Support Your Local Vampire: Crowdfunding John Amplas' Autobiography, ONCE A VAMPIRE

We are very pleased and proud to announce that New Texture's Wyatt Doyle and Jimmy Angelina are collaborating with actor John Amplas (Martin, Day of the Dead) on his autobiography, Once a Vampire.

We are accepting support via GoFundMe to help defray the costs of work on the project. 

Donate here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/once-a-vampire

Here's the pitch:

"For some of us, he's James Dean."

Actor John Amplas is celebrated for his unforgettable performance in the title role of George Romero's 1977 film Martin, as well as his appearances in Creepshow, Knightriders, Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead. But his own story is every bit as dramatic, unusual, and moving as the parts he's played.

John has enlisted writer Wyatt Doyle and illustrator Jimmy Angelina to help tell his story and bring it into print.

This is an entirely independent project, with no big money behind it. (No small money, either!) It's three guys—John, Wyatt, and Jimmy—creating something from scratch with no outside assistance...except yours.

If you want to read this book, John is asking for your help in making it a reality. Help us get it done! John and Wyatt have already recorded over 20 hours of interviews that will make up the core of the book. Jimmy Angelina has already completed multiple illustrations for the project. But we're at the point where things are starting to cost money, and that's where you come in. Initial expenses include transcription for those interviews and proofreading fees, and soon, marketing/promotional expenses. It all adds up quickly.

This is very much a NO AI project. We support human-generated transcriptions and employ human proofreaders.

Want to help John tell his story? Pitch in with a donation!

This book is happening. We're all fully committed to the project. But with your support, it can happen faster and more easily.

This adventure is only just beginning. Join us.

At GoFundMe's insistence, I must include the statement that no raffles, sweepstakes, giveaways, or promotions are offered in exchange for any donations made.

Who is Wyatt Doyle?

Wyatt Doyle is the writer and artist behind New Texture, a fiercely independent arts collective turned publisher and music label with over 50 releases since 2009. In addition to editing and designing the book for John, he has decades of experience navigating the worlds of book printing and distribution. His books have been acclaimed by numerous critics, including The Washington Post's Pulitzer-Prize-winning Michael Dirda.

His own work includes fiction (Stop Requested, illustrated by Stanley J. Zappa), visual art (The Last Coloring Book, The Last Coloring Book on the Left, and Be Italian with Jimmy Angelina) and photography (Jorge Amaya Doesn't Live Anymore, Dollar Halloween and others).

Through New Texture, he has collaborated with and published authors and artists as diverse as Lawrence Block, Gil Cohen, Byron Coley, John Doe, JD Doyle, Jon E Edwards, Harlan Ellison, Bruce Jay Friedman, Josh Alan Friedman, George Gross, Mort Künstler, Sydney Leff, Lydia Lunch, Eva Lynd, Todd Pierce, Samson Pollen, Robert Silverberg, Georgina Spelvin, and many others. He edits and designs most New Texture releases. You can browse some of the books he's worked on and published on Amazon, HERE.

Who is Jimmy Angelina?

Jimmy Angelina swapped studying filmmaking at Columbia College, in Chicago, for studying visual art at Bennington College, in Vermont—where he graduated with a BA in Drawing/Sculpture. His illustrations have appeared in various publications and on theatre posters. He's taken part in group and solo shows in New York City, San Francisco, Vermont and Louisville, KY. 

