Kudzu Magazine

Kudzu was a Deep South regional men's magazine published bi-monthly out of Abbeville, South Carolina from 1974 to 1981. Founded by Delbert "Del" Crenshaw—a former classified ad salesman for the Greenville News who parlayed a small inheritance from his uncle's peach orchard into a printing venture—Kudzu was distributed across the rural Deep South. It was sold at truck stops, bait shops, barbershops, and gas stations along US highways, mostly to men who picked it up alongside a pack of Red Man and a Slim Jim.

Where other regional men's magazines aspired to compete with the nationals, Kudzu never pretended to be anything but what it was: a cheap, black-and-white magazine printed on newsprint, sold for seventy-five cents, and read by working men with red clay on their boots. The whole operation ran out of a rented storefront on Court Square in Abbeville—the same building that had been a five-and-dime until 1970. Del did the layout on a light table, sold ads by driving his Mercury Montego to every auto parts store and feed mill within a hundred miles, and convinced local girls to pose by assuring them "it's tasteful, it's artistic, and your mama won't see it because we don't sell north of Charlotte."

The classifieds section was the heart of the magazine. The back third of every issue was packed with mail-order knives, CB radios, "adult" photo sets, muscle-building courses, X-ray specs, pen pal services, and local services too small for the Yellow Pages. The classifieds were Kudzu's real revenue stream. The photo spreads and articles up front were just the reason men picked it up.

Rising postal rates, the arrival of cable TV in rural markets, and Del's second divorce finally killed Kudzu in 1981. The archive—negatives, paste-up boards, and a nearly complete run of issues—was recovered from a self-storage unit in Anderson, South Carolina in late 2025. Issues #1 through #4 have never been located. Del apparently gave most of the early print run to advertisers and friends; none are known to survive. Read more in our blog.