Famous monsters I have known
Long before kids went Goth and cosplay turned them all into dolls, I was parlaying my interest in the monsters of classic literature and films into a potential career in makeup. God gave me some leash and then (mercifully) pointed me in another direction, but the memories still give me a kick.
This was during the early 1960s, after the previous decade’s horror and sci-fi B-movies had revived the popularity of the great Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff flicks of the ’30s.
Seeing these films on television rotated my bookworm radar to Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley, and if their prose became too cumbersome for a kid, I always had the Classics Illustrated comic versions, and from there it was a turn of the page to one of my all-time favourite magazines, Famous Monsters of Filmland.
Like all of its avid readers, I idolised the editor, Forrest J Ackerman, whose picture appeared often, usually in some fright pose and with one of the stars of the movies he was writing about. “Uncle Forry” died this past December 4 at age 92.
For fellow fans, I’ve got a post about Ackerman, plastic models and Lon Chaney Sr here on my personal blog, Dorseyland, and all the Famous Monsters magazine covers are at MovieMags.com.
