New Automags (and 1980s men's adventure fiction?)

[BobM]

I read a bunch of those books in the early 80s. I just looked around online and didn't realize the Bolan character was introduced in 1969.

[JSGlock34]

I read a bunch of those books in the early 80s. I just looked around online and didn't realize the Bolan character was introduced in 1969.

Certainly inspired a more successful and widely known franchise...

[awp_101]

This is the one that reeled me in:


We were camping with my grandparents in between 7th and 8th grade. We were staying in a state park and went into whatever town was close by for something and I saw that cover on the book rack in the store. I was into aircraft way before I got into guns and that was a real "WTH?" cover so I got my Grandmother to buy it so I had something new to read while we were camping. After that, anytime I had some cash I'd hit the used book stores looking for more and read as many as I could get all the way through high school.

Mack Bolan made me what I am today...LOL!

[JAD]

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon....4,203,200_.jpg

My first, I think. I later worked backwards through the series. I got into D&D and Mack at the same time, in ‘80, when I was 9. Explains a lot.

[Balisong]

I've personally never read a Mack Bolan book. But a good childhood friend of mine, my scout master's son, was into them. He tragically passed away last summer. Maybe I should read 1 or 2 in his honor. They look like fun books.

ETA: I read a lot of Doc Savage though, and I got him into those a little bit.

[Alpha Sierra]

DQ that guy

[Gun Mutt]

.45 Magnum I think one of the characters said.

.45 Winchester Magnum

I don't recall Phoenix Force but I think there was an Able Team? One of the guys always carried a Python.

Carl Lyons...my favorite character after Bolan himself.

[MattyD380]

This is the one that reeled me in:


We were camping with my grandparents in between 7th and 8th grade. We were staying in a state park and went into whatever town was close by for something and I saw that cover on the book rack in the store. I was into aircraft way before I got into guns and that was a real "WTH?" cover so I got my Grandmother to buy it so I had something new to read while we were camping. After that, anytime I had some cash I'd hit the used book stores looking for more and read as many as I could get all the way through high school.

Mack Bolan made me what I am today...LOL!

Is that a Mig-25 going down behind a... Fokker DR-1?

[awp_101]

Is that a Mig-25 going down behind a... Fokker DR-1?

MiG25 or 31 and a Lloyd C.II as painted by Gil Cohen. He started his career doing covers for pulp novels in the '50s and eventually made a name for himself as an aviation artist. In between he also did the covers for The Executioner series starting with #11 until it was sold around 1987 as well as a couple of other series owned by the same publisher. When I was looking for that cover I found an interview with him and if I can find it again I'll post where he talks about this cover as well as the link sometime this weekend.

[awp_101]

Part 1: http://www.menspulpmags.com/2018/03/...lan-cover.html
Part 2 (which I haven't read yet) : http://www.menspulpmags.com/2018/04/...gil-cohen.html

Here's the relevant part regarding the cover I posted. He keeps referencing a MiG21 on the cover but it's a 25 or 31.

They would tell you what kind of gun, what kind of plane, what kind of tank, that kind of a thing?

GIL: Yeah. Okay, now we’re on a subject that reminds me of the Mack Bolan convention again. I’m there and I’m answering questions and all of that. There was a line, by the way, going around whole the block in San Francisco, people — mostly guys — wanting to get in. I was amazed. Absolutely amazed. I couldn’t get over it. There were all kinds of people coming in. One was this nerdy-looking guy. He’s got a tweed sport coat and his hair is neatly combed and he’s wearing eyeglasses and he goes up to one of the paintings that I brought. It’s one of the Mack Bolan covers where I show Mack in a World War I aircraft.

I know that one. It’s number 78, DEATH GAMES. Bolan is in the back seat of a biplane shooting down a Russian MiG jet with a missile launcher. I love it!

GIL: Yeah, he’d just shot down a MiG-21. Now, when the art director, Charles Kadin, contacted me about that one he said, “Gil, this is what we want. He’s flying this old Australian-Hungarian patrol plane.” It’s not even a fighter plane. It’s an obscure biplane called a Lloyd C something.

I just Googled it. It looks like it’s a Lloyd C.II Austro-Hungarian two-seat, reconnaissance biplane.

GIL: That’s it. Anyway, Kadin said, “Bolan is sitting in the back seat. It’s a tandem thing — a pilot in the front seat, Bolan is sitting or standing up in the back of the plane. He’s holding a surface-to-air missile in his arms and he’s just shot down a modern MiG-21.”

I said, “That just can’t happen. Not possible. First of all, the heat seeking missiles of the MiG-21 would find that biplane and blast it out of the sky like swatting a fly. It would be nothing to knock that plane down. And here you want him shooting down the MiG-21 and the MiG's going down in flames? That’s ridiculous.” He said, “Gil, just go along with it. Do it.”

So, I said OK and did it. And I figured, you know, “Forget about it Cohen, just have fun. Do it and have fun doing it.” So, I did. I looked up reference photos for the Lloyd C-II, and I did the painting. I had that painting at the Mack Bolan Convention. And this nerdy young guy, maybe in his 30s, he walks in with his tweed sport coat and his glasses and his neatly-combed straight hair and he’s staring at the painting. His nose is almost touching it. I’m looking at Alice, my wife, who is sitting next to me. I kind of nodded to her and I whispered, “Here it comes.”

So, he’s looking at the painting and says, “Are you Gil Cohen?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “Well, my name is” – whatever – and he said, “I work in aerospace in nearby Silicon Valley.” And I’m thinking, “Oh god, here it comes. He’s going to tear this painting apart.” And he said, “You know, that’s very astute of you. This could happen.” I’m not saying anything, I’m just letting him talk. Then he said “Well, you know…” and starts spouting jargon, aviation/technical jargon, vectors and this and that.

Then he said, “And the reason why this could happen is that the engine of the Lloyd aircraft is too tiny to generate enough heat for the heat-seeking missiles on the MiG-21 to pick up. Thus, it probably wouldn’t be able to shoot down that biplane.” So, the scene I painted was actually very valid, though I didn’t know it. And he said, “That was very astute of you to think about that.” And, I said with a straight face, “Well, you know, I kind of figured it out.”