Word: mechanix
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Born on a South Dakota ranch, beefy Bill Williams played on two college football teams (Wisconsin and Centre College, Danville, Ky.). He had been a Burns detective, a Yellowstone guide, and city editor of the Minneapolis Journal before he joined Fawcett in 1941. He was put to work editing Mechanix Illustrated, ran its circulation up from 216,000 to 440,000. Then he was handed True and told to make it a "general magazine for men." He tossed out the horror tales, switched to slick paper, went hunting for good writers (C. S. Forester, Budd Schulberg, Lucian Cary) and began...
Like most of the others (Popular Mechanics, Scientific American, Mechanix Illustrated, Science Illustrated, etc.), it was still a men's magazine: 99% of its readers are males from 18 to 60. Its crowded advertising pages were cluttered, as they have been for years, with opportunity ads (Get into Radio, Learn Massage at Home, etc.) and bulging with the biceps of the bodybuilders. But editorially PSM had been vastly slicked up by hefty Editor (since 1945) Perry Githens. Githens had sharpened the magazine's words-&-pictures technique, shoved the gadget and how-to-do-it sections toward the back...
Most amused publisher was Fawcett Publications. Said its house organ: "We suggest that Wiegers prepare for his next little game of I-spy by learning how to handle mechanical gadgets. Mechanix Illustrated, 10 cents at all newsstands, or Handy Man's Home Manual, 50 cents (adv.), might be helpful...
...years Whiz Bang soared to a circulation of 425,000, brought Captain Billy close to $500,000 a year. Then its trajectory turned earthward again: by 1930 it was down to 150,000, in 1932 it folded. Meanwhile, with his profits Captain Billy started True Confessions, Screen Play, Modern Mechanix, Smokehouse Monthly, For Men, Amateur Golfer & Sportsman, various others. But Whiz Bang was his darling. Wherever he went while Whiz Bang lasted Captain Billy picked up ribald jokes, sent them back with his monthly editorial, Drippings from the Fawcett...