| It's fun to track the
evolution of the imagery created on the cover of mid-century Detective
Magazines. which later became Crime magazines and then made a slippery
slide into the shadowy world of Exploit-a-rama!!
The following images are taken from
covers of various magazines starting in the 1920's on through to
1990's. Starting out as Detective Stories, these
publications with lone wolf protagonist who much like Dashiell Hammett's
Sam Spade work outside the system neither criminal nor police and
incorporate stories which have a substantial element of mystery in their
content. The Black Mask cover from 1920, first line left side,
describe the magazine as "A Magazine of Mystery, Romance. and Adventure.
By 1922 it's motto has become "A Magazine of Mystery and Detective
Stories". Evidence of the idea that
mystery had a major influence on the goings on rendered in these
stories.
After studying the progression of the
covers it's not hard to see that the Detective Magazines later become
Crime Stories which as time passes actually provide a conduit for sexual
exploitation. The need to constantly manufacture shock for
readership turns the intellectual give and take of a mystery story into
what could be called shock value dirt literature.
The graphic progression
found in the iconography of these magazines was parroted by American
film a bit later. Take a look at the style and content differences
between the films 'Phantom Lady' (1944) and 'Screaming Mimi'
(1957). Now check out the magazine covers of that same period. |