Latterly, he joined the New Texture publishing collective—where he has collaborated, along with co-author Wyatt Doyle, on three volumes of cult-movie-classic-movie-pop-culture artifact-satire: The Last Coloring Book, The Last Coloring Book on the Left and Be Italian. He provided illustrations for the feature film Rolling Stone: Life and Death of Brian Jones, directed by Danny Garcia. He's also released a (self-titled) CD with New Texture. He is available for freelance work and commissions. He likes books. He likes movies. He likes music. He likes dogs. His work can be seen on his website, www.jimmyangelina.com

Artwork © 2026 Jimmy Angelina, all rights reserved

Again, donate here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/once-a-vampire

Josh Alan Friedman in FORT WORTH MAGAZINE

"The reader of All Roads Lead to Great Neck might as well be there in person, so vivid and kaleidoscopic is Josh Friedman's telling. The fore-doomed stoner-protagonist, Bruce Disoto, careens through a gauntlet of real, unreal, and surreal encounters with war-protest freak-outers, a 19th-century Jewish panderer, a neurotic prize-fighting champion, an ominous cheese-shop merchant, and the mysteries of erotic attraction and repulsion. And yes, it all fits together in the manner of a dream of which the dreamer is aware. All this, and a cold Cel-Ray Tonic at Ratner's Delicatessen, too."

—Michael H. Price, Fort Worth Magazine

 

Michael H. Price pens a bang-up piece in the June issue of Fort Worth Magazine on Josh Alan Friedman's All Roads Lead To Great Neck. To read, click the above images to enlarge, or read the article on page 34 on the mag online HERE. 

All Roads Lead to Great Neck by Josh Alan Friedman is available in softcover and hardcover editions from Wyatt Doyle Books/New Texture. Cover art by Bruce Carleton. Get copies from Amazon HERE.

Reviews, Reviews, Reviews!

Wow, lots of new reviews coming in for our releases. (Spoiler warning: They are all raves.)

First up, the mighty Paperback Warrior delivers some of the highest praise I think we've received since we launched The Men's Adventure Library series: 

"There isn't a duo on Earth more skilled in telling the history of the MAM era than Deis and Doyle. Both have made it their mission to highlight and document this unique, storied tradition of vintage magazines. Both have excelled in presenting coffee table, awe-inspiring volumes that capture the essence of the MAM."

Thanks for that, PW! Like the spectacular Showcase Showdown, we do our part.

From there, PW delves into one of the first copies of  the Archive Collection, the inaugural volume of our Gil Cohen: Inside/Out series. PW comes to Cohen's MAM artwork after being introduced to the artist via his much admired cover paintings for Don Pendleton's Mack Bolan / Executioner series of novels. (We of course published a collection of those paintings as One Man Army, our first collaboration with Gil Cohen.)

"The two have once again created a beautiful coffee table book titled Gil Cohen: Inside/Out - Archive Collection. This is a deluxe, full-color hardcover (150ish pages) featuring Cohen's magazine covers and interior illustrations found in MAMs from the 1950s through the 1970s. I haven't counted them all yet, but according to MensPulpMags.com, there are 160 high-resolution images. Considering MAMs are very rare, this may be one of the only times a casual fan and reader will even see these paintings." 

Unfortunately, PW is all too correct about the scarcity of MAMs these days. Were that it were not so!

Read the whole review HERE.

Sean CW Korsgaard, writing for Analog, reviews Atomic Werewolves and Man-Eating Plants. He notes the uneasy relationship some readers of science fiction fans have with men's adventure magazine fiction, but he's a big-table genre reader: 

"A beautifully put together book. Atomic Werewolves and Man-Eating Plants offers not just an overview of the science fiction of men’s adventure magazines, but some absolutely gripping pulp science fiction that hasn’t been read since the Silver Age. If you’re at all intrigued by a chance to sample some of science fiction’s more salacious and sensational chapters, this is essential reading."

Korsgaard speaks the truth! And if you're a reader of Sword & Sorcery, his new magazine, Battleborn, deserves your attention. Learn more about Battleborn HERE. And read his complete Atomic review HERE.

Finally, Joe Kenney's Glorious Trash blog gets in the water with Maneaters: Killer Sharks in Men's Adventure Magazines, our collection of killer shark stories from the magazines. He says he's not a big reader of shark fiction, but Maneaters delivered for him:

"Compiling a selection of shark-centric tales from the men’s adventure magazines of the 1950s through the 1970s, Maneaters comes highly recommended, and as usual Wyatt Doyle’s presentation of the art is both eye-catching and, more importantly, respectful of its sources." 

