Long before Jeff Bridges was cast in the cinematic perennial that launched The Dude, a magazine named The Dude was on the newsstand. One of a handful of doppelgängers in the Playboy magazine mode, The Dude was designed to imitate its forerunner, with a smidge of Esquire to boot. First published in 1956 and continuing for 20 years, it was a softcore men’s lifestyle magazine featuring a fair number of established writers, including Jean Paul Sartre, Nelson Algren and William Faulkner, among them.
It was also enviably art directed in the prevailing magazine-minimalist format. Its photography was simple yet well composed and shot, and the typography was tastefully modern. Covers were clever and provocative. The art director, who was also listed on a few of the mastheads as Maurice Morris, is unknown to me, as are the illustrators (save for Leo Dillon, who became a children’s book author/artist and cartoonist). The cartoonists mostly were masters of sexual inuendo but sometimes made strident political gags, like the one below about the KKK, in the style of the great Andre François.
The Dude, similar to others in the genre that followed a low budget Playboy formula (including Cavalier and Nugget), did its best to offer culture and lifestyle alongside the sensual, art house picture spreads.
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