No New Posts

Do to illness there will be no new posts at this time.

Updates available from Universal Monster Army.

New Website for "Mad Scientist" Magazine

Martin Arlt's Mad Scientist mag has a new website. (I already said that, didn't I.) Check out the upcoming 10th anniversary issue.

#20 (Fall 2009) - 48 pages
A full-color cover by Pete Von Sholly
I Bid You Welcome... (Editorial)
Retrospective: 10 Years of Mad Scientist
War Eagles: Willis O'Brien's lost film project
Universal's The Mummy's Curse
Tales from the Lab: Zombie squirrels (trust me!
Doctor Who Season 5: 1967-1968
Vault of Comics: Chamber of Chills 17
Art by Don Marquez, Dave Aikins, Mark Jiro, Okui, and John Rozum
Plus more!

Cover Art Reference #2.5

Here's another one of those "What the heck movie is that from?" covers.

Famous Monsters of Filmland No. 45

What is this Ron Cobb cover from?

It's not from "House of Wax".

Could it be "Dr. Blood"?

Or maybe "The Projected Man"?

or
D. None of the above?




It's not from a movie, of course. It's Florida TV "Horror Host" John Burke in one of his many character make-ups (a cryptkeeper type character).

John hosted "Nightmare Theatre" on Channel 38 (WSUN-TV) in Tampa-St. Petersburg in the late '50s and into the '60s. His host character was called "The Outsider" (not shown).

There is a six page article on Burke ("Lurk Burke Lurk") in FM no. 19 which shows several of his character make-ups, including the one above. Fantastic Monsters no. 6 has a four page article on "The Outsider", also with several pics.

John Burke out of character.

Warren Cover Artist Index

If you have any use for something like this, here it is.

Index Of Cover Artists For Warren Film Mags


FM = Famous Monsters
MW = Monster World
SM = Spacemen
STI = Screen Thrills Illus.
WW = Favorite/Wildest Westerns
FF = Famous Films

(R) = Art was reused from a previously published Warren magazine cover.
* = Uncredited on mag, but either the artist has been identified, or there seems to be no dispute that this is the artist.

-----------------------------------

Dan Adkins:
FM #44

James Bama:
FM 1965YB* (Aurora model kit box art))
Son of Famous Monsters(R)*

John Berkey:
FM #125* (movie poster art)

Maelo Cintron:
FM #140

Ron Cobb:
FM #33, 40, 41*, 42, 43, 45, 49, 54, 87(R), 1968YB*
MW #3, 8

Randy Counts:
FM #98

Jack Davis:
WW #2, 3, 4

Luis Dominguez:
FM #93, 95

Norm Eastman:
STI #2

H. R. Giger:
FM #158 (movie production art)

Basil Gogos:
FM #9-12, 13*, 14, 15, 16*, 17-23, 24*, 47(R), 50(R), 51(R), 53(R), 56, 58-60, 62-65, 66*, 69(R), 83, 99, 100, 101*, 103, 105, 106, 108, 109*, 110-112, 115, 126, 130, 132, 134, 135, 147, 169, 171*(R), 176, 179, 188(R), 1964YB(R), 1969YB*(R), 1970YB*, 1971YB*
SM #1, 3-6
STI #1
WW #5, 6
Dracula '79(R)

Peter Green:
FM #61

Russ Jones:
FM #30
MW #1*
SM 1965YB
FF #1* (Horror of Party Beach)
FF #2* (Curse of Frankenstein/Horror of Dracula)
FF #3* (The Mole People)
Famous Monsters Strikes Back(R)

Ken Kelly:
FM #90 (movie poster art), 91, 104, 113*, 114, 116, 117, 119, 121-124, 127, 129
1975 FM Con Program

Bob Larkin:
FM #146

Vic Livoti:
FM #57 (movie poster art)

Don Maitz:
FM #138

Barry Morgan:
FM #92

Gray Morrow:
FM #37
MW #5, 7

Albert Nuetzell:
FM #4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 27

Vic Prezio:
FM #35, 36, 38, 39, 67, 68, 1966YB*, 1967YB*
MW #2*, 4

Harry Roland:
FM #118, 120

Sanjulian:
FM #94, 185

Harry Schaare:
FM #55 (Aurora model kit box art)

Bill Selby:
FM #133, 191

Harold Shull:
FM #81

Drew Struzan:
FM #128* (movie poster art)

James Warren:
FM #3*, 102(R)*

Maurice Whitman:
FM #31, 34

Wally Wood:
SM 1965YB

-----------------------------------

UNKNOWN COVER ARTISTS:

Famous Monsters #26, 28, 29, 46, 97, 180, 189
FM 1974 Con program
Spacemen #8
House of Horror #1 (Same as FM #180)

Movie Poster/Ad/Production Art used on the following covers:
FM #86, 107, 136, 160, 190
Lord of the Rings, Meteor, Moonraker

Warren Memo (FM #70-79)

I guess this thing has been around the block, but here it is, again, anyway. Pretty self explanatory and yes, Greg was fired. Click the pic.

FM Club Kit 1958

Starting in the second issue, FM began running an ad for it's new "Famous Monsters Club". If you sent in 75¢ for your lifetime membership, you got a "Vice President" badge (1.5"), wallet size membership card, a certificate (8.5" x 11") and a free classifieds ad in the mag. The certificate is extremely rare! I've only seen one sell on ebay (2005 for $405).

Spacemen, again

Speaking of Spacemen no. 1. Here is an early cover mock-up, where the mag is called SPACEMAG and Gogos added a pic of Mickey Mouse on the helmet in his cover art rough.

Spacemen Ad

Sorry for the long lag between posting, but "things happened"!

Let's kill two birds with one post and have a combo monster mag ad and cover art source. In the early days, Warren bought some army surplus stuff to sell in his mags. This "Astronaut Space Helmet" (i.e. ordinary military jet pilot helmet) was used by Basil Gogos for reference for his cover art for Spacemen no. 1.

Website Obit

Monster Mag Ads

If you're like me, you probably went to the ads section of a newly purchased monster mag first, before reading any of the articles. (Heck, I still do it!) So, let's look at some of those cool old ads, every now and then, and the products they were selling.

MONSTER S-I-Z-E MONSTERS

After the Don Post monster mask ads, this is quite possibly the best remembered vintage monster mag ad. (It, or a variation of it, was also to be found in comic books of the day.) Novelties seller Honor House sold these iconic posters and fooled many kids into thinking they were going to get something a bit more "3D" ("..so life-like you'll probably find yourself talking to them.") than the flat posters they got. Monster collectors today see them for the classic '60s monster art that they are and will gladly pay 100+ times their original cost, when they can find them.

And here are the full color images of the Frankenstein and Dracula 6 ft. door posters.

There were several other 6 ft. monster poster, including the equally famous Jack Davis Frankenstein caricature and Zacherley and Vampirella posters.

Lost Nuetzell 2

Just wondering what that Nuetzell might have looked like on the cover of FM #16.

The Lost Nuetzell

Albert Nuetzell was a client of Forry Ackerman, who brought Al on board as FM cover artist (nos. 4-8) until Basil Gogos was discovered. This is conjecture, but it would appear that this Nuetzell painting was a victim of that discovery. The colors are probably not correct, as this image was produced from a faded photographic negative. Compare the Nuetzell "Phantom" to the one Gogos did for FM no. 16 (obviously done from the same source photo).

Gallery Update 3

Added the cover galleries for World of Horror and Warren Presents (all the Warren one-shot movie mags from the '70s and '80s).

World of Horror
Warren Presents

But wait, there's more!

Famous Monsters of Filmland used movie poster art on several of it's covers, but this is the only movie poster (that I know of) that mentions FM (or any other golden age monster mag). The 1959 "B" monster classic The Monster of Piedras Blancas.

I can't find any reference to this award in any issues of FM from around this time.

Before FM pt. 1

An occasional look at a magazine cover, or artical (focusing on a fantasy film, or films) that predates the first monster mag.

First up,  LIFE  Magazine Nov. 11, 1957. "Ghastly Look Of A Film Fad". A two page article on the latest batch of "B" sci-fi/horror movies playing at your local drive-in. Click for the large pics.

Sons of Gogos

I've started a block of links for today's monster artists. I'll add to it, later. (Suggestions welcome.)

Don Marquez is an amazingly prolific artist, with over 200 movie monster portraits and scenes on his website. His work has appeared on covers of Mad Scientist magazine.

Scary Terry Beatty has done the cover art for practically every issue of Scary Monsters magazine! His website will tell you what else he does.