Though the review seems to attribute some of Wyatt's written contributions to Bob (and he's wrong about the stories' expert commentaries), these are minor quibbles—much as what he dislikes about Maneaters are ultimately minor quibbles for Joe. This is a reader with excellent taste in trashy fiction, and we're glad Maneaters was able to scratch that itch. His recommendation carries weight for us and is appreciated! His review can be read in its entirety HERE.

Thanks to all who take the time to read and offer their thoughts on our work. As ever, we appreciate your thoughts, praise, and criticism. 

Buy the SIGNED edition of the Archive Collection with FREE SHIPPING from New Texture HERE.

Buy the trade hardcover of the Archive Collection with FREE SHIPPING from New Texture HERE.

Buy the DISCOUNTED trade hardcover of the Archive Collection from Amazon HERE.

Buy Atomic Werewolves and Man-Eating Plants from Amazon HERE.

Buy Maneaters from Amazon HERE.

Gary Lovisi on Gil Cohen's INSIDE/OUT: ARCHIVE COLLECTION

"This book is a literal feast for the eyes...just unbelievable. Beautiful women, fighting men...action packed!"

 

Gary Lovisi's knowledgeable yet playful video reviews are among my favorites. So when he chooses to discuss one of our books, it's cause for celebration. Charming collaborations between Gary and his wife Lucille, their videos can make me feel like I'm right there with them, talking books with old friends. When we get a thumbs-up from Gary, we know we're doing something right.

"This is a really special book. Just loaded with the best of Gil Cohen's work in the men's adventure magazines... Motorcycle gangs, cannibals, World War II, giant animals attacking people, guys jumping out of planes, Bigfoot... This is a great book. Here's to you, Gil!" 

And here's to you, Gary and Lucille! Thank you for your always entertaining videos and continued support of our work.

Buy the SIGNED edition of the Archive Collection with FREE SHIPPING from New Texture HERE.

Buy the trade hardcover of the Archive Collection with FREE SHIPPING from New Texture HERE.

Buy the DISCOUNTED trade hardcover of the Archive Collection from Amazon HERE.

From Todd Pierce's ATTACHÉ CASE

“The political appointee may have been new to government, but this was a ninja-level bureaucratic move, a deft humiliation of the career diplomats, who pride themselves on being in the room where it happens, who have made moral compromises and personal sacrifices galore, over decades, in exchange for being in the loop. She was telling us that this bargain no longer heled, that the Administration did not see us, to use the title of a book about the Foreign Service, as America’s Other Army. Steve Bannon had promised a ‘deconstruction of the administrative state,’ and this is what that looked like.”

Click HERE to preview another section from the book on Todd's Substack.

Attaché Case: Backstage at the Embassy is available in hardcover, softcover, and ebook editions. Click HERE to buy on Amazon.

Josh Alan Friedman Talks GREAT NECK on VIRTUAL MEMORIES

Josh Alan Friedman joins Gil Roth on the Virtual Memories podcast to talk All Roads Lead to Great Neck.

"It seems like teenagers were everything back in 1970, when the book takes place. I didn't see any teenagers in Great Neck last time (I visited). I just saw lots of Hasidic Jews from Iran... That whole scene is gone."

All Roads Lead to Great Neck by Josh Alan Friedman is available in softcover and hardcover editions from Wyatt Doyle Books/New Texture. Cover art by Bruce Carleton. Get copies from Amazon HERE.

Browse the ARCHIVE COLLECTION with Nick @ The Book Graveyard

Wanna browse The Men's Adventure Library's new deluxe hardcover, Gil Cohen: Inside/Out [Archive Collection]?

