Famous Monsters
November 6, 2010
Famous Monsters Saturday
- John Jos. Miller’s FEATURE CREATURES
- Action Guy #001: “What/who is Frazetta?”
- Scary, Life Size MONSTER GHOST
- John Jos. Miller’s CREATURE FEATURE
- John Jos. Miller’s CREATURE FEATURE
- John Jos. Miller’s CREATURE FEATURE
- John Jos. Miller’s CREATURE FEATURE
- John Jos. Miller’s CREATURE FEATURE
- My All-Time Favorite Movie
- John Jos. Miller’s CREATURE FEATURE
- More
- John Jos. Miller’s CREATURE FEATURE
- John Jos. Miller’s CREATURE FEATURE
- John Jos. Miller’s CREATURE FEATURE
- John Jos. Miller’s CREATURE FEATURE
- John Jos. Miller’s CREATURE FEATURE
- John Jos. Miller’s CREATURE FEATURE
- John Jos. Miller’s CREATURE FEATURE
- Wasted Youth (Part 1)
- Great Fight Scenes of Cinema #1
- John Jos. Miller’s CREATURE FEATURE
- More
- "Yeah. "earlier" is the operative word that somehow didn't make it in." - John Jos. Miller
- ">> (Rohmer’s career started than Wheatley’s). Typo here? I'm not understanding what you're sa..." - Joe
- "Wheatly's occult fiction are the best of all his books. For a while, in the 1970s, some publisher, probabl..." - gail
- "A little disco would have improved this one substantially, and I don't even like disco." - John Jos. Miller
- "Yeah, I caught a bullet this time. I actually had high hopes for this one going in." - John Jos. Miller
- "I think I fell asleep during part of this experience. I WILL NOT WATCH IT AGAIN TO CATCH WHAT I MISSED!!!" - gail
- "never never never" - gail
So hard for me to face the fact that when all of the Internet was not even a seminal stain on the glasses of Ray Bradbury, I was gobbling up issue after issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland! I recall this cover. Back then it was so hard to be a collector. You had to share the goods with every kid in school, the magazines would be “ruint” in a day. then of course we would stash them under the bed with our last peanutbutter&jelly sandwich! Nice to see some “Pre-Nerd” from the Jurassic age kept their copies in good condition!
The first issue of FM I bought was #100, and I was hooked. #114 was always one of my favorites because of all the Japanese monsters. I might even dig it out this afternoon and re-read it…
We were discussing this issue on another comment thread and I was going to drop you an e-mail about this. I checked it out on eBay and found it was going for between $90 and $249 (so take good care of your copy). I put it on my search list just to keep it on my mind, and, sure enough, last night the first new listing of it popped up and the guy wanted $4 for it. Bingo!
Just another little eBay miracle.
(That’s two major scores this week. I also got a Yone Noguchi treatise on Japanese woodblock prints published in a limited edition of 500 in 1927. I paid $60 for it, but since it’s easily worth five times that amount I’m pretty happy. A little scarcer than Famous Monsters #114, also.)
I told this story on Facebook but I should tell it here, too: I bought this issue of FM off the stands and read it until I practically knew it by heart. Then one day I took it to school with me to show it to a buddy of mine. Another kid asked to see it and was dumb enough to flip through it in class. The teacher saw him, stomped over, grabbed the magazine from him, and RIPPED IT IN HALF, then threw it away. I thought I was gonna cry.
Happy ending: several years back, my pal Bruce Keifer hooked me up with a near-mint copy of #114 at a price in the same neighborhood as the $4 one you got on eBay, John. Thank you, Bruce!
That teacher was a dick.
That’s what my dad said, too.