt. We all know about the attractions of the SF covers but the Manhunt covers struck a deep sexual chord within my body. The brassy blondes, the shameless hussies, the girls about to be beaten, or something worse.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough money to buy SF and crime digests, so after reading a few Manhunt’s, I had to reluctantly stop buying them. Fast forward about 20 years and now I have a job with more money to spend on collecting. But I also have the usual things like a wife, kids, mortgage, etc.
Somehow I managed to squeeze out enough to put together a complete set of Manhunt, all 114 issues. By the way, the magazine is well known as just about the best of the hardboiled crime digests, lasting from 1953 to 1967, so this fact makes collecting the title a prime objective.
For about 25 years I read many of the stories by Ed McBain, William Campbell Gault, Richard Prather, Ross Macdonald, etc. But then around the year 2000, I started to get annoyed by the amount of hours I was spending each day working at my job. I figured if I took early retirement, I could read and watch film noir movies all day long! I must have been wasting 10 hours a day working.
So in order to make all this happen, I did some downsizing and made the mistake of selling my set of Manhunt’s. To make matters even worse, I sold it for only $500, which included the 12 very rare large sized issues.
Now I began to question my sanity and judgment as a serious collector. I missed the magazine terribly and spend many years whining and complaining about my stupid decision to sell.
A few years ago at Pulpcon I stumbled across an art dealer who had two of the 1956 original cover paintings used on Manhunt. I immediately bought both and hung them in my living room, despite the nervous complaints from my wife about the scenes showing women being strangled.
The copies of the magazine came along with the paintings and I rapidly reread both, meanwhile muttering under my breath about mentally defective collectors who sell favorite magazines.
So for over 10 years, I felt this regret eating away at me until finally this year at the Windy City pulp convention, my desire to rebuild the set burst forth. In a mere two hours, I had gone through 140 dealer’s tables like a buzzsaw and found 39 issues of Manhunt, or about 1/3 of the run.
The price averaged about $11 or $12 each, some higher, some lower. Now, you would think that this would make me feel relieved and happy. No, not at all. I wanted the complete set of 114 issues. 39 issues were not enough, a mere drop in the bucket.
Another blog that I follow, hosted by a collector like Steve Lewis who also loves books and magazines, was having to downsize his collection because he was selling his house. Normally he would never consider selling what he also thought was the greatest hardboiled crime digest.
I made a good offer and he quickly accepted. Also included were the Manhunt companion digests such as Verdict, Murder, Menace, and Mantrap. He also threw in several Giant Manhunt’s, which rebound leftover issues, and the British version titled, Bloodhound.
The condition was nice, especially the 12 large sized issues which are so rare. One problem was how to smuggle three large boxes into the house without my wife detecting the arrival of over 100 more magazines. The house is already sinking under the weight of thousands of books and magazines(I won’t even go into the subject of the thousands of DVDs).
When the mailman delivered the boxes I quickly put them into the trunk of my car, giggling insanely at my clever actions. Then I slowly introduced them into the house and no one noticed because I’m always walking around with stacks of books or magazines.
So ends another successful Adventure in Collecting. Welcome home Manhunt!
August 14th, 2011 at 9:34 pm
I still have the first SF digest magazine I bought off the newsstand also, but although we’re about the same age, I was a lot slower in getting around to it. I didn’t buy my first copy of ASTOUNDING SF until January 1959, my senior year of high school.
Before then I made good use of the town library, in and out with as many books as I could carry every week.
Other than EQMM and HITCHCOCK’S MAGAZINE, I wasn’t aware of the mystery digests until I’d moved to Connecticut, which was in 1969. Once TAD and mystery fandom started, I heard about MANHUNT, but in those long ago pre-Internet days, finding copies was hard and difficult.
Until, that is, one day, checking through the Yellow Pages for bookstores, I thought I’d try one I hadn’t been to before. It was in Hartford and run, as it turned out, by two little old ladies.
And there on one shelf, sort of hidden away, was a long run of MANHUNT’s. I’d like to think it was an entire run, but it probably wasn’t more than half of them, and there weren’t any of the large-sized issues at all.
I didn’t pay much attention to the rest of the stock, but I nonchalantly took all of MANHUNT’s up to the counter. They were 25 cents each, or five for a dollar, as I recall.
Oops. I hadn’t brought enough cash along with me, nor did they take credit cards. No matter. Once I separated out all I could pay for, they stacked the rest of them on top for me to take anyway. I quickly said thanks and slipped out the door before they could change their minds.
To tell you the truth, I may have made their day. They were probably glad to have the money and to some space to use for something else. But even if not, they made my day. How could they not have, since I remember the day as if it were yesterday.
