Dian Hanson's: The History of Men's Magazines. Volume 4. 1960s Under the Counter

Too Sexy for the Newsstand
Late 1960s magazines tested the censors in Europe and the U.S.

In 1958 Milton Luros left his New York job designing and illustrating detective pulp magazines for North Hollywood, California. A year later, with a loan from an underworld figure, he founded a publishing empire that revolutionized men's magazines in the 1960s. His so-called “California slicks” borrowed bad-girl themes from pre-Playboy burlesque titles, featuring big hair, heavy make-up, cigarettes, and cocktails, but in west coast mid-century settings with better photography, paper, and printing. With no redeeming articles, they were too strong for newsstands, but outsold Playboy in tobacco shops and specialty bookstores.
Californian Elmer Batters invented leg art photography the same year, with titles Black Silk Stockings, Leg-O-Rama, Tip Top, Elmer's Naked Jungle and more.