Grounds Keeper Nick Anderson at The Book Graveyard to the rescue! Nick's enthusiasm for the material, low-key delivery and amusing commentary make it a pleasure to read over his shoulder. Thanks for the browse, Nick! 

Buy the SIGNED edition of the Archive Collection with FREE SHIPPING from New Texture HERE.

Buy the trade hardcover of the Archive Collection with FREE SHIPPING from New Texture HERE.

Buy the DISCOUNTED trade hardcover of the Archive Collection from Amazon HERE.

GIL COHEN: INSIDE/OUT [ARCHIVE COLLECTION] Launches New Cohen Series

Gil Cohen: Inside/Out [Archive Collection] hardcover

"Men’s adventure magazines were a lower market. Let's call them B-movies. Nevertheless, there were exciting things that I did for Stag and Male and For Men Only and all the rest of them. I was proud of it. I wasn't ashamed of it at all. I was very proud of it."      Gil Cohen, artist

Gil Cohen: Inside/Out is a multi-volume odyssey in print, exploring and celebrating the work of artist Gil Cohen. Years in the making, it is the biggest project in the Men’s Adventure Library’s 13-year history. 

Gil Cohen. A true master of the form, an artist who’s spent most of his nine decades behind the easel bringing images of action, adventure, intrigue, and heroism to vivid life—for magazines, book covers, and ultimately on fine art gallery walls. There is a generation of readers who fiercely admire his work in the commercial arena, specifically his cover paintings for the Mack Bolan/Executioner series created by Don Pendleton. (Paintings that we featured in our previous collaboration with Gil, the book One Man Army.) 

One Man Army: The Action Paperback Art of Gil Cohen, 

available in hardcover (pictured) and softcover editions.

Ardent fans contend even Gil’s over 200 covers for The Executioner novels and its spinoff series were too few. But even those fans may have been unaware that by the time Gil was painting Mack’s exploits, he’d already produced hundreds of action and adventure illustrations for print across the three decades men's adventure magazines (aka MAMs) existed. This was frequently astounding work that, incredibly, would go unseen following its initial publication; forgotten by many, unseen by so many more. 

Stag, March 1961. Cover by Gil Cohen

These are illustrations that riff on powerful existing tropes in action imagery, sometimes borrowing from them, sometimes stretching them to the limits of plausibility, while other times minting entirely new tropes—innovations that would go on to be reflected in action novels, films, television, and comic books. As we've pointed out more than once, MAMs are something of an invisible hand behind so much modern action adventure in all its forms.

In their era, MAMs' cultural impact ran even deeper. As readers’ daydreams and inner lives took inspiration from the tough and gritty entertainment they enjoyed in MAMs, it is the work of Gil Cohen and his colleagues producing that MAM content who gave readers’ fantasies shape and definition. Their work for MAMs became literally the stuff dreams are made of. 

Stag, June 1965; interior spread by Gil Cohen

So how do literally hundreds of illustrations of this caliber and appeal disappear for decades? Blame the shifting cultural sands of the post-MAM era. MAMs, with their unapologetic emphasis on two-fisted action and sex, were eventually seen as outdated and “old guard” by a younger generation who didn’t appreciate what they saw as MAMs’ points of view. 

Even as the nostalgia boom of the 1960s and 1970s resurrected a variety of other vintage interests and diversions that had fallen out of step, MAMs were still on newsstands then, and not yet ripe for reappraisal. They had to go away to be missed. It didn’t help that the magazines themselves were popular but not hotly collected in their time. Almost no one held on to them. Like the now-classic comic books that break new auction records every year, MAMs were considered disposable entertainment, to be read and tossed before the next issue hit the stands. 

Male, April 1966; interior spread by Gil Cohen

Our mission with the Men’s Adventure Library series is to help increase awareness of the MAM era by reissuing the cream of the many lost stories and illustration artwork of the original magazines. Gil Cohen is precisely the kind of artist whose mid-century work the Men’s Adventure Library was established to celebrate. 

