A Man's World

For the fireside adventurer, Fawcett Publications' True and Popular Publications' Argosy are tailor-made. Each month they whirl their male fans away from the humdrum of business, budgets and the family, to shiver with a ski patrol as "They Cheat Death in the Alps," sweat as a motorcycle daredevil shows "How to Ride Up a Wall," cheer for the Old Blue bullfighter in "Yale Man Versus Toro," and squeeze the trigger when "Grizzlies Spell Trouble." The biggest difference between the two: Argosy runs fiction, True aims at facts.*

In this man's world, True has been top dog ever since the late Bill Williams transformed it from a dying pulp into a lively slick (TIME, April 19, 1948). Under Editor Ken W. Purdy, 36, ex-boss of the OWI's Victory and later Marshall Field's Sunday supplement Parade, True has kept on growing, now guarantees its advertisers a circulation of 1,200,000.

Nevertheless, by last week underdog Argosy was barking on True's trail, as if it were about to bite. Argosy Editor Jerry Mason, 36, claimed that his January issue had topped the 1,000,000 mark in sales (the guarantee: 750,000). Like True, Argosy was once a pulp, which boasted such bylines as Edgar Rice Burroughs and H. Rider Haggard; but its fortunes and circulation had ebbed. Then Popular Publications took over, turned it into a slick, and it started up. Last April, Mason, onetime associate editor of the Sunday supplement This Week, moved in. He borrowed some old tricks, and added some circulation-getting new ones. His latest circulation claim, which the Audit Bureau of Circulations would confirm or deny in due course, touched off the kind of he-man's war of words between him and Purdy that Argosy's and True's red-blooded readers had a right to expect.

Scoffing at Mason's figures, Purdy countercharged that Argosy, according to his own newsstand espionage report, had not even been making its circulation guarantee for the past year. Said Purdy: "Argosy's going to go down, because I'm going to push it down. I don't expect it to be around next year." As for True, Purdy said, it had just hit 1,500,000, and he was thinking of raising the guarantee.

Replied Mason: "It would be a mistake to dignify Purdy by answering him. The records are here to see . . ." Mason was not at all upset because Purdy didn't think much of Argosy. Said he: "After all, he's only one of my million readers."

* And sometimes aims badly. True's January issue featured a story titled "The Flying Saucers Are Real" (TIME, Jan. 9).

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