My original tumblr post was here. The image is a cover of Exotic Adventures (Vol. 1, No. 3 and promotes the stories “The South American Strip-Tease Mill,” “The Sexiest Girl in Japan,”
“France’s Nude Model Ball,” and “Special: The Sex Orgies of Sarawak.” Source: twitter.com.
Image contains the text:
Opium Den in Vietnam, by Lawrence F. Watkins.
When I told the editor of Exotic Adventures that I would shortly be leaving on a longish trip to Saigon, he immediately said “Good, I want you to visit an opium den and give us a complete report.”
His request shocked me. I had been to Saigon three times in the past four years, as a travelling representative of the rubber company for which I work. Each time, I had scrupulously avoided Saigon’s numerous fumeries, or opium-smoking parlours, despite frequent invitations from Saigonese friends and business acquaintances to “come have a smoke.” My curiosity was high, but I had the Westerner’s fear of the sinister habit.
Nevertheless, I agreed to consider the idea. And before I left for Vietnam, I did some checking on opium addiction. I found that opium addiction is much more difficult to attain than addiction to other drugs. It takes six months, at least, of regular (continued on next page)
Image contains the text “The French Deputy Inspetor led his American visitor into the dark and murky opium den. There, in the smoky gloom of the unreal world, he saw a half-naked girl reclining on a wooden bench.” and a signature “J.F. Apgar, Jr.”
From the text contained within these images, we can deduce that these are two illustrations by J.F. Apgar for an issue of Exotic Adventures magazine. This page tells us that the Opium Den In Vietnam story appeared in Volume 1, No. 5, from 1959 (see cover). Interestingly, the article’s attribution to author “Lawrence F. Watkins” is said to be pseudonymous; the true author may have been none other than science fiction legend Robert Silverberg. However, in a 2013 Yahoo Groups posting commenting on the Exotic Adventures attributions to him, Mr. Silverberg said “I wrote some of the EXOTIC ADVENTURES items listed below, not all. I do have a record of which ones they are … but I don’t have the time to look them up now.” So the matter is uncertain. As for artist J.F. Apgar, there seem to be no references to such an illustrator in the searchable record, giving rise to the suspicion that this, too, was perhaps a pseudonym for another artist.
Image provenance by Bacchus at Erosblog.