Vincent DiFate has been one of the top science fiction artists for decades and has done several covers (and written some great articles) for Filmfax and Outré magazines.

Everybody knows Frank Dietz for those great b/w movie monster caricatures and his "Sketchy Things" art books.

Daniel R. Horne is a very talented illustrator and sculptor who has lately been the cover artist for Monsters From The Vault.

One of Mike Bennett's favorite subjects is movie monsters and you can see several examples of his work on his website.

Amongst other things, Pete Von Sholly has done a series of faux Aurora box art for monster kits Aurora never made and this issue of Mad Scientist.

John Detrich is more a son of Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, but he does some mean movie monster caricatures, as well.

Gallery Update 2

Still working on cover galleries, plus real life getting in the way of posting.

House of Hammer/Halls of Horror
One-Shot Magazines (1970s)


And here's a couple of bonus pics for you.

Jim Warren gives a Screen Thrills Illustrated award to Buster Crabbe.

And, since turnabout is fair play, Jim gets an award from what looks like uuuuuuhh Danny Thomas and uuh Leo McKern. (Probably not.)

Cover Art Reference #1

This is the first in a series showing the reference material (mostly stills) for monster mag cover art. While most cover paintings are copied from very familiar movie stills (and some completely original), there are a number of them that are a bit of a mystery.

FIRST UP IS HORROR MONSTERS No. 7

It's obviously The Phantom of the Opera, but which Phantom is it? Although it says on the cover that it's Lon Chaney, it obviously isn't he. Some have thought it is the James Cagney make-up from the Chaney biopic, but it isn't that, either. What it is, is this guy.

Unfortunately, that doesn't solve the mystery. Is it a guy in a mask? Is it a make-up? Is it from some obscure horror movie? Nobody seems to know! Mask experts don't recognize it as being from any mask line, so it must be a make-up, but for what?

The photo was published in Horror Monsters and was part of a stills set that they sold (see ad), but no other photos of this Phantom have ever turned up and you have to wonder why they would have gone to all the trouble to create this, just for a still, when a Chaney still would have done just as well. If you have the answer to this mystery, please leave a comment.

Gallery Update

Got some of the 1970s mag galleries up and fixed a major glich running throughout the galleries.
Monsters of the Movies

Movie Monsters

Monster Fantasy
Quasimodo's Monster Magazine
Monster Madness

And had to go all the way back to 1969 for this one, which wasn't featured on the old website.

Supernatural Horror Filming

And so your time wasn't totally wasted reading this update, how about a couple of pictures from the cover shoot for Famous Monsters of Filmland #1.

The photo used for the cover (top) and an alternate pose (bottom), featuring FM publisher James Warren, in a Don Post "Frankenstein" mask, with model Marion Moore.

Warren had just recently finished the four issue run of his men's magazine, After Hours, before he and Forry started putting together the first issue of FM and I always thought the cover of FM #1 looked like it would have been right at home as the cover of After Hours #5.

Welcome!

This is the new home for the old website Monster Magazines - The First Decade (which you may have noticed has been shortened to just Monster Magazines, as the old sutitle no longer applies). The old site, along with all other Geocities websites, will be deleted (or was deleted) on Oct. 26, 2009.

I chose the blog format over the website format because I thought the advantages outweighed the disadvantages (which are mostly of a cosmetic nature). On the plus side, we now feature large views of the magazine covers in the cover galleries (and of any other pics on the site, by clicking on the small ones) and updates will be much easier to do (and therefore more frequent).

The blog is actually two blogs. This is the main blog, which will contain all manner of monster mag info, musings, updates, notices and whatever else I think might be of interest to someone who visites a site like this. The other blog (http://monstermagazinegalleries.blogspot.com/) is where the cover galleries reside.

The cover galleries (as on the old website) will, for the most part, be limited to English language titles from the late '50s to the late '70s that had newsstand distribution and who's content was mostly film related. There have been, literally, hundreds of horror/sci-fi film magazines and fanzines, from around the world, published over the last half century, but ya gotta stop somewhere.

Posting will be a little light, here, as I work putting up the rest of the cover galleries. The 1950s and 1960s mag galleries are already done. The 1970s mags (including The Monster Times, House of Hammer and others) are yet to come.

Use the links, in the right hand column, to go to the cover galleries, or to the websites of current print magazines, webzines and other places of interest.

Thanks for visiting!
Mike