I went back once or twice afterward, but if I bought anything else from them, it was nothing memorable.
Eventually I went back one day, and a small takeout restaurant or muffler shop was in their spot. Gone but not forgotten.
August 14th, 2011 at 9:57 pm
Steve has reproduced the cover of the first MANHUNT that I bought as a kid: June 1956. I still think the cover image is exceptional and eye catching.
He also shows the cover for the July 1954 issue which is very unusual. Usually the artist would show a man threatening a woman but in this image a woman is threatening another woman, who happens to be naked. Another eyecatching scene, which by the way, does not appear in any of the stories.
August 15th, 2011 at 5:23 am
A most enjoyable piece, Walker. Bravo! Your wife must be a very patient woman. I hope she doesn’t read this blog!
August 15th, 2011 at 7:09 am
An excellent article as usual Walker. But aren’t you afraid your wife will read this and find out your secret? Sneaking books into the house! My goodness and here I thought I was the only collector to be this devious.
Looking forward to reading more of your continuing adventures in collecting.
August 15th, 2011 at 8:23 am
The thought has crossed my mind a couple times that my wife might read these comments. But the reality is that non-collectors have absolutely no interest in reading about collecting books and old magazines.
The only time I’ve ever seen my wife touch a pulp was decades ago when I showed her a pulp for the first time. It was a 1930 issue of DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY and her only comment as she held it away with two fingers was, “it smells!”.
Yes, it certainly did smell, and the scent was like heaven to me. But the non-collector sees it as moldy, dirty, flaking, and just another old magazine that should have been discarded in 1930.
Of course we collectors know better, don’t we. It’s an object of beauty and what’s more you can read it!
August 15th, 2011 at 12:34 pm
The smell of old books — I love it. I am becoming more and more committed to ebooks for a variety of reasons (please don’t throw anything at me) but books will always have their charms. I was a book collector until I ran out of shelf space. Boxes are good for transporting books, but bad for storing them.
August 15th, 2011 at 12:49 pm
I don’t know how many Kindle readers there are that frequent this blog — many of us are devout solid object collectors! — but J.P., let me plug your new blog anyway:
http://kindlemystery.blogspot.com/
The stated objective: “Every Tuesday and Thursday I will discuss a self-published mystery book available on Amazon’s kindle.”
Sounds like a worthwhile endeavor to me, though I suppose I’d have to buy a Kindle before I could take any kind of advantage of it…?
August 15th, 2011 at 1:25 pm
Steve, you do not have to buy the e-reader to enjoy the Kindle. I have a Kindle on my Mac (it is free and available for PC, etc) as well as own a Kindle e-reader.
I prefer my Kindles over print for a variety of reasons that I won’t bore anyone with here.
Every time I read here that someone has a book but can’t find it in their huge collections of print, I smile and remember why I bought my first Kindle.
And you know, last I checked you can own the print one to smell and the e-book to read.
August 15th, 2011 at 3:52 pm
You’re almost right, Michael. You can read and smell a printed book at the same time.
I’m also even less likely to read a book from a computer screen than I am to own a Kindle. But that’s just me.
Meanwhile the ebook industry continues to shake itself out:
On today’s front page of http://www.microsoft.com/reader/
Closing the Book
Microsoft is discontinuing Microsoft Reader effective August 30, 2012, which includes download access of the Microsoft Reader application from the Microsoft Reader website. However, customers may continue to use and access the Microsoft Reader application and any .lit materials on their PCs or devices after the discontinuation on August 30, 2012. New content for purchase from retailers in the .lit format will be discontinued on November 8, 2011.
Getting back to MANHUNT, though, that first issue was a doozey, wasn’t it? See the cover image at the bottom of Walker’s essay. There were some other authors, too, mostly filler, but the Big Name Authors featured on the cover were (and still are) very impressive.
August 15th, 2011 at 6:38 pm
Steve in Comment #9 mentions the Big Name authors that were in the first issue. One of the biggest wasn’t even listed on the from cover: Evan Hunter, who was to write many stories for MANHUNT and become famous as Ed McBain.
In the April 1953 issue the editor talks about the print runs of the first two issues. I’ve heard the digest set new records as far as circulation, even going as high as 400,000 per issue.
The editor says, “We printed 600,000 copies of our first issue, and we boosted the printing to 800,000 for our second issue…”
The magazine was so successful that it spawned dozens of imitators and rip offs hoping to cash in on the amazing success of MANHUNT.