In his MAM years (the mid-1950s through the mid-’70s), Cohen proved equally adept at creating both compelling interior illustrations and arresting cover art (which, as veteran illustrators confirm, are two distinct and different skill sets). One of the most prolific artists working in MAMs, Cohen had to be versatile and inventive in his compositions and renderings, as MAM illustrations (particularly covers) pulled dual duty, both serving the stories they were created to accompany, while also catching readers’ attention on shop shelves, where competing MAMs tended to be every bit as big, colorful, and assertive in their salesmanship. 

Stag, December 1971; interior spread by Gil Cohen

Unexplored, Unreprinted, Unseen

Cohen’s latter-day aviation art is highly collected and justly acclaimed, putting him into fine art collections all over the world. But his magazine work—an essential aspect of his career—has gone unexplored, as his decades of work in MAMs have gone unreprinted and therefore almost entirely unseen since their original publication, decades ago. If you don’t own the magazines, you’ve almost certainly had no opportunity to explore this profoundly significant aspect of Cohen’s career. And if you didn’t own the magazines then, you can be sure you’ll need a small fortune to assemble a collection now. 

Fortunately, the Men’s Adventure Library’s Robert Deis is one of the world’s leading collectors of vintage MAMs. The volumes that comprise the Inside/Out series are unprecedented dives into the career of a master of illustration art. The series goes deep, reproducing covers as well as color, duotone, and monochrome interior magazine spreads, as they appeared in print between 1954 and 1976. 

Men, January 1964; cover by Gil Cohen

There can be no doubt the Inside/Out books are the definitive presentation of Gil Cohen’s work in MAMs. 

Working closely with the Artist, a wide selection of original art is also included, drawn from Cohen’s personal archives and from the collections of leading illustration art collectors. And, transcribed from hours of candid conversation and interviews, are Cohen’s comments on the work, the magazines, and the era are woven throughout all three of the subsequent volumes. All that is still to come. 

But first... the Archive Collection. 

A carefully curated introduction to the Gil Cohen era of MAMs, via the archives of a legendary collection: The Robert Deis Archive, bedrock of the Men’s Adventure Library. If there’s another MAM collection in the world like it, its owner isn’t talking! Deis’s collection, known for its tremendous size and sweeping scope, has supplied source material for every book in the Men’s Adventure Library, not to mention years of informative blog posts and articles for magazines and websites. 

With that kind of enviable resource at the project’s disposal, we begin our Inside/Out series with the Archive Collection, a preliminary survey spanning the entirety of Cohen’s career in MAMs, reproduced and restored from the Deis Archive’s source copies of the original magazines. 

Argosy, May 1963; interior spread by Gil Cohen

In the Archive Collection, you’ll encounter Cohen’s artistry as MAM readers did decades ago: On its own terms. Page after page of Cohen illustrations as they originally appeared in print, complete with the outrageous titles and headlines MAMs are infamous for. There's not much talk—we're saving that for the main installments—but you'll find plenty of action. Explosive, old-school action. There could be no better herald for the subsequent volumes than this initial overview. 

We've also elevated our production standards for this once-in-a-lifetime illustration art event. Printed on 70-pound white paper (for comparison, copier paper tends to be 20 pound) and utilizing the highest quality reproduction our printer offers, Gil Cohen: Inside/Out will be the most luxurious volumes the Men’s Adventure Library has yet issued, starting with the Archive Collection. 

2026 is shaping up to be Gil Cohen's year.

Gil Cohen: Inside/Outside [Archive Collection]. No one else has attempted it, because no one else could do it. 

Buy the SIGNED edition of the Archive Collection with FREE SHIPPING from New Texture HERE.

Buy the trade hardcover of the Archive Collection with FREE SHIPPING from New Texture HERE.

Buy the DISCOUNTED trade hardcover of the Archive Collection from Amazon HERE.