Confessions Of A Monster Kid

Yep. I'm a Monster Kid. Have been for almost 50 years since I first discovered a copy of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine around 1959 or 1960. Before that my sister and I would catch as many horror flicks as possible. Rodan, Earth vs. the Spider, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, Horror of Dracula and The Mummy are only a few that come to mind. Anything by Ray Harryhausen we would see twice. It was a fun time to grow up.

And then I discovered Famous Monsters and Forrest J. Ackerman.

Uncle Forry introduced me to the people behind the movies. Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi became real people and not just faces on the big screen. I was introduced to Lon Chaney, Sr. and his wonderful movies and learned about James Whale and Karl Freund. I learned how Ray Harryhausen made saucers fly and monsters walk.

The success of Famous Monsters brought other monster zines. Charlton offered a couple of titles for instance. Cheaper paper and fuzzy pictures, but they sometimes had some good reading. The best (and most vicious) competitor was Castle of Frankenstein by Calvin T. Beck. Beck and his writers avoided the puns so loved by Forry and eventually aimed for an older audience. But Beck lacked Forry's heart and ability to connect with the reader.

Back at Famous Monsters around issue 21 Ackerman created the "Filmbook" articles. These were detailed, well-written articles concentrating on a single film. The first was The Bride of Frankenstein and it remains my favorite single issue of any Monster mag. This showed what Forry was capable of doing whenever he could convince publisher James Warren to let him be serious.

Forry also edited Spacemen, a magazine devoted to Science Fiction films. This was probably the magazine Forry most wanted to do and it had a good, but short run.

Thanks to Forrest J. Ackerman I was introduced to many great (and some really awful) movies. It is still a pleasure to watch Karloff, Lugosi, the Chaneys, Rathbone, Laughton and Lanchester in memorable roles, and to get a few chills, such as the anguish in Lugosi's voice when, as the Sayer of the Law in The Island of Dr. Lost Souls he says the line "For are we not men?" Or Karloff turning to Ernest Theisiger in Bride of Frankenstein, "You stay. We belong dead".

Forry is ailing today, just before his 92nd birthday. But he is with friends and many more are keeping him in their thoughts and prayers. So, to Forrest J. Ackerman I say "Thank you for all the years of fun and puns. And thank you for helping me stay a kid at heart. Have a happy birthday, and know you are loved by many."