August 16th, 2011 at 8:43 am
You bring back memories, Walker. I ran into several issues of Giant Manhunt some years ago. They were leftovers indeed. Four or five back issues in no order, just what they had on hand bound together.
The story quality was good at the beginning and so bad (except for re-printed stories) at the end. One could say for a magazine Manhunt was terrific at recycling.
August 16th, 2011 at 10:28 am
Terry in Comment #11 mentions the GIANT MANHUNTS. I have several of the digest issues which the publisher bound together in one big digest bargain. But the big prize is a GIANT MANHUNT which was made up of several of the large size issues, all 8 1/2 by 11 inches. A real giant and similar to the big issues of MAMMOTH DETECTIVE.
The larger size was an experiment that MANHUNT tried during March 1957 through April 1958, for 12 issues. The digest was such a success that the publishers figured the larger size would get an even better display on the newstands. ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE also tried the larger size during the same period for 9 issues but evidently sales did not justify the increase in size and both magazines returned to the digest format.
August 16th, 2011 at 10:46 am
I would like to thank everyone for their comments because it makes me think about topics that I should have discussed in the main article but forgot to mention.
One example is the question of censorship. Mike Ashley in an online article about MANHUNT(Google MANHUNT MAGAZINE and it’s one of first few hits), mentions that the publisher Flying Eagle and Michael St. John, were brought to trial charged with obscenity over the contents of the April 1957 issue. A story and an illustration was adjudged obscene and Flying Eagle was fined.
Now, I’m not sure if Ashley means a trial in the US or Britain. Also, I have to admit I cannot see the the obscene scenes even though I’ve read the entire issue and studied the illustrations.
I think he is talking about the lead story, “Body on a White Carpet” by Al James. Maybe the courts were disturbed about the violence and considered it obscene? It is violent. SPOILER ALERT–man goes to a girl’s apartment to have sex but she wants him to get rid of a body first. So he does but then she backs out and says no sex. He casually digs the body back up and dumps it back in her room. Needless to say she is shocked and so might some censors back in 1957.
August 16th, 2011 at 11:49 am
Walker, back in Comment #11, Terry mentions how bad the stories were at the end of MANHUNT’s run. I confess that I haven’t read any of the last dozen or more issues. How bad are they? I know the names of the authors are really obscure.
PS. Your description of the Al James story makes it sound like something some censor would jump on. I’ll see if I can’t get Mike to tell us more.
August 16th, 2011 at 11:58 am
Here’s the link to Mike Ashley’s article on MANHUNT. It focuses on the magazine itself rather than Walker’s POV as a collector. so the two make good reading together.
http://www.crimetime.co.uk/features/mikeashley2.php
About the censorship problem, he says:
“In fact a greater emphasis on sex and sadism led to Flying Eagle (and its President Michael St John) being brought to trial charged with obscenity over the contents of the April 1957 issue. In the end, only Al James’s story ‘Body on a White Carpet’ was adjudged obscene, plus an illustration, but Flying Eagle was fined. […] With the return to digest you sense the claws had been sheathed with Manhunt. It had clearly failed to broaden its appeal and its regular market was being siphoned off by paperbacks and the growth in television. It also switched to a bi-monthly schedule, always a sure sign that money is tight. ”
Regarding the end of the run:
“I’d probably log its last important issue as April 1963, which had both a Joe Gores novelette and Westlake, writing as Richard Stark, with ‘The Outfit’, but it had certainly lost its lustre by the end of 1963. Thereafter it started to reprint material from its early issues, including the Spillane serial as one complete novel (in fact it reprinted that twice, having already re-run it in a bumper issue in June 1955). There’s almost nothing of much interest in the last two years besides the reprints. Its declared circulation at the end was just over 74,000. Manhunt’s final issue was dated April/May 1967.”
August 16th, 2011 at 12:12 pm
I have to admit the stories were pretty bad at the end of MANHUNT’S life. The authors were unknown and the “big name” writers no longer sent in stories because the magazine cut the word rates and in fact paid very slowly.
I’m talking about the mid sixties, perhaps 1963 to the end in 1967. But I’ve heard some arguments that say the best period was the 1950’s and the declining years were the 1960’s. There were some decent stories in the early 1960’s but you can easily see that the magazine was not doing as well as the 1953-1959 period.
Starting in the sixties, the big digest revolution was starting to slack off and the magazine died in 1967. Things finally got to point where we are now. I think we will live to see the end of the digest fiction format. I hate to say it but the circulation figures don’t lie: F&SF sells 15,000 each issue and ANALOG around 30,000. ASIMOV’S is around 23,000. EQMM and AHMM are doing better but not anywhere near the figures of a few years ago.
Prepare for the era of the dreaded E-book. Why dreaded? I’m a collector of the book and magazine artifacts. I love the scent of the paper, the feel of the book, the artwork. My idea of heaven is a houseful of pulps, digests, vintage paperbacks. The e-book will never equal the physical book as far as collectors are concerned. But we better get ready because the invasion is here, right now.
I’m still stocking up on old magazines and books, so I’m prepared. RIP digest magazines…
August 16th, 2011 at 12:37 pm
Look at those numbers again. When MANHUNT died, its circulation is cited by Mike Ashley as being 74,000. The figures for the present day digests as stated by Walker are only a tiny fraction of that.
I assume that each of the magazines makes some money from online editions, but it’s amazing they’re still in business right now.
PS. With Borders gone, or they soon will be, everyone has been concerned about book sales going down, but so far, no one’s mentioned how devastating this might be to magazine publishers.
The Borders I used to frequent two sometimes three times a week has a Barnes and Noble across the street, but the latter does not carry the following magazines I bought every issue of at Borders:
ELLERY QUEEN
CINEMA RETRO
BASEBALL AMERICA
SING OUT
VIDEO WATCHDOG
LOCUS
and probably a few more that aren’t coming to mind right now.
I could subscribe to some of the above, but others I won’t, and I’ll bet lots of other people won’t either. I may drive around to other Barnes & Noble’s, but that gets old fast. (As old as I am.)
I don’t care for magazine subscriptions, mostly because you don’t know what kind of shape they’ll arrive in. (And if you don’t care, you’re not a collector.)
August 16th, 2011 at 1:49 pm
I remember in the 1950’s and 1960’s, I didn’t have to drive around or hunt for my digest magazines. All the SF and mystery digests were carried by all sorts of venues like grocery stories, drugstores, deli’s, newstands, etc.
Now the distribution is practically non-existant and only the big Barnes & Noble carries the 5 remaining digests. Like Steve, I hate having my subscriber copy torn or damaged. Even the address sticker is hideous to a collector.
August 17th, 2011 at 10:35 am
Wonderful trip down memory lane, Walker. I’d have loved to be there when the newsstand was populated by these little wonders. Mt childhood memories are of a soda fountain in San Jose, California called Pronto Pup that stocked all the latest comics and monster magazines. Pure heaven!
August 17th, 2011 at 2:44 pm
This was a great article. I love Manhunt and wish I had picked up more issues (although I have quite a few). The large issues are hard to find. The same is true of the large sized Alfred Hitchcock issues from the same period. I have a vague notion that this may have been wished on them by a distributor who thought they would get more news stand exposure.
I may be able to shed some light on the obscenity charges against Manhunt. Knowing I collected mystery/crime digests, Mike Ashley wrote me while he was researching his article and asked if I had the April 1957 issue. It happens to be one the the large issues that I do have. Mike was interested in getting a scan of the illustration to a story by Paul G. Swope “Object of Desire” on page 25. I did the scan for him.
The rather crude illustration (as many interiors are) is tagged “A chippy, a tramp; but she had what he wanted.” A man is shown grabbing for the throat of a woman and from between his legs is a rather unmistakably erect penis.
The one prize Manhunt in my collection is one Evan Hunter autographed as Hunter, Richard Marsten, and Hunt Collins.
August 17th, 2011 at 4:00 pm
Richard Moore in Comment #20 solves the mystery of the obscene illustration. Now that I look again at page 25 of the April 1957 MANHUNT, there is an erect penis visible. This makes this issue worth alot more to magazine collectors of the bizarre and risque.
The story itself is just a page filler, not even a page long. SPOILER ALERT. Crazy guy kills a prostitute for her scarf. Seems he is a collector…
August 18th, 2011 at 1:00 pm
Even I had a fairly comprehensive collection of Manhunt at one time, but they are now in the Cox Collection at the University of Minnesota Library. Some day I may go up there and visit them.
August 18th, 2011 at 1:53 pm
Randy, you have to do the same thing that I did. I had to go and buy another set to replace the set I foolishly sold. A collector never stops really collecting, so you should replace the set you donated. And then you can donate it again after reading it…
August 22nd, 2011 at 9:17 am
I looked at my copy of the April 1957 issue, and conclude that the “obscene” illustration on page 25 shows a large crease in the male character’s left pant leg. The loose drawing style makes it appear to be a penis,but does cloth really stretch like that? A lot of excitement over nothing, I’m afraid
March 5th, 2012 at 5:13 pm
Walker and I are both members of the rara-avis Yahoo discussion group, and a couple of days ago someone else there discovered the following link to the Manhunt obscenity case:
http://openjurist.org/273/f2d/799/flying-eagle-publications-inc-v-united-states
The following paragraph was selected as being of primary interest, but the whole transcript should be of interest to anyone who is opposed to censorship in terms of what adults are allowed to read.
The six stories submitted to the jury do not have even the slightest redeeming social significance or importance. Nor do they have any claim whatever to literary merit. In general, their dominant theme is illicit, often meretricious, sexual intercourse combined with a sub-theme of violent crime, usually homicide. But while the stories are replete with anatomical references to breasts and thighs and hints of sexual intercourse accomplished or to come there is no description of the sexual act in any of them. Indeed, in several of the stories the sexual act is frustrated at the last moment by the intervention of a crime of violence. It is apparent that the magazine is published only for the cheapest of sensationalism and for the “commercial exploitations of the morbid and shameful craving for materials with prurient effect.” Mr. Chief Justice Warren, concurring in Roth v. United States, supra, 354 U.S. 496, 77 S.Ct. 1315.
I’ll add the following paragraph:
All six of the stories have definitely weird overtones and can certainly be characterized as crude, course, vulgar, and on the whole disgusting. But tested by the reaction of the community as a whole — the average member of society — it seems to us that only the feature novelette, “Body on a White Carpet,” and the illustration appearing on page 25 accompanying the story entitled “Object of Desire,” could be found to fall within the ban of the statute as limited in its application by the important public interest in a free press protected in the First Amendment.
March 9th, 2012 at 3:49 am
Walker, I couldn’t stop laughing, smiling and chuckling all the way through your piece on Manhunt. A couple of years ago, at one of the Brass Armadillo antique malls (absolutely huge!), I found a batch of 1950s digests including several Manhunts for $1 each in decent shape. Naturally, I bought them all.
Like you, I started buying items to read in 1956, but I was only 8 years old (I was considered a child genius because I could read and write adult level by age 10). I remember how astonished the clerk was at the drug store in 1957 when my 9-year-old self plunked down 35 cents (I think) for the second (and last) issue of Space Science Fiction, with a cool flying saucer cover. “Isn’t that a little old for you?” the clerk asked. To which I replied something like, “Oh, no, but I have to buy science fiction because my parents won’t let me buy the mysteries except for Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys. So I buy science fiction. Besides, I just saw the movie “Earth vs. the Flying Saucers” and I want to read more about them.” Considering it was a small town, I’m sure that’s why i got a reputation as “The Brain” and “The Oddest Kid in the World”!
Then I read every Asimov and Heinlein book available by the time I was 11 in 1959, and it was the start of something big. A few years ago, I found in one of my old sci-fi book club volumes a list of all the books I read from 1958-1961 (ages 10 to 13). It was well over 300 books!
March 9th, 2012 at 1:36 pm
Michelle, it looks like you had a different and happier reception to your reading than I did in 1956. The other kids treated me as the class dumbell for reading SF and even through high school I never encountered anyone with a real passionate interest in reading.
Even my relatives took a dim view of my reading habits. One of my aunts during a visit sat down and had a heart to heart talk with me about wasting money on books. I was 12 and she worried not only about the money I was spending but also about wasting time reading. She even threw in the old “too much reading will ruin your eyesight” trick.
Well, here it is over 50 years later, and I’m still wasting my time and money on books. I’m sure to come to a bad end…
December 14th, 2012 at 8:22 pm
Does anyone happen to know what stories, besides “Body on a White Carpet,†and “Object of Desireâ€, were in the April 1957 issue of Manhunt?
July 1st, 2015 at 10:57 am
Can anyone help me find a story written by dad published in giant manhunt number 12 and also in Manhunt 1958 Febuary.
I have most of my dads work but not this story titledThe Babe and the Bum by Michael Brett
July 1st, 2015 at 11:26 am
That particular issue is one of the large-sized ones, not the digest format. They must not have sold well, as they are quite difficult to find. Either that or they were stored in places other than where the smaller ones were kept and misplaced and therefore lost. Google is your best friend on this, that and eBay. Keep looking and good luck on the hunt!
February 21st, 2016 at 10:23 pm
Shari,
Re: #29
http://www.philsp.com/homeville/FMI/t/t2772.htm#A60807 reveals “The Babe and the Bum” was in Manhunt V6 #2 Feb 1958.
Hope this helps!
March 10th, 2021 at 6:52 pm
[…] managed to find 39 of the 114 issues during one weekend at the Windy City Pulp convention. Here is the link to the article. Unlike the imitators, the prices were reasonable and I spent only $8 to $11 for each […]