As usual with Men’s Adventure Quarterly this volume is beautifully presented and copiously illustrated. As a bonus there’s a photo feature on Mamie van Doren.
The Stories
The first two stories are in fact non-fiction exposés. The Vicious Girl Gangs of Boston by Henry S. Galus appeared in Man to Man in August 1954 while Wenzell Brown’s Tomboy Jungle appeared in For Men Only in November 1957. The hysterical tone is mildly amusing but these pieces are not all that interesting.
Zip-Gun Girl by Albert L. Quands was published in Man’s Illustrated in September 1958. It’s a condensed version of a novel which might be why it seems a bit messy and complicated. An ex-con named Lou Jackson and his daughter Pebbles (yes her name is Pebbles) arrive in the city but they get a lot of aggravation from neighbours because of Lou’s prison record. Pretty soon Pebbles is unpopular as well, both her and her father being suspected of snitching to the cops.
Pebbles is desperate to join one of the two local warring gangs, the Tigers and the Buccaneers. It’s not easy for a girl to join a gang while keeping her virtue intact which is what Pebbles hopes to do (this was 1958 so the heroine has to remain virginal). Pebbles has a plan - to form an all-girl gang. Meanwhile an idealistic cop is trying to save her and transform her into a good girl. It’s an OK story.
Jack Smith’s Street Queens Are Taking Over is from the January 1962 issue of Wildcat Adventures. This one is fiction but presented as a true story written by a reporter who has gone undercover to join a teen gang. The leadership of teen gangs in the city is being taken over by girls, and they’re really mean really bad girls. Tougher than any of the boys. In this story the girl leading the gang seeks revenge on a girl who stole her boyfriend. Revenge, with a motorcycle chain used as a weapon.
Lust On Our Streets by Allan Hendrix appeared in Wildcat Adventures in September 1963. This one takes its inspiration from what was supposedly a trend at the time - instead of gangs engaging in large-scale rumbles a few gang members would pick a wealthy young couple as victims and lure them into an ambush which would end in robbery and brutal assault.
There’s hardly any actual story at all, with far too much time devoted to pompous pontificating by (almost certainly imaginary) experts. Rather boring.
The ‘Passion Angel’ Cycle Girls by Clinton Kayser appeared in Men for December 1967. This is another faux non-fiction exposé, purportedly made up of interviews with biker chicks and focusing entirely on their sex lives. The reader learns the difference between Old Ladies, Strange Chicks and Mamas. The article makes a vague attempt to analyse the girls’ motives. An amusing piece.
Cycle Queens of Violence by J.R. Wayne was published in Man’s Conquest in June 1970. Yet another non-fiction piece and also pleasingly hysterical.
Final Thoughts
The most fascinating thing about this volume is of course what it has to say about the juvenile delinquent hysteria of the period. This was an age, very much like our own, of rigid social control in which even the slightest deviation from accepted social norms was viewed with suspicion, hostility and paranoia. An age of endless moral panics.
These juvenile delinquent tales reinforce the paranoia whilst gleefully exploiting the shock value.
There’s plenty of amusement and entertainment here. Recommended.
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