Young Adonis · February 1963

Young Adonis was Bob Mizer's color-forward bid for the newsstand, and this is the start of it. Mizer, the Los Angeles photographer behind the Athletic Model Guild and Physique Pictorial, had spent years selling men in posing straps under the cover of bodybuilding, and in June 1962 the Supreme Court's MANual Enterprises v. Day decision ruled that physique magazines aimed at gay men were not obscene. Months later he launched this one, promising more color than any other magazine on the rack.

The title page says February 1963 and the cover says March, a mismatch collectors still note on this first issue. The back cover is a roll call of the Southern California physique world, from Vince Gironda and Bob Delmonteque to Art Byman and Cliff Simpson, sixteen frames of men, each captioned by name. It is a debut issue from the era's most important physique photographer, at the exact moment the law let it breathe a little.