Vintage cartoon “True Detective” magazine September 1941
True Detective had a knack of turning its fans into rabid fanatics.
Just as today, devotees of True Detective magazine were once as totally consumed with the whodunit, spending an inordinate amount of time, fervently preoccupied with the minutia of grisly crimes to the exclusion of all else.
A casual glance at the letters to the editor section in the magazine revealed just how strong the sway True Detective held over ordinary men.
In one letter in the September 1941 issue, a distraught housewife complains about how much time her husband devotes to True Detective.
Can this Marriage be Saved?
(L) ” True Detective Magazine” September 1941
Under the headline “Husband fascinated by True Detective” the letter from a Mrs C.E.O. of Oregon reads:
“I’m good and mad at True Detective even if it has been my favorite magazine for years.”
“I was married recently, and at first my husband helped me with the dishes after each meal. Then he happened to pick up the latest copy of True Detective and started to read.”
“After finishing the magazine, he hunted up some old copies that I had saved and now sits and reads while I work, never offering to help…Why do all those stories have to be so interesting?”
True fans of True Detective are timeless